Navarre in 867?

[DukeDayve]

I fancied playing a nice long game as this tiny kingdom, goal being to eventually inherit and conquer all of Iberia, plus I've never ever played as a kingdom that had women inheriting on the same grounds as men and I thought it'd be nice to have lots of female rulers since in 900+ hours of playing CK2 I've probably only ever had 2 or 3.

Anywho, I'm struggling to get started. When you start the game your ruler is in his late 50's and his heir is a woman who is married (normally, not matrilinearily) to a Muslim count of the massive Muslim kingdom in Iberia. She already has two sons with him. So when my ruler dies and my daughter inherits I divorce the Muslim and matrilinearily marry some guy and have a child... except the Muslim children (not my dynasty) still stand to inherit.

It's a messy situation. I doubt I'd ever be able to gain enough money to assassinate both children in her lifetime, nor would I be able to get enough prestige to disinherit them through the decisions diplomacy panel. What to do?

 

[Carmir23]

Maybe fabricate claim/holy war some adjacent territory and give it to your dynastic child, then give him independence, then play as him and pledge fealty to Aquitaine/France or better yet, become allied with them and with their help, press your claim on Navarre.

I often played as Umayyads or one of their vassals, and everytime sooner or later Navarre would become muslim.

 

[zeress]

Switch to elective isn't an option?

 

[Battle bunny]

Alternatively, you have two characters with some killing to do. Easy peasy, right? I mean, plots exist too.

Is that actually intended to be the case, anyway? Was there some historical instance in Navarra of a Christian sovereign queen being married to a Muslim prince and/or the crown passing from a Christian to a Muslim as a result?

 

[zeress]

The gender inheritance needs to be changed on Navarra. Paradox had went with the incorrect assumption that Basque inheritance was Cognatic because of their culture, when even amongst the Basque it was de Facto Agnatic-Cognatic at the best of times, but usually Agnatic. That's the main reason that issue occurs. IIRC this has been adjusted already on the current dev version.

With that being said, Christian marriages to Muslims in Iberia were not uncommon for alliances in the time of the re-conquista. There were many muslim + christian alliances in the tim (even without marriages as well), and that particular lady was no exception. It was not a clear-cut Muslim vs. Christian endeavor, as one might believe. If it were, El Cid for example couldn't have done what he did.

 

[Rylock]

IIRC this has been adjusted already on the current dev version.

Nope. Basque culture defaults to True Cognatic. In fact, I believe most of the titles are set to that in the history files.

We could switch it to Agnatic-Cognatic, I suppose, but that makes the Basque no different in that respect than half the other cultures in the game... I'd be hesitant to make that kind of change without some evidence, one way or the other.

 

[zeress]

The list of the monarchs of Pamplona/Navarra would be a decent start there I suppose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Navarrese_monarchs

There are only 6 female rulers, the earliest being in 1247, out of ~47 rulers (depending on how you count them). Even when factoring in those that came to power via coup (like the first Jimenez ruler), this is a strong trend towards male priority.

The Basque should def. have a much easier time going Cognatic though, as their stances on the matter were definitely controversial at the time. Possibly female council members always would be another way to differentiate them.

EDIT: Trying to prove primacy of males even in Navarra is difficult, as most of the sources I can find barely even make mention of any daughters which could or could not mean anything.

 

[Rylock]

The Basque should def. have a much easier time going Cognatic though, as their stances on the matter were definitely controversial at the time. Possibly female council members always would be another way to differentiate them.

I don't know how I would give them an easier time becoming True Cognatic -- not without giving them a unique decision to do so. Allowing them female councilors would be interesting, though I'm curious as to what constitutes their controversial stances on the matter if they still had male-preference inheritance?

 

[zeress]

I meant regular cognatic, not absolute cognatic.


Many tie overs from Christianization were at odds with old practices and customs from their pagan roots (which were much fairer to women, especially for the time).

Sadly I can't seem to find anything really in depth in English, these two stubs being the best I can produce:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_people#Land_and_inheritance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_people#Society

However these also go at odds with each other, but it seems that possibly outside of kings regular cognatic was more accepted, but with kings they leaned heavily Agnatic. Again it is a bit hard to tell exact occurrences of when they picked a male heir over a female, since almost none of the daughters have even a birth date attributed to them. Truely a good example of the confusing inheritance systems of Europe.

My only real theory on the matter is that most likely outside pressure made them lean Agnatic preference for a very long time. especially later on with their direct ties to the Aragonese and French.