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Lt. General
Jul 13, 2005
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Trouble Abroad and Prosperity At Home
Chapter Three, July 1069 - December 1070

July of the 1,069th year was a month of change. New ideas and new people began arriving in Epieros. Perhaps the most important were a group of Italian Catholics who had converted to Orthodoxy and come to live in Epieros. In Italy, the general beleif was that God, the almighty one himself, was firmly invested in the rulership of certain people over certain lands. This is a comforting thought. For the people below the rulership, it helps to relieve them of any doubts, and give their full attention to the lowly tasks at hand. So when this train of thought arrived in Epieros, largely due to these immigrants from Italy, it spread like wildfire. Now, not only was he Count Leon Choniates, he was God's appointed ruler over this land.

Not long after the world had been blessed with the 1,070th year, disaster struch the greater Byzantine Empire as a whole: The Turks invaded. The Turkish soldiers swept the Anatolian peninsula un-opposed, looting and pillaging, until--in February--they finally settled down to a seige of Laodikeia, a County just south of Nikaea, on the western end of the peninsula.

In April, a small Byzantine force of 300 men, including Marshal Ioannes Bardales (who was still in the Nikean region as an Epirote observer), made a daring raid to relieve the soldiers besieged in Laodikeia's fort. Now, there is a story here of great consequence regarding Ioannes, for it effects the purpose Ioannes was sent to Nikaea in the first place. Now, we had established earlier in this book that Ioannes was a coward. Yet, that is not giving him enough credit. The man was constantly trying to do brave things, promising great things, and winding up unable to perform. Not due to physical inability, but through a mental breakdown of his want to do it. And so, typically, he had volunteered for the most vital task in this raid: He was to lead the crew tasked with destroying the enemies' seiege equipment, and typically he choked at the last minute. His task force, without a leader, dissipated and simply joined the fray where it could. Against over a thousand men, the three-hundred raiders were not able to achieve any of their goals; largely due to Ioannes. As a result of this, he from then on had to keep a low profile in Nikaea, and thus was less effective as an observer.

battle.jpg

Back to Epieros, things continued to change. Along with a seeming increase in holy activity, so did there begin an increase in less holy activity. More and more people began immigrating to Epieros, among them were the Jews. The Jews were generally disliked among the Christian lands--but that they brought a certain economic incentive along with them is impossible to deny. Judaism, while not inherantly an economic force, is not bound by some of the less economical restrictions of the Christiain faith. And so when a large Jewish population had settled in Epieros, and a large amount of the Christian population wanted to make use of the Jewish faith's lesser restrictions, an economy was born. Moneylenders began popping up all over the County, which helped to get money flowing faster and ultimately making the place more prosperous. In short, it was a good thing. However, the local Clergy did not like this. The rest of the population did like this. In the end the Count sided with the popular opinion that the Jewish Moneylenders were just fine. This was another significant step on the long road towards bad relations between Leon and the Clergy.
 

stnylan

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Poor Ioannes!

I have one overall comment on this AAR so far, is that we seem to be getting very little sense of the chronicler's personality in it so far, other than he obviously approves of Leon. One of the fun things about chronicles is that the chronicler is another character a writer can play around with. Just a thought.
 

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Lt. General
Jul 13, 2005
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stnylan said:
Poor Ioannes!

I have one overall comment on this AAR so far, is that we seem to be getting very little sense of the chronicler's personality in it so far, other than he obviously approves of Leon. One of the fun things about chronicles is that the chronicler is another character a writer can play around with. Just a thought.

You've got a good point, and it's something i've been thinking about expanding on. If there's one thing we've all learned from Polybius, Herodotus, ect. it's that chroniclers of the past have never been shy about inputting their own view of things.

However, the biggest difference between this fictional historian and such historians as Polybius, for example, is the time which they are recording. Leo Choniates is a product of the 11th century, for example, while this fictional chronicle is a product of the 18th; Polybius on the other hand was writing about things contemporary to him, allowing for more input politically. Even Herodotus shied away from too much discourse on subjects that weren't necesarrily contemporary to him. And seeing as how this AAR could easily become a significant alternate history, I don't want to make predictions about the 1700s in this timeline. :p
 
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stnylan

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Well you don't need to do that, but you can make assumptions about the personal opinions of the chronicler regarding religion, nationalities, and the characters themselves, even if they are sometimes hostile to their own side, so to speak. To that degree the larger potential timeline really doesn't matter. He can regard Leon as a great leader or Catholics of the time as evil, even if he is a Catholic and Leon's reign ends up in disaster!
 

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Jul 13, 2005
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stnylan said:
Well you don't need to do that, but you can make assumptions about the personal opinions of the chronicler regarding religion, nationalities, and the characters themselves, even if they are sometimes hostile to their own side, so to speak. To that degree the larger potential timeline really doesn't matter. He can regard Leon as a great leader or Catholics of the time as evil, even if he is a Catholic and Leon's reign ends up in disaster!

Absolutely. See? Asking for advice pays off. Mucho Gracias.