-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Then it isn't the dominant, native culture succeeding. It's the native culture being slowly supplanted.
That's the point - the native culture isn't a fixed point - its an ever evolving drifting position. Any attempt to make culture fixed is doomed to automatic failure anyway.
And that isn't the natives having to cater to the immigrants, how?
And that isn't assimilation. The US never really has been assimilating immigrants, at least not in the past 150 or so years.
That's how a culture is supposed to work - it drifts into new equilibrium on a regular basis. Other countries that have successfully introduced large numbers of immigrants have done the same thing. Within Europe, France is probably the most successful integrator of immigrants, and outside of Europe, India has done a good job of it too. it requires some flexability from everyone to work. The attitude that everyone must conform to every detail of the dominant culture sets up the old dominant culture for obliteration, or for a war to take place.
"American culture" is a flexible thing, which is why it's succeeded. It doesn't force immigrants to conform to the letter, it bends a little to give them room, but there's constant social pressure to conform to whatever is the current trend, for both the new and old residents. In the long run, it eventually becomes hard to tell most of the newcomers* from the original settlers.
*Newcomers - In the cities, that's anyone who entered the country in the last 5-10 years. In places like Oley, PA or parts of Massachusetts, that's anyone whose family immigrated after the American Revolution.
*Newcomers - In the cities, that's anyone who entered the country in the last 5-10 years. In places like Oley, PA or parts of Massachusetts, that's anyone whose family immigrated after the American Revolution.
Fundmentally, this is incorrect. It was an *incredible* problem for feudal kingdoms, and probably as much or moreso for other medieval polities.
This happened all the time in the HRE and one of the reasons why the Holy Roman Emperors rarely got anything done was that they spent 90% of their reign either fighting Italian city states or German princes for dominance, or in Barbarossa's case, both.
It gets papered over in public consciousness because historians have reframed the numerous succession wars of the French Kingdom as Anglo-French conflicts.
I mean not to mention the wars of the spanish kingdoms, the almost constant state of wars somewhere in the HRE, the constant warring between italian city states, and the consistent low-level warfare by various english nobles about petty disputes.
I wouldn't say the rest of feudal Europe was immune to civil wars and usurpations, but I'd say it happened so much in the Byzantine Empire because it was a tradition that went back as far as Marius and Sulla, but was very common during the empire period where an emperor was not satisfactory and either the senate would denounce him (publicly or privately) and throw their support behind their own candidate (again, publicly or privately) or an army would raise their general on their shields and proclaim him emperor (often against his own will) and he would then have no choice but to fight his way to Rome, as once he is proclaimed emperor by his troops he is marked for death by the sitting emperor. It seems to me that the role of the monarch (be it king in feudal Europe or basileus in the Byz Emp) was different, as was the way they were viewed in general.
In feudal Europe the king is the highest authority in the land and also somehow connected to god through some divine shenanigans. You're not an English peasant, you're property of the king. You're not fighting the French or the Scots in the name of England, you're doing so for the king. And he's doing it because it's God's will, or something.
In the Byzantine Empire the highest authority in the land is the empire itself... Its history and its ancient glory. The Basileus is its caretaker.
That's how I see it anyhow. In feudal Europe nobody but the monarch and his/her family members had the right to be the monarch, and they were mostly related to the kings and queens of every other kingdom in Europe, so a non-family usurper would have a much more difficult time and much more hostile reception if they actually did rebel, not just inside the kingdom but outside the kingdom as well, as other distant relatives of the deposed monarch say they have a better claim and other relatives of the deposed monarch support them.
The Byzantine Empire on the other hand... had a long ancient tradition of new people killing the emperor and climbing over his corpse to get on the throne, and provided the bureaucracy and the army supported them, all was well (until somebody else decided to do it to them).
In feudal Europe the king is the highest authority in the land and also somehow connected to god through some divine shenanigans. You're not an English peasant, you're property of the king. You're not fighting the French or the Scots in the name of England, you're doing so for the king. And he's doing it because it's God's will, or something.
In the Byzantine Empire the highest authority in the land is the empire itself... Its history and its ancient glory. The Basileus is its caretaker.
That's how I see it anyhow. In feudal Europe nobody but the monarch and his/her family members had the right to be the monarch, and they were mostly related to the kings and queens of every other kingdom in Europe, so a non-family usurper would have a much more difficult time and much more hostile reception if they actually did rebel, not just inside the kingdom but outside the kingdom as well, as other distant relatives of the deposed monarch say they have a better claim and other relatives of the deposed monarch support them.
The Byzantine Empire on the other hand... had a long ancient tradition of new people killing the emperor and climbing over his corpse to get on the throne, and provided the bureaucracy and the army supported them, all was well (until somebody else decided to do it to them).
Was not byzantine empire constantly at war with its neighbours in some way or Another which made any kind of internal problem far far worse. Battle of Manzikert for example would not have done anywhere as much damage if not the internal problems it caused since the byzantine army was still in good shape after the battle.
If anything even with all its problem it was very successful, not only fighting of the caliphate when it was at its peek but also later on started to make significant gains which to me indicate that it was not that unstable but internal issue combined with external ones pretty much killed the empire even if it survived much worse stuff earlier.
However fighting against the byzantine empire was incredible dangerous since it was basically the roman empire but with even better armies which allowed it to win some very impressive victories that allowed it to regain what it had previously lost. But at some Point it had simply had lost too much to be able to make a comeback.
Many of the European countries at the time probably did not have to deal with such dangerous enemies byzantine empire had which meant a civil war was far less dangerous to the survival of the nation and many of the european countries did not survive or became a part of a larger nation.
Main issue with the byzantine empire if Im not wrong was that it basically saw itself as the rightful owner to Everything Rome had once controlled which did not make it much friends with everyone. It may also have been very intolerante even for its time which made it hated by the local populations.
If anything even with all its problem it was very successful, not only fighting of the caliphate when it was at its peek but also later on started to make significant gains which to me indicate that it was not that unstable but internal issue combined with external ones pretty much killed the empire even if it survived much worse stuff earlier.
However fighting against the byzantine empire was incredible dangerous since it was basically the roman empire but with even better armies which allowed it to win some very impressive victories that allowed it to regain what it had previously lost. But at some Point it had simply had lost too much to be able to make a comeback.
Many of the European countries at the time probably did not have to deal with such dangerous enemies byzantine empire had which meant a civil war was far less dangerous to the survival of the nation and many of the european countries did not survive or became a part of a larger nation.
Main issue with the byzantine empire if Im not wrong was that it basically saw itself as the rightful owner to Everything Rome had once controlled which did not make it much friends with everyone. It may also have been very intolerante even for its time which made it hated by the local populations.
Last edited by a moderator:
Everyone had powerful enemies they were generally at war with. The Iberian rulers (both Catholic and Muslim) barely went a day without at least thinking about raiding their religious enemies (and those days they did go without it, it's generally because they were thinking about fighting a civil war instead). Literally every English king from William the Conqueror until well after the end of CK2 fought at least one cross-channel war in France (either against the French or against his own rebellious subjects in Normandy/Aquitaine). The Holy Roman Empire was regularly engulfed in civil wars, and whenever it wasn't, trying to exert its authority over all of its neighbors. And so on and so forth.
The Iberian muslims was eventually conquered, England eventually lost everything they had in France and the Holy Roman empire pretty much was never united and was eventually dissolved. The nations that survived the longest tended to have some sort of way to minimize the damage a civil war can cause such as geographical advantages or less stable neighbours, most failed to survive and most was less successful than the Byzantine Empire.
I'm not an expert but this is something I've also pondered and these are my thoughts on the subject.
Its my understanding, primarily from listening to History of Rome and History of Byzantium podcasts, including the interview in regards to the book "Byzantine Republic", and pondering on it that the difference between the feudal monarchies and Byzantium was that the former were de facto and de jury monarchies. While both Roman empires never became a de jury monarchy, to my knowledge. The difference thus is that there was an open celebration and of the monarchy into an office that wasn't just like any other and that it was tied to inheritance in the feudal world while in the Roman empires it was to my knowledge not so that the office of "emperor" was publically celebrated as an unobtainable strictly inherited office. Elevated yes, sanctioned by God, yes, but not strictly inherited and unobtainable in any other way.
Thus while the French nobles would have been taught from birth that no one save the close relatives of the king can become kings, the Byzantine nobles would have been taught that the office of emperor was just another office, one that was subject to nepotism, yes, but still not an unobtainable thing forever beyond their reach by the will of God. As such I think that it was the republican inheritance of Rome, and that it was never really fully shed, that made people less struck by awe even by a high office holder. Not to mention that while most French kings and dynasties, for example, to my knowledge came from the top of the nobility, many colorful characters not from the top of the elite did take the position of emperor in Byzantium.
The history of the another Roman Empire, the Holy one is also interesting since their Emperor had a bad habit of being able to produce a heir the office become less and less monarchic in character (it was always an "elected" office, but as long as the ruling dinasty was strong it was more or less a formality) and finally the princes of the empire started to look their princerly domains as the truly sovereign states.