What If Canute's North Sea Empire Survived? | Alternate History 

Hinga dinga durgen

One Olof The great Norwegian explorers.

@@hawkevick9184 Icelandic you mean

@@halldorherm WTF NO!!! He was a northman , you are a Northman. You could call him Greenlandic by you’re definition.

@@hawkevick9184 Your logic makes little sense. My ancestors were Norse, Leif's ancestors were Norse. Both of us were born in Iceland. Being Norse and Norwegian are not the same.

What is NEstornism?

@@jmgonzales7701 A "heretic" branch of christianity

A rejected denomination of Orthodox Christianity.

@@magicaljagical647 okey ?

The founder of was one of the Patriach of Constantinople, wouldn’t that mean that basic structure of the sect has orthodox parts in it?

hi hilbert big fan

Make a colab with Koifish again or else

Please continue to take part in alternative history! You have such a great grasp over history. 😊

Can you consider doing either a scenario, What if Patton and Smedley Butler were both alive by the end of WW2 and somehow launched Coup against President Truman and the U.S. government or what if General Zukhov coupled Kruschev after dealing with Beria? Great video. 😎👍 Glad to see the What ifs return. Keep up the great work and Peace. ✌🏻

@@crusader2112 By Truman do you mean FDR?

@@MonsieurDean No, I mean Truman, since FDR would be dead by the end. Although a scenario against FDR could work as well.

Can you do what if the weimar repuplic survived?

@@MonsieurDean What if Harold Godwinson won the battle of Hastings.

Soon as I saw the map for the North Sea Empire I thought of Vinland Saga.

It's the same Canute. Great anime btw

That's anti semitic

@@stevencooper4422 trolling much?

@@stevencooper4422 good

Happy birthday, pal!

@@MonsieurDean thanks mate!

Great concept!

United Italy under Borgia, Medici or Sforza?

@@alishermukhametkali9230 Well the likeliest POD would be under the Visconti, specifically Gian Galezzo as he basically conquered all of (northern)italy before suddenly dying from fever

@@alishermukhametkali9230 Sforza for sure

​​@@blob7963 Sçvartsczí

I mean, it wasn't a real 'Empire' & it lasted for only about 20-some-odd years, so it's not exactly surprising nobody's heard of it.

It didn't really last very long

@@jeandehuit5385 As good as an Empire as the Holy Roman Empire. Your definition of your empire is based on your bias.

That sounds very cool I would love to see this as well.

That'd be very difficult... Macedon was already so hated by everyone in Greece for torching Thebes and demanding they all go to Persia for Macedon's benefit. The Selucids were so greek-centric that basically everyone they conquered also hated them, making for constant revolt and breakaway states. Aaaand the Ptolemies were so fucking degenerate that I don't even need to finish this fucking sentence. Honestly, the best bet for this would probably be Pergamon. Some time late in the Diadochi wars, Pergamon gets a lucky break and bites off a massive chunk of Selucid Anatolia. In this timeline, Most of Anatolia and parts of Thrace are controlled by Pergamon rather than by Macedon or the Selucids. As Pergamon was a Roman ally, they would fight against Macedon and the southern Greek leagues in the Macedonian wars, growing more and more powerful, slowly eating up more of Thrace and Armenia. In our timeline, the King of Pergamon left the kingdom to Rome in his will to prevent an extremely bloody war between the two fucking over his people. In this timeline, the king of Pergamon figures the kingdom's become powerful enough that they can fend off Rome, at the least deterring them from attacking and at best perhaps could resist a small scale attack with a decent victory. At some point however in the 2nd century BC, most likely in the 140s at the same time as the third Punic war, as this was when Rome established almost total control over Greece in our timeline, Rome would attempt to destroy Pergamon, likely on some bullshit Cassus Belli the Romans manufactured. From here, it could go two ways. Way 1) If the Pergamenes decide to stick with traditional Greek/Macedonian Phalanx formations for their military, they would lose to Rome. The rough geography of Western Anatolia isn't particularly good terrain for the Phalanx, and unless your soldiers are trained and disciplined like Sparta's or Macedon's (Under Alexander), Phalanxes have a tendency to break up over this kind of ground. This gives Roman manipular legions a decisive advantage and would likely defeat the Pergamenes and absorb the kingdom. The timeline would probably not shift too much from this point and would be much like ours. The Parthians would conquer the remains of the Selucid empire and would sit around on Rome's borders as Roman generals repeatedly took (ineffective) shots at them for basically no reason for the next few hundred years. Way 2) And I think this is the more likely one given how the scenario has played out so far... The Pergamenes see how effective the Roman legions are against the Phalanxes of Macedon and the Greek leagues, and they attempt to imitate them, much how the Pontic kingdom would later in our timeline. In this timeline, when the Romans invade Pergamon, they're treated to a long campaign, in which each and every battle seemed to go Pergamon's way (despite greater Roman numbers) and after a while the Legions are forced to retreat, allowing Pergamon to continue to exist as an independent state. After this war, Pergamon would struggle being definitely the smaller power on the Mediterranean as Rome would grow in power and influence while it stagnated. Soon enough, the Parthian invasion would swallow the Selucid empire and again, would sit around on Pergamon's borders doing not a lot. From here it would be up to Pergamon how it would play out. If it did nothing, it would eventually be attacked by Rome again and likely would not be able to resist it a second time. If they allied with the Parthians they would likely instantly make themselves a target, prompting the aforementioned attack. Even if they were able to resist it with Parthian assistance, they'd likely become essentially a Parthian client state. The best solution I could think of them would be to use the Parthians to divide up the Ptolemaic kingdom, with the Pergamenes taking Egypt proper and the Parthians taking the levant. This would likely also provoke a war with Rome, but this time it would be a war in Egypt rather than within Pergamon's borders, and in this case, the Pergamenes and Parthians would be much better prepared for it than Rome and would likely win, with no foreign troops on Pergamene soil, the Kingdom would remain independent and able to interact with the others around it as an equal. How the future would pan out beyond this... I really can't predict, and really what I've already come up with is probably not how it would go down, but this would be my best guess.

@@moritamikamikara3879 Really impressive, even tho I don't think they would be able to defeat Rome but I know only the basic about this period because I find Pax Romana to be rather boring.

All I care about is see one video about something else than Rome or alternate nations that existed after the fall of Rome. And since it has never been done before, I thought a what if video based on one of the Diadochi empires would be interesting.

@@moritamikamikara3879 how were the ptolemaics degenerate?

We need a vinland saga dub in Icelandic and danish

Do not let the recent unification fool you however. Signs of Norwegian national identity was already present as early as 1000 in account from the Battle of Svolder where the "nordmann" is made distinct from the Dane and the Swede.

Ganske rart at SNL mer eller mindre ikke skriver noe om det

@@felixtl1496 Det var fordi danskene ikke styrte så mye. Danskene er smakinger må vi huske.

Det har trolig noe med at det var så kortvarig. Ganske irrelevante resultater for kongene etter.

@@hawkevick9184 The Danes are... tastings?

Very interesting idea, and I've done something similar in the past, but it might be worth revisiting!

@@MonsieurDean thank you for considering😊

Honestly this was already happening (slowly). After 1912 Germany abandoned the naval arms race and efforts were made to reconcile the two countries. If WWI was delayed, it's plausible that Britain and Germany wouldn't fight each other.

All fascinating questions, I don’t believe I’ve ever entertained that first one.

Fun fact; Olav the Holy (Norways "patron saint") was never a true [edit;] CATHOLIC christian, and used Crow-bones and Sages (Seiðmannr) for soothsaying. When the Catholic Church tried stepping in as Olavs "holy representatives" as an attempt at stopping pagan/monarchial power from re-emerging,- the poorer Birkebeiners did a revolt against the Bagler/Monarchial "trojan horse coalition". To this day, Norway has never truly been part of the Catholic Church (unlike what many sheep would like to think). The Oldenburg/Glücksburg House is currently the only thriving house of Europe,- simply because the people stopped them from becoming Catholic puppets. "Disney" is a Norman name that always has been loyal to the North-sea Empire. Fuck the Pope, and may the Waves of the Ocean always kiss us goodluck. Odin is short for "Wotan-az" meaning WaterBird. The viking flag is a black&white WaterBird. Aberdeen means "Riverdrowned" or Ebrdw(u)n, hinting to a time when the mouth of this river was somewhere else. That place being an anchorpoint of Bifrost (packice), allowing Norsemen to traverse the Norwegian Trench during winter. If you truly wish to learn of the North-Seas history, Tolkien and Disney is a pretty good start. The best source is of course if you learn the Etymologic root of north sea myths and placenames.

Always made me wonder what if Anglo-Saxons never converted to Christianity and remained in their war like pagan ways. Also how would their interactions be with the Vikings be if they invaded a pagan England.

What if the Norse never converted to Christianity? What if Alexander the Great had lived? And what if Justinian and Belisarius reconquered the west? Welcome to a world where the Vikings never came, and where history plays out differently.

But African Americans did colonise Liberia... is that the joke?

How and why would Australia become a better version of Germany?

@@sdagoth3037 its either a joke, or it is the australia-austria counfusion once again

@@commemorative i imagine they mean what if a majority of african americans went to liberia

"latins! latins everywhere!" -Norman Buzz to Roman Woody

Isn't this just historic Poland? I'd expect Poland being a major rival of the Northsea empire because both would want to rule the baltic sea trade

Remember that Cnut was a grandson of Mieszko I and that Poland had a rough time after Boleslaw's death. It's entirely possible that a descendant of Cnut becomes King of Poland by about 1100.

@@0799qwertzuiop maybe, but they would both benefit from a weak germany

@@turtek12 what if Norse-Baltic Union. An empire of Poland, Lithuania, Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltics, and the Kieran Rus?

55 days intensifies.

@@John.McMillan Sha Shou!

The Holy Roman Empire was an empire founded in the 12th century in the Holy Roman Empire, a confederation of German states, as part of the late medieval German nation-state system. The HRE had no national leader, but was ruled by a collective leadership of the nobility that formed the Holy Roman Emperor's council of electors. The Emperors were elected (or anointed) by coronation in Rome or other coronations elsewhere, and the Emperors held absolute power over the Holy Roman Empire (and its constituent territory), including the ability to depose emperors and to grant the title of Holy Roman Emperor to other rulers.

The Normans by about the second generation were basically French though. William the Bastards grandfather, Duke Richard II, went to war with Normans in the North East of the duchy with other Normans who still worshipped the old gods and not the Christian one. The Normans it seems tried to escape their heritage in the pursuit of being seen as more French. Even though the actual French never considered them as such.

He says in English.

@@hubjump Lmao

Canute the Great is peak-performance; the Danes themselves are mediocre-at-best. There are two kinds of people I hate in this world; people who are irrationally intolerant of other cultures, and the Danes.

@@jeandehuit5385 You say this while commenting on the North Sea Empire? The fuck did you expect to see here, English plays?

@@hubjump LMAO

Lmao. Best thing about being a historian watching Vinland Saga. "I can't wait for this character to fucking snap and become the dude I read about." It was so satisfying watching him lose his shit.

You had to watch something to come up with this> I came up with this after being English.

Good question.

It'd probably have alot more north Germanic language influences than it does now

@@BajanEnglishman51 how will that affect the spelling, grammar and pronunciation? How big of a difference is that to English as we know it?

@@zionmolina3039 probably for example like alot more common vocab everyday word we use would be more north Germanic due to the influence but rn common vocab we use are mostly anglo Saxon words aka western Germanic but silent words would be impacted probably English has alot of words with silent letters due to its chaotic shifting from one culture to another in this period of time with the Vikings being in control influencing the language then the Normans coming in and replacing them in doing that

@@zionmolina3039 It would look like something in between Icelandic and Danish most likely. Most important change is we would likely retain the Thorn and Eth characters in our alphabet because North sea empire would be powerful and wealthy enough to make their own printing presses rather than just buying French ones.

You mean Norman-Roman Empire?

Yes, the French-Roman Empire

Denmark was pretty powerful for a good while in Europe. Look up the Kalmar Union which was Danish lead.

Denmark raped England so badly that pretty much all ethnically English people (at least in the east of England) have a danish ancestor. My grandpa looks very danish and he’s English. Super blonde, thick eyebrows, blue eyes and he’s super strong haha

@@haltdieklappe7972No they didn’t you clown.

its likely to just be like the latin empire (but centries earlier), where they encouraged catholicism but didn't suppress orthodox (atleast not initially), this might cause issues later on when Islam isn't a real threat anymore. and could go either way (catholic greeks or orthodox normans) eventually.

Unfeasible

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Britain

@@MonsieurDean Roman Britain. Not England. Please don't use these terms interchangeably

@@nicci_valentine that’s literally England?

@@jahbrenpanvilla it's the land that's now England (and Wales) but it's most certainly not England. England didn't exist before the English settled it, and there were no English under Roman rule. England isn't simply a neutral geographic term. It's the land of the English. If there are no English, there is no England.

I think The Eu and China start there own cold war after a 2nd Great depression.

With everything being a lot more centralised in this timeline, it would be much easier for the germanic north sea empire to keep its holdings in Ireland.

@Moritami Kamikara Yes, but that battle was the beginning of the end of the North Sea Empire, The Northmen need a victory there. Also, Ireland could be used additional ports towards the colonization of Vinland.

It's just fantasy. It's a laughable video, really

Interesting...but how?

@@MonsieurDean Honestly, I've got no idea. All I know is they weren't strangers to Incorporating gods into their pantheon, and that's it.

@@blurthelines8596 That's true, but the thing about Judaism is that it's an Ethno-religion. Most Pagan religions don't have a central orthodox source to build off, so they can be messed around with and tweaked to suit ones own needs. You can't really be convicted of heresy for writing wrong things about the gods when there is no document or other similar thing that codifies who and what exactly the gods are and what they do. Judaism however DOES have that, and worst of all, it's a VERY exclusive text, specifying that believers in Jehova should reject the existence of any other gods, and that Jehova's chosen and preferred people are not the Latins, but the Jews. Additionally Jehova doesn't really have any defining characteristics to add to a pantheon like that because he's everything. A creator deity that created the entire world and has full and total divine power with no peers. Pagan mythologies are like specifically created narrative intellectual properties, like Novels or Drama films, and to this, Jehova is a Mary Sue. So I don't see the Romans adding Jehova to their pantheon in any way at all, it's incompatible with their religion. Those who chose to worship Jehova would have to reject the rest of the Latin pantheon, likely forming another mystery cult as was the thing during the empire. But... at this point we're getting dangerously close to what ACTUALLY happened which was a branch of Judaism (as it was at the time) did exactly this and ended up taking over the empire.

We call him Canute b/c that IS the contemporary spelling... in Latin (the language which almost all of Canute's records are written in, when they aren't written in Old English or Old Norse). The Latin version is Canutus, rendered as Canute in modern English. Knud is the modern Danish, while Cnut and Knut are also valid variant forms.

@@jeandehuit5385 Ok but why? I kan tell you Knud is the mordern danish spelling because it is the old norse name. Just like Svend and Harald hasn't changed. But why did modern English render his latin name Canutus to Canute? That's my first question and. As I asked before. Is Canute a spelling they used in the Viking times?

@@papaand Canutus is the contemporary Latin name, coming from charters within his lifetime, so yes, it does come from 'Viking times.' It is not the Old Norse name, but a translation of a Norse name into a different language which was used at the same time as Old Norse (Latin was the official language of the Church, to which Canute was a patron of). Knud is also not an Old Norse name either, but a translation of a one *into* modern Danish. Modern Danish is not Old Norse, but is 'descended' form of it, alongside Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish. The 'original' name as spelled and pronounced in Old Norse is, IIRC, unknown to us. We have a good reconstruction of it, though, since we have the contemporary Latin as well as various Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, & Icelandic versions of it in the centuries that come after. The most common versions are Canute, Cnut, and Knut. Only Danish uses Knud with the D; that's b/c modern Danish favours weak consonants (turning Ts into Ds). None of the other Old Norse successor languages have this feature, which means the original Old Norse name was probably closer to Knut or Cnut than Knud.

@@jeandehuit5385 I checked up on it once more and 1. in the faero Islands they Spell it Knútr. Which is directly from old runes. So Cnut (Anglo Saxen form) or knut are prop closer. I also know of canutus and that he was catholic. The man's a saint. So kind of given. Just never heard Canute before. Even from latin. Sometimes in latin it is cnuto (Don't know why never studied latin my slef). But while Denmark turned "tr"(not the actual latin letters) to a soft d because the name is translated from knude(knot) which had a soft d and because his elders (Svend and Harald) had soft d's. Where I am confused and what I can't find more knowledge by myself is how/why did modern English translate canutus to canute?

Knut

It is. Knútur in Icelandic