No Viking Age (Abrittus)

In Northern Europe (Northern Germany and Scandinavia) lived Germanic groups who, at PoD, had remained largely unaffected by the Roman Empire. While the Ingvaeonic tribes (Angles, Jutes, Saxons) moved to some degree into Late and Post-Roman Britannia in OTL (first as marauders, then as mercenaries, at last as settlers and new rulers), perhaps the least Romanised part of the Empire, in the 5th century, Scandinavian groups spread far and wide from the 8th century onward as "Vikings" or "Varangians". The Ingvaeons who had remained on the continent came under Frankish rule. The Middle Ages and its specific Roman legacy began to affect Scandinavia only from the 10th century onward, with slowly changing concepts of kingship and statehood and the introduction of Roman Christianity.

In this timeline, Roman influence - or more precisely: Gallo-Roman influence - makes itself felt much more directly: as a powerful opponent, a superior trading partner, and an (ambivalent) political model. Instead of the Roman Church, monarchy and feudalism, the imports which slowly reshape Northern Germanic polities are collegia (guilds), revolutions in productivity, and elected civil servants.

Frisians Edit
The Frisians have always been ruled by foreign powers. They had paid tribute to the Romans, and when Roman rule began to collapse during the 3rd century, Saxons and Franks began to assert overlordship over the Frisian coast and islands.

Ever since the Gallo-Roman victory in the Anglo-Saxon Campaign of 437-8, Frisia has become an integral part of the Gallo-Roman (later named Celtic) Empire as the imperial province of "Frisia". Latin - and to a lesser extent Common Celtic - have become Frisia's official languages, but simple fishermen and peasants continue to speak Frisian, a West Germanic language akin to Saxon and Frankish, too.

While politically calm, Frisia`s towns developed self-confident elites and economically powerful trade syndicates, the most famous among them the Frisian Hanse, which has dominated Baltic trade in the 7th and 8th centuries with its cog boats, which were fitted by Celtic officers with Greek fire and equally well adapted to landing in the shallow tidelands of Frisia, Veletia, Pomerania and Courland and to sailing on the high sea. Frisia provides the Empire with products like wool, mutton, fish and salt. Starting in the 8th century, Frisian ships import cereals from all across Venedia; its modern windmills turn them into flour, which is both consumed domestically and sold in innovative sealed paperbags to Celtic wholesalers. Frisian fishermen control and exploit vast areas of the North Sea.

After Frisia recovered from the bubonic plague in the 7th century, it modernised its production to compete against cheap cotton etc. on the European market (inventing new manufacturing techniques for wool and building new and modern shipyards, selling ships to other nations like Franconia as well). Now, Frisians overtook the Ostrogoths in trade volume in the North and Baltic Seas.

Just like soldiers and merchants from other parts of the Celtic Empire have come to live among the Frisians, Frisian citizens have helped the Empire to settle Glaciana.

Frisian religion has remained fixed on Nerthus. Imperial soldiers as well as foreign merchants are practicing their various cults in the Frisian towns, too, though.

Saxons Edit
In the course of the 3rd and 4th century, a distinct and homogeneous Saxon culture develops in Northern Germany, which was never occupied by the Roman Empire. The invasion of the Huns does not affect Saxony directly, either.

Like other Northern Germanic societies, early Saxon society was highly hierarchical, yet not centralised. Military and religious leadership was held by "ethelinga"; their power was mythically cloaked, but actually rested on how many followers they had among the free peasantry ("frilinga") and half-free craftsmen and service providers ("lide"). Jurisdiction was carried out in assemblies of ethelinga, frilinga and lide ("things"), who also selected a military leader in case of need. Indentured servants and slaves (e.g. war captives) existed; they were excluded from participation in the aforementioned political structures. Saxon religious cult at this time highlighted the Æsir and their rule over the Vanir (comparable to the warrior nobility ruling over the peasantry). Local ethelinga acted together across Saxony, but never chose a king in these first centuries. Like their Scandinavian and Frisian neighbours, groups of Saxons participated in raiding parties aimed at the Gallo-Roman coasts of Britannia and Batavia.

In 436/7, the Gallo-Roman Empire retaliates with the Anglo-Saxon Campaign. Saxons become vassals of the Gallo-Roman Empire: their ethelinga now officially receive their titles from the Caesar in Lugdunum and his censorial magistrates, who also collect tribute "in exchange". Naval bases and castra are erected along the coastline and the Saxon rivers.

A very charismatic friling named Widukind knits an alliance with peasants from many parts of Saxony in the 540s, initially perhaps aimed at organising a peasant revolt like those of the Celtic Bagaudae. As the Celtic Empire enters a severe political crisis, a few courageous and insubordinate ethelinga join his side. Widukind, although not of noble descent, is chosen as the first King of Saxony in a secret Thing.

Widukind forges an alliance with the Danish petty King Ragnar of Gudme. Their alliance catches a Celtic force aiming at conquering Denmark by surprise and defeats it. In the ensuing war, Widukind`s forces manage to eradicate both Celtic military presence on the Saxon mainland and about two thirds of the Celtic-loyal ethelinga.

Widukind installs a centralised royal government around his court in Hamburg, concludes a peace treaty with the newly established Celtic Republic, and invites Norse syndicates to Hamburg and Bremen, formerly Celtic castra, which he manages to develop into Saxony`s first modern towns, and Danish groups who control a part of the Kattegat trade and related piracy to Traveborg, which he transforms from a fishing village to Saxony's main port town and naval base on the Baltic Sea. The connections to the North bring technological innovations, commercial relations and improved military equipment to Saxony.

But at Widukind`s death in 582, this new order falls apart. His son, Witelrik, claims the throne, but a majority of ethelinga and their clients refuse. They want to restore the old, pre-Celtic order. Witelrik considers to renounce, but is encouraged by the crews of the Saxon royal navy's ships and by his magistrates, who would all lose their jobs or at least their power, to take up the fight.

Years of civil war devastate Saxony. The cities of Hamburg and Bremen are loyal to Witelrik; they are supported by Alemannic, Frankish and Sørstad troops. The majority of the ethelinga have their powerbase in the rural South and South-East and in the Eastern border lands. They obtain support from other Norse groups, especially from the Svear and Sjonar.

The Saxon Civil War ends with a relative victory of the anti-royalist faction. The monarchy is discontinued and the court and government in Hamburg are dissolved. The ethelinga resume military and fiscal control, the Thing's powers are fully restored. Hamburg, Bremen and Traveborg may only send a fixed number of representatives.

The war and its outcomes slow down Saxony's development and weaken its position over the next centuries. Without central administration, Saxony does not develop a viable infrastructure and relies almost exclusively on its rivers as transport corridors. Militarily, Saxony relies on its ethelinga-led cavalry, who attempt to relieve the population pressure by conquering lands in the South and East. Both attempts fail in the 7th century: in the South, the Alemannic Empire defends hitherto unaligned tribes in Central Germany and swallows them into their Empire. In the East, Vineta and its Veletian allies manage to hold off Saxony's Eastward expansion.

Although politically and legally weakened, the Saxon towns continue to grow slowly, but they are more and more dominated by Celtic-Frisian and Norse commercial networks. This - together with the rejection of the Lausai faith by the Saxon elites - leads to an integration of Saxony into the Norse cultural and political space, while in OTL, Saxony becomes assimilated by the Franks from the South and later becomes part of the Holy Roman Empire and its Northern German member and successor states.

WIthin this Norse sphere, Saxony maintains especially close connections to the Danes on Fyn, to some Eastern Gautar yarldoms like Möre and Handbörd and to Sviþjod.

By 750, Saxony`s economy is still mostly dominated by agriculture, farming and fishing. Its crafts remain simple. Its sea trade increases, but is mostly controlled by foreign powers. Literacy is very low (below 5%), with Swedish Runes and the Latin alphabet still competing for supremacy.

AnglesEdit
The Angles have disappeared from history after their colossal defeat at the hands of the Celts in 436/7. Their home land on the Kimbrian Peninsula has become the Celtic province of Anglia and settled by Celtic citizens mostly from the British Isles. While the Anglic elites were slain, the peasantry was either enslaved on the new villae rusticae, or they fled toward the South, where they came under Alemannic or Burgundian rule and merged into these nations.

When slavery was abolished in the Celtic Empire in 565, the Angles had already given up their language for Latin or Common Celtic, which both offered better chances at becoming a freed person (libertus) and perhaps climbing the social ladder in the Celtic Empire. Anglic cultural practices had been mostly replaced by those brought by the Brythonic, Pictish and Scotian settlers, although some researchers argue that Anglic influences were important in forging a common, unitary "Celtic" culture on the Kimbrian Peninsula.

JutesEdit
The Jutes suffered the exact same fate as the Anglians.

Scandinavia Edit
At PoD, Germanic groups in Scandinavia were almost unaffected by what happened in the Roman Empire. Occasional trade took place, but mostly, Northern Germanic people lived in bands or tribes, served their Norse Gods, pursued primitive agriculture and traded among themselves, using longboats without nailed planks and without sails. The large family was the basic unit of society, which lived together in longhouses. Different families of a tribe shared close connections in the absence of a clear patrilinearity or matrilinearity. Families with large and fertile land ownership exerted greater authority in the community, their household leaders often assumed leading religious and military roles for other families, too. There was not a trace of what we call modern statehood; settlements and decisions taken by general assemblies (Things) concerned judgments of infractions, settlements of land disputes, and organisation of defensive or offensive actions against other tribes. Armed conflicts aimed at enriching oneself take the forms of either moving from one region to another and driving the initial inhabitants away, or raiding and plundering. No larger kingdoms have formed yet, and the culture and religion of the North have remained untouched by Southern influences in this first period yet.

In OTL, things changed very slowly over the next five centuries, in which the collapse of the Roman Empire under the force of Germanic invaders and the subsequent establishment of the Merowingian Empire provided role models for the less developed Norse societies. More and more warlords emerged and brought larger territories and hirds under their command. Apart from these external influences, improvements in ship-building and a growing population also changed Scandinavian society. Combined, this prepared the ground for the following Viking Age.

In this timeline, developments begin to accelerate and take a different direction in the 5th century CE. The Imperium Romanum Galliarum conquers the Kimbrian Peninsula and becomes a close neighbour of the Scandinavians.

Although Anglia, as the IRG calls the Kimbrian Peninsula, is not exactly the empire's wealthiest province, and Gallo-Roman ships sailing the North Sea and the Kattegat do not carry the bulk of Gallo-Roman trade, both are attractive aims for Scandinavian marauders and pirates. The Gallo-Romans try to hunt them down, and in doing so, they find out more about Scandinavia`s landscape and population and their dwellings.

Gallo-Roman (later terminology: Celtic) attempts to conquer the Danish archipelago, where the Gallo-Romans have localised the majority of those who plague them, fail spectacularly due to their navy`s ineptitude in the difficult waters of the archipelago and the virtual impossibility of controlling the entire region against an enemy who adopts evasive guerrilla tactics. In the 5th and 6th century, two Danish polities emerge from the successful defense against the Celts: the Western islands are (sometimes more, sometimes less) united in an assembly named "Danething" and led by a king who resides in Gudme. In the East, Sjaelland has its Sjaellandsthing and a king in Lejre.

The only Scandinavian region with which the Gallo-Romans establish good trading relations is OTL Norway, or more specifically its Southern and South-Western coast, especially the region which is called Agder today. In the 5th-8th centuries, it was called Agðir, and its inhabitants Egðir. Their contacts with the Gallo-Romans lead to a double cross-fertilisation:

techniques. Half-free craftsmen in a village in Agðir learn to endow longboats with sails. The Classis Celtica orders hundreds of these small and fast, improved langobats to diversify its stock, which had up to that point consisted only of the large, bulky types of ships that the Romans used, too. Almost over night (i.e. over the course of a few years), half-free Egðir become rich. improved varieties for the cold climate are bred, allowing a more productive agropastoralism in the Northern regions of both spheres.
 * Gallo-Romans and Norse learn from each other`s ship-building
 * Gallo-Roman and Norse domestic animal breeds are exchanged, and

Norsemen from Vestfold and Hordaland focus on intensifying agricultural and cattle production. Among the Egðir, secret societies form, where the ship-building knowledge is protected and proliferated only among their members. The secret societies of the Egðir soon begin to sail across the seas, raiding towns and villages - but sparing their Gallo-Roman partners, whose power they know too well -, and later also establishing their own trading outposts. The secret societies of the Egðir transform into a combination of trading syndicates and seaborne military hirds, who do not follow a sea king, instead they are led collectively by the afore-mentioned secret societies of which the hirdmen form a part which was subordinate to the "secret-bearers", but provided good career options for young boys from families of the half-free or from yeomen with small farms and many children.

The Egðir`s network of trading ports expanded quickly in the 6th century and included colonies at the Baltic Sea Coast of OTL East Germany, Poland and Latvia and the North Sea Coast of OTL Norway well into the Arctic Sea. In the Baltic Sea, they came into bloody conflict with existing Norse trading groups based on Gotland island and the Mälaren. This century, often called the Egðir Age, thus also caused increased coordination and defensive strategies across Eastern Denmark (Sjælland) and OTL Southern Sweden.

In the 7th century, the Celtic Republic (successor to the Imperium Romanum Galliarum after the republican victory in the 550s) took its commercial interests increasingly into its own hands. The Celtic Navy had finally mastered the technology of fire syphons for ships (Greek fire), and the Celtic Republic`s Frisian citizens had revolutionised ship-building once again by inventing the cog, which was equally fit for transporting great quantities of goods economically across the high seas and for landing in shallow waters, which abounded not only in Frisia, but also along the Southern and South-Eastern Baltic coastlines. Frisian traders formed an association akin to the Egðir`s secret societies, but protected by Celtic law (and might): the Hansa. The Frisian Hansa`s cogs were fitted with Greek fire and were thus not only able to carry greater quantities than the longboats of the Egðir, but also more capable to fend off pirates, who abounded especially in the Kattegat. Thus, the 7th and the beginning 8th century are often called the Hanseatic Age. It saw the formation and consolidation of the Gautar Confederacy, the unification of Skånen and the establishment of relatively powerful kingdoms on Sjælland and along the Mälaren (Sviþjod). To further ensure the safety of its trading missions, the Celtic Republic founded the emporia of Arcona (OTL Kap Arkona), Callamare (OTL Kalmar) and Sarema (Saaremaa). These Celtic emporia were self-governed towns with their own Things (something the Celts understood well, since their own towns also mostly had comitia), where the local population held its own laws, while Celtic citizens were judged by Celtic Law. Often, monasteries of the Celtic Church were erected here, and of course they were naval bases. They were mostly exempt from imperial taxation and developed very quickly. This model became influential, too: Egðir towns like Sørstad, petty kingdoms like Viken and Karmøy and other polities like Trøndelag and Hålogaland invited Celtic monks, too, both to attract educated people with important skills, to foster positive relations with the Celtic Republic and to enjoy additional protection against regional rivals. By 750, the following independent (i.e. non-Celtic) Norse polities existed:

The towns import not only Mediterranean products, but also their knowledge and skills. Schools modelled both after Celtic/Mediterranean and Southern Germanic ones first teach the sons of the merchant and guild elites. In the 7th and 8th centuries, the sons of petty craftsmen and the sons and daughters of landowners are schooled either there or by Celtic monks, too

The crisis of the Germanic cult on the continent does not extend to Scandinavia, where Svear priests from the "Helgö school" and Suion priests from the "Uppåkra school" become widely influential and attempt to push back Celtic Christian influences.

Generally, Celtic Chiristanity begins to gain followers in OTL Norway, where Norse is increasingly written in Latin, while the Germanic cult remains strong in OTL Sweden and insular Denmark, where Norse is written in the runic alphabet.