argumate:

memecucker:

Another papal historiography bias Ive noticed carry over into secular or non-Catholic circles is a negative view of the Avignon Papacy, both in the context of when it was the seat of a unified Papacy as well as during the Western Schism when you had popes in Avignon and Rome (and briefly a third in Pisa). Its more subtle than the popular sensationalistic tales regarding Alexander VI and to an extent you can chalk it up to “history is written by the winners” (though moreso during the Western Schism since the unified papacy at Avignon is supposed to be seen as totally legitimate). But there is stuff like how the wikipedia articles on “Avignon Papacy” and “Western Schism” mentions how all seven Avignon popes were French and influenced by the King of France as if a string of French popes is more unnatural than an even longer string of Italian popes when the papacy is centered in Italy. 

another Catholic/China analogy is which dynasties count as the “real” ones when the empire is split between rival claimants, obviously the one that wins, but even when none of them win due to an external conqueror some will be more legit than others.

The Japanese imperial succession is remarkably stable for that length but it’s not actually unbroken, during the fourteenth century, during the “Nanbuko-cho” period of the first bakufu (then the real governing force, the Japanese Emperor is usually a ceremonial complement to some real power, which has included “the retired ex-Emperor”) there were two rival courts and the line continues from the one set up as a rival to the sitting emperor