407  The greatest invasion into the Roman Empire occurs in the winter of 406-07, across the frozen Rhine. Resistance is feeble.

408  Roman legions are withdrawn from Britain, and Picts, Scots and Saxons invade the Britons.

409  Among the Germans who overran Gaul are those called Vandals. They cross the Pyrenees mountains into Hispania (Spain).

410  Goths sack Rome. Pagans see it as the work of Rome's old gods and blame the Christians.

413  In response to the charge that Christianity was to blame for the fall of Rome, Bishop Augustine(354-430) overturns the theory of Rome that was devised by Bishop Eusebius. The Roman Empire, he claims, was influenced both by God and by demons. Rome, he writes, was a product of sin and based on self-love, robbery, violence and fraud. He describes the Romans as the most successful brigands in history.

430  The Vandals have conquered all the way to Augustine's city, Hippo. While the Vandals have Hippo surrounded, Augustine dies.

441  Anglo-Saxons, running from northern Europe and away from advancing Huns, are invading Britain.

451  Attila the Hun(406 - 453) crosses the Rhine into Gaul.

458  Anglo-Saxons are sending the Celtic Britons fleeing westward toward and into Wales, to Ireland and across the English Channel into what is today called Brittany.

** 476  A German commander of Rome's army, Odoacer(433 - 493), seizes power in Rome.

488  The emperor in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Zeno(425 - 491), sends an army of Germans, led by Theodoric(471 - 526), across the Alps against Odoacer.

493  Theodoric's army defeats Odoacer's army. Theodoric assumes the title of King of Italy, and the Bishop of Rome befriends Theodoric.

496  The king of the Germanic Franks, Clovis(466 - 511), has extended his rule in northeastern Gaul, spilling much blood. His wife, Clotilda(475 - 545), is a Trinity believing Christian. Clovis accepts his wife's faith for himself and his subjects.

507  The Franks, who are Catholic, use the Arian Christianity of the Visigoths as an excuse to expand against them - Catholics seeing Arianism as a heresy. The Franks defeat the Visigoths, kill their king, Alaric II, and drive them into Spain.

511  Clovis, king of the Franks, dies and, as is custom among the Franks, the lands of Clovis are divided among his four sons, beginning the sordid rule of Europe's "Merovingian" kings.

524  One of the four sons of Clovis, Clodomer, dies, and two of the other sons of Clovis, Clotaire and Childebert, seize Clodomer's lands for themselves and murder his children.

525  Living in Italy under the rule of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, Boethius(480 - 524) has been accused of treason and imprisoned. He has written his work On the Consolation of Philosophy while in captivity, and in a year he is executed.

529  Justinian(482 - 565), Catholic Roman emperor at Constantinople since 518, closes down Plato's old academy in Athens as part of a move to stamp out paganism.

533  Getting the world ready for the Second Coming of Christ, Emperor Justinian sends his army to reconquer what had been parts of the Roman Empire. In North Africa he defeats the Vandals, who are Arian Christians, and he conquers territory and souls for the Church.

534  Toledo becomes the capital of the Visigoth kingdom in Spain.

536  Justinian's army invades Italy at Naples.

554  Justinian's' army defeats the Ostrogoths of Italy.  Rome and much of Italy is in ruin. The Pope and Catholicism now reign supreme in Rome and central Italy. The Trinity version of Christianity has won against Arianism, violence again deciding a matter of theology.

560  Ethelbert I(d. 616) succeeds his warlord father, Eormenric, in a kingdom in southern England called Kent - one of the older if not oldest Anglo-Saxon settlements in England, dating from the mid-400s or a couple of decades earlier. The young Ethelbert is soon to marry the Catholic daughter of the king of Paris, Charibert, a grandson of Clovis.

568  Constantinople has been weakened by its prolonged wars and by warring tribes into its empire. The Lombards invade Italy, reaching Milan.

588  In Spain, the king of the Visigoths, Recared I(559 - 610), has discarded Arian Christian and converts to Catholicism. And as the king goes, so goes his nation.

600  Monotheistic religion has spread to Arabia. Jews have been in Arabia for centuries. Christian missionaries have been in Arabia for more than a century. The entire Arabian province of Najran is Christian. Christianity has been established superficially in various other centers of trade, and Arabs living on the borders of Constantinople's empire and Persia's empire have been influenced by those empires.

613  Muhammad(570 - 632) has begun preaching publicly in his hometown, Mecca, and he is being ignored or is thought to be crazy.

622  Pilgrims from Yathrib visiting Mecca (a holy city before the existence of Islam) are favorably impressed by Muhammad and invite him to return with them to their town. The town has no unifying governmental authority. Muhammad is fifty-two and becomes recognized in Yathrib as a religious leader and someone to go to for settling disputes.

623  Yathrib has a large Jewish community, and its leaders reject Muhammad's claim to be a leader of Judaism. Muhammad and his followers stop bowing toward Jerusalem and begin bowing toward Mecca, and Muhammad abandons Saturday as the Sabbath and makes Friday his special day of the week.

624  Mohammad has responded to economic hardship in Yathrib by organizing raids on merchant's caravans. He has his greatest success so far, at Bedr, where the raiders kill an estimated fifty to seventy persons from Mecca. Muhammad and Mecca are hostile, Muhammad claiming God to be on his side and blaming Mecca for having rejected him.

630  Muhammad's military has grown stronger, and in his war with Mecca he emerges victorious. Mecca's wealthy are obliged to donate to the well being of its poor. People in Mecca see Muhammad's strength as the power of his god, and they see the other gods as having become powerless. There is a mass conversion to Islam, and Muhammad adds Mecca's army to his own. Muhammad conquers the rest of  Arabia, puts down others claiming to be prophets.

632  Muhammad the Prophet dies.

634  The momentum generated by victories against dissidents and breakaway regions left Islamic warriors restless and feeling aggressive, and Arabia has been in an economic recession, trade having come to a standstill after ten years of war. War for booty is a tradition, and as an alternative to making raids against "the faithful" in Arabia, Muslim warriors are making raids into Mesopotamia. They meet little resistance and are encouraged to make more war. Islam's first caliph to succeed Muhammad,  Abu Bakr(573 - 634), declares a holy war in support of the raiders, and one of the greatest imperialism of all time begins.

646  Muslim warriors have attacked wealthy but not common people, and they have not raped as some Christian armies have. In some areas they are seen as at least as no worse than the rule they are replacing. The empires of Constantinople and Persia have been weakened by war and lack of support, and Muslim warriors have conquered as far north as Syria, much of Mesopotamia and all of  Egypt.

651  The third caliph since Muhammad tries to put an end to quarreling over Muhammad's legacy and orders a committee to collect Muhammad's messages into a standard word, to be called the Koran, drawing from the memories and the tradition of passing history on orally. The result produces the wrath of various people and communities across Arabia who had become wedded to these rival interpretations.

654  Christian missionaries from Ireland are beginning to evangelize across England. The king of Essex, Sigebert(r. 653-660), has been  influenced by Northumbria and has just converted to Christianity. Northumbria defeats the pagan king of Mercia, gains possession of Mercia and its king becomes overlord of England's southern kingdoms. With pagans, Catholicism has won prestige with the military victory - a look of the Christian god's superior power. Mercia converts to Christianity.

660  The Koran, as an arranged book and considered complete, is published for the first time. Muhammad's main concern after his conquest of Mecca was resistance by recalcitrant tribes in Arabia and claims by rival prophets among the resisters. Reflecting this struggle, the Koran describes non-believers as evil and people who can expect war from God (3.151). But the Koran also advocates peace with enemies who are inclined toward it (8.61). Muhammad wanted people within his realm, including Christians and Jews, to get along. He wanted to tax Christians and Jews, and in the Koran are verses about Christians and Jews not fearing or grieving (2.62). Drawing as Muhammad did from the biblical tradition that had entered Arabia, the Koran mentions biblical figures and repeats the biblical message of God's love and grace. (5.54).

661  An assassination attempt has been made on Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad, and he dies of his wounds, aggravating a split between his supporters, called Shia Muslims. Their rivals, Sunni Muslims, are establishing a new caliphate at Damascus, in Syria.

711  A Muslim army crosses the Strait of Gibraltar and begins a conquest of Spain. Jews welcome them as liberators. An Arab ship is plundered by pirates near the mouth of the Indus River, and the Arab governor in Mesopotamia retaliates, sending an expedition, said to include 6,000 horses and 6,000 camels, to conquer the rajas of Sind.

718  Constantinople, ably led by a general called Leo the Isaurian(685 - 741), has held off Muslim attacks by land and sea for more than a year. Leo is now Emperor Leo III. South-Central Europe is to remain Christian.

722  Emperor Leo III forces conversion of Constantinople's Jews.

726  Emperor Leo III issues an edict against the worship of icons, seeing it as the main reason Jews and Muslims cannot be won to Christ. The cross is to be maintained as the symbol for Christianity, but worship with other images, including those of Jesus, are not permitted.

731  English historian and theologian, Bede(673 - 735), writes and Ecclesiastical History. He beings numbering the years from the time of Christ rather than from the reign of kings - his numbering to be divided between BC and AD (or BCE and CE).

732  Muslims were making piratical raids from Spain northward across the Pyrenees into territory of the Franks. Charles Martel(688 - 741) leads an army that defeats a Muslim army led by Abd-er-Rahman - who was not on a mission to conquer all of Christendom.

750  Arabian mathematicians begin using numbers that originated in India, are an advance of Roman numerals and that Muslims will pass to Europeans. 

751  An Islamic army in Central Asia defeats the Chinese (at the Battle of Atlakh). Muslims replace the Chinese as the dominate influence along the Silk Road.

751  The last Merovingian king of the Franks, Childeric III(717 - 754), is deposed. The Merovingians had ruled as they pleased, including enforcing what they thought was their right to deflower a commoner's bride before he was allowed to consummate his marriage. A new dynasty, the Carolingians, is begun by Pepin the Short(d. 768), the son of Charles Martel.

768  Charles(742 - 814), eldest son of Pepin III (Pepin the Short), inherits half of his father's Frankish empire.

771  Charles becomes king of all of his father's empire. He is a devout Christian and to have four wives and children by five mistresses.

772  Charles, eventually to be known as Charles the Great (Charlemagne in French) begins thirty years of conquest and the rebuilding the empire of the Franks, with an infantry carrying axes, spears and shields of wood and leather.

774  Charlemagne overruns the Lombards in northern Italy. He divides Lombard territory with the Pope, creating the Papal States.

775  Charlemagne begins his war against the Saxons in Germany, with slaughter and forced conversions to Christianity.

787  Empress Irene(752 - 803) convenes the 7th Ecumenical Council, which refutes the iconoclasm begun by Constantinople's Emperor Leo III in 726. Among the masses and many clerics the worship of relics has persisted. The tortured, blinding and banishment of relic worshippers has ended. It is widely believed that the previously outlawed images work miraculous cures.

787  Charlemagne, king of the Franks, is learning to read, and he reproaches ecclesiastics for their uncouth language and "unlettered tongues." In hope of creating an educated clergy he orders every cathedral and monastery to establish a school where clergy and laity can learn to read. His rule includes land for nobles who provide him with military service. He depends on the allegiance of distant counts, dukes and bishops within his realm, men with some independence because of the distance and slowness of communications.

793  By boat, Scandinavians reach the island of Lindisfarne, Scotland. They kill monks and loot the monastery there. It is the first recorded raid by those to be called Vikings.

800  Charlemagne is crowned by Pope Leo III, who hails him as "Augustus, crowned of God …emperor of the Romans.

807  The Abbasid caliph, Harun al Rashid(763 - 809), decrees that Baghdad Jews are to wear a yellow badge and Christians are to wear a blue badge.

813  The new Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, son of al Rashid, Abdallah al-Mamun, sends people to Constantinople's empire to collect scientific works by ancient Greeks.

825  The kingdom of Wessex wins in war and becomes the dominate power in England.

834  In Norway, two women are buried in a Viking ship. In the year 2008 it will be called the Oseberg ship. One of the women will be described as "upper class" and her skeleton indicating that she had led a hard life. The older woman, in her 70s and perhaps over 80, has cancerous tumors in her bones, perhaps having spread there from breast or uterine cancer.

841  In Scandinavia and increase in population has inspired people called Vikings or Norsemen to venture out in longboats. This year, give or take a year or so, Vikings land and build a settlement on the south bank of the River Liffey, founding what will eventually be the city of Dublin.

850  A Muslim scholar in Baghdad, al Kindi(801 - 873), is using translations of Aristotle - unavailable in Western Europe - to create a neoplatonic school of Islamic thought.

858  Christian missionaries develop the Cyrillic alphabet from written Greek - an alphabet that in modern times is used in Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and other languages.

860  Vikings have attacked at Constantinople. A new phase in Scandinavian (Viking) aggression has begun. Encouraged be former successes, the Scandinavians are beginning to attack in greater number.

861  Vikings voyage up the river Seine and attack at Paris, up the Rhine to Cologne, and they attack at Aix-la-Chapelle(Aachen).

862  Vikings have reported that land is more available abroad, and with the growth in population having eliminated the availability of land at home. Moving from more densely populated areas, Scandinavian have begun moving to less densely populated areas and settling down.

865  In England, an Army of Danes has overthrown the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia.

870  A Sufi, Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bistami (Bayazid), has been spreading his wisdom. A change has been taking place in Islam, as religion had when the Roman Empire was disintegrating. Muslims are no longer looking with hope to a god that is a glorious conqueror. Instead they are looking for a sense of well-being through a personal relationship with Allah. The Sufi movement is bringing Allah down from his heights and sees Him as a loving friend - the way Christians saw Jesus.

874  Vikings settle in Iceland.

899  King Alfred the Great of Wessex has rallied England against Viking attacks. Vikings are settled and remain in Northumbria and East Anglia while a Viking army has sailed back to the continent.

900  For sometime the horse collar has been spreading in Europe, invented more than 1000 years earlier in China. The collar prevents choking a horse, ignored by Roman farmers. The collar allows a horse to pull heavier loads, needed for pulling plows in Europe's heavy soils. 

911  The King of France, Charles III, gives part of the territory to be known later as Normandy to Vikings in return for the  Viking leader, a Norwegian, Rollo pledging his allegiance to him - the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. Rollo and his Vikings (mostly Danes) are to defend his part of the coast of France from attacks by other Vikings.

912  Rollo and his Vikings become Christian.

970  Cordoba, on the Iberian Peninsula, is Europe's intellectual center and the world's most populous city. Constantinople is the only other European city in the top ten of the world's most populous cities. Cordoba is a Muslim city. Caliph al Hakam II has been in power since 961 and is contributing to the building of Cordoba's libraries. Cordoba has Europe's best university, with a spirit of free inquiry. It has medical schools. Work is being done also in math and astronomy. The city is tolerant toward its Jewish and Christian minority.

975  Europeans begin to use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, et cetera), which are more convenient in arithmatic than Roman numerals.

988  In Kiev, Prince Vladimir I adopts the religion of the Byzantine Empire as the state religion of the Rus' state.

1000  For centuries Christians have been expecting the Second Coming of Jesus - the Day of Judgment. Giving importance to a round figure such as 1000, and assuming that Jesus was born in the exactly one thousand years earlier, many believe this is the year that it will happen.  The passing of the year leaves believers thanking God the postponement of Armageddon.

1008  Sweden's king, Olof Skötonung, converts to Christianity, and when a king converts to Christianity, his subjects also convert.   

1015  A 21-year-old Dane, to be known as Canute the Great (Cnut I), has invaded England with a powerful fleet.  

1017  Canute has conquered much of England. He marries the widow of the king of Wessex, Ethelred (Aethelred II) - a devout Christian. Canute converts to Christianity and proclaims his intention to rule in a Christian fashion, and he strengthens political and commercial ties between England and Normandy.  

1019  Canute's brother Harald, king of Denmark, dies, and Canute becomes king of Denmark

1020  Avicenna, the greatest thinker and person of medicine of this and surrounding centuries, is forty years-old. He has 17 more years to live, a lifetime in which he composes 276 books on medicine, physics, astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, economics and religion. He believes in empiricism and rationalism and thinks scientifically. He has been accused by fellow Muslims of "unbelief," to which he replied that "If I have turned from Him who blessed by birth, there's no true Muslim left on earth."  His "Canon on Medicine" will be translated into Latin and begin influencing Europe in the 12th century.

1022  Putting people to death for heresy has begun in Europe, fourteen said to have been burned to death at the city of Orleans on order of the French king, Robert the Pious. 

1028  Canute occupies Norway with a fleet of fifty ships from England, with the help of Norweigan nobles he drives the Norwegian king since 1016, Olaf II Haraldssön, into exile. 

1034  The archbishop of Milan, Heribert, seizes members of a group that rejects infant baptism and has them burned to death.  

1050  The globe is warming, which is improving crop production and increasing populations. In Europe the "High Middle Ages" begins.

1054  In a doctrinal dispute, the Church in Rome accuses the Christians in Constantinople of allowing priests to marry,  re-baptizing Roman Christians and deleting "and the Son" from the Nicene Creed." The last of these accusations was untrue. The Church in Rome excommunicates the Church in Constantinople, and the Church of Constantinople excommunicates the Church in Rome. The schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy has become final. 

1066  William I of Normandy ends Anglo-Saxon rule in England and becomes its first Norman king of England. Many French words are to become English words.

1073  Previously Hildebrand had thwarted attempts to make him Pope, and he had proposed what became the choosing of Popes by the College of Cardinals. Now Hildebrand becomes Pope Gregory VII.  

1077 Pope Gregory VII is pursing church reform and is in conflict with the "Roman Emperor" in Germanic lands, Henry IV (a descendant of Charlemagne's rule). The issue is Gregory's decree that anyone who accepts a church position offered by a layman will be deposed and any layman who gives a church position to anyone would be excommunicated. Gregory excommunicates and deposes Henry. Nobles relish power taken from Henry. And, to restore himself, Gregory crosses the Alps to Canosso, in Italy, where Gregory grants him absolution - forgiveness.

1080  Pope Gregory again excommunicates and deposes Henry. This time, Henry uses a power that a few kings have in greater amount than does the pope: Henry goes to Italy with an army and takes power in Rome.

1085  Christianity has been expanding against Muslims since Charlemagne took Barcelona in 801. The Christian king of Castile and Galicia, Alfonso VI, has been inviting Christians in Islamic Spain to his kingdom. Now he expands militarily to Toledo, in central Spain. The Christian reconquest of Spain is underway.

1085  Pope Gregory VII dies. The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV still controls Rome.

1091  Normans were originally hired by Italian principalities as mercenaries. Then the Normans started conquering in southern Italy on their own, and they became rulers accepted by the papacy. Now they conquer Sicily, ending two centuries of Muslim rule there. Arabs are allowed to continue working in public administration. 

1094  The kingdom of Aragon expands southward to Valencia.

1095  The Seljuk Turks have been expanding against the empire centered at Constantinople. They have conquered Jerusalem. The Turks were also Muslims, however they did not allow Christians to visit their holy sites. Pope Urban II responds to a call for help from the emperor at Constantinople and organizes what was to become known as the First Crusade. Urban II announces that Christ will lead any army that goes to rescue the Holy Land.

1095  The first wave of crusades begin from Sweden into Finland to convert the Finns to Christianity.

1096  Pope Urban II condemns the crossbow as "hateful to God." There are no firearms as yet, and the crossbow seems too deadly in its ability to pierce chain mail, and too impersonal, unlike the sword and lance, which can be parried up close.

1097  Well-trained knights defeat Muslims near Nicaea, and later in the year the Crusaders reach Antioch.

1099  Jerusalem falls to the Crusaders, who slaughter the city's Jewish and Muslim inhabitants.

1101  By the beginning of this new century, towns were becoming an important part of life in Europe, although people there were less than ten percent and ninety percent were rural.  The towns are centers of commerce, which enlightened feudal lords and kings find in their interest, either of the two having granted the town charters. Where big landowners resisted the rise of towns they found trouble often in the form of violence directed against them.

1101  In Southern France, troubadours appear, resuming a tradition that began in the 500s when secular entertainers were banished on the urging of Christian bishops. The troubadours sing of the lives and the courts of noblemen.

1114  Two peasants at Soissons are accused of holding meetings outside of the Church. A deep vat of water is blessed. One of the peasants, Clement, is tied up and tossed into the tank, and he floats, leading to the conclusion that the "holy water" has rejected him and that he is therefore guilty. After this, the other peasant confesses. Two others are imprisoned with the two. Local people excited and passionate about heresy break into the jail and burn the four to death. 

1121  The Roman Catholic Church is more bureaucratically organized than it was in previous centuries. Centuries before it had no problem with common people believing in pagan herbal magic, holy trees and springs, fairies and the like, but now the Church feels more threatened in its role as arbiter of truth. Literacy had been rising. Translations of ancient Greeks are circulating. Ideas are spreading with the increase in the movement of trade and people within Europe. The Church is now concerned about heresy. The Concordat of Worms condemns the popular lecturer and writer, Peter Abelard. And later this year the uncle of Abelard's wife, Heloise, leads a group of men who attack and castrate Abelard.

1122  A summit meeting between Holy Roman Emperor Henry V and and Pope Calixtus II settles the investiture issue between the two. The Church is to choose who will be a bishop within the Holy Roman Empire, but the Holy Roman Emperor is to have veto power over this selection.

1128  The Catholic Church sanctions the Knights Templar, of Jerusalem, to guard the road between the eastern Mediterranean port of Acre, held by the crusaders, and the holy city of Jerusalem. The Knights Templar have grown from an a few crusaders reputed to have been fierce warriors. They have taken vows (promises to God) of poverty and chastity. 

1139  The Catholic Church forbids Christians from using the crossbow against their fellow Christians. It remains okay to use against Turks and other Muslims.

1139  Portugal is forming. Count Afonso Henriques, 29,  has been allied with discontented nobles in the northeast corner of the Iberian Peninsula. He has been fighting the kings of Leon and Castile, and he has defeated a small army belonging to his mother and has driven her to Leon.  He now defeats the Moors in battle and declares his lands independent of Moorish rule.

1140  The same year that the University of Bologna is founded, for the study of law, the Council of Sens condemns Peter Abelard for heresy, and Abelard travels to Rome to defend himself.

1140  A few people in Europe are finding trials by ordeal and signs of God's judgment inadequate procedures. The alternative is testimony by human witnesses, and some are interested in whatever empirical evidence can be obtained. Meanwhile, a Camaldolese monk in central Italy, Gratian, has been trying to bring order to Church law. He is a believer in "natural law," as were the Romans - law he sees as built upon doing to others what one wants done to oneself. His writings are considered the best collection on law.

1143  The Church arranges the Treaty of Zamora between Afonso Henriques and the King of Castile. The treaty places the lands of Afonso Henriques under the protection of the Church and secures recognition of his title, King of Portugal.

1147  The taking of Edessa by Zangi is seen in Europe as a move against Jerusalem, which is controlled by Europeans. The German emperor, Conrad II, and French monarch, Louis VII, lead hundreds of thousands on a crusade - the Second Crusade - to retake the Edessa for Christendom. The crusade stimulates a response from the Seljuk Turks who battle the crusaders. Another group of crusaders sail to the Iberian Peninsula and help King Afonso's move southward against the Muslims at Lisbon. Afonso captures Lisbon, which is to become the capital of Portugal.

1149  In the Second Crusade to the Middle East many have died from starvation and disease as well as injuries from battle. Edessa remains under Muslim control. But those returning from the crusade bring back sugar, which some Europeans will use in place of honey.

1150  Troubadours are now popular in southern France. The University of Paris is founded.

1150  Most Finns have by now been converted to Christianity. In Sweden, where Christianity was introduced in 829, paganism is  finally overwhelmed by Roman Catholicism.

1154  The Templars have given up their poverty. With another Christian-crusader order in Jerusalem, the Hospitallier, they have become owners of extensive real estate. They are also the bankers of Jerusalem. They deal in exports and handle the 6,000 or so pilgrims that visit the Holy Land annually and are trusted to refrain from selling pilgrims into slavery, as have some Italian merchants.

1163  In Paris, construction begins on a cathedral to be known as Notre Dame.

1168  The first classes begin at Oxford University.

1170  Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is hacked to death at the alter of his church by knights - agents of  England's king, Hentry II. . 

1175  In Egypt, Salah al-Din, to be known in the West as Saladin, declares his independence. In Egypt, the Shiite Fatimid dynasty no longer rules. Saladin, a Kurd who arose in the service of the Seljuk Turks, is sultan and military leader. He mentions the Abbasid caliph (in Baghdad) in his prayers, and he is interested in a Sunni ideological revival in Egypt and in driving the crusaders out of the Middle East.

1178   Venetians take from Verona (100 km west of Venice) control of the Brenner pass, opening access to silver from Germany.

1180  Glass windows are put in English homes.

1180  Windmills are used as a source of power in Flanders and the Netherlands, wind being more constant than the flow of streams, which freeze in winters.

1182  Philip Augustus of France has been in need of money to hold on to his throne and to combat feudal barons. He has accused Jews of ritual murder and has confiscated their wealth, and now he confiscates their land and buildings and banishes them from his realm. 

1187  Saladin retakes Palestine, including Jerusalem, for Islam. There is no pillaging or slaughter of non-combantants - as there had been when the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099. There are now about 1,000 Jewish families in all of Palestine. Before the Christian crusaders and their killings the Jews numbered about 300,000. Saladin is to acquire a reputation in Europe as a chivalrous knight.

1189  Jews are massacred at the coronation of England's Richard the First. 

1189  In response to Saladin taking Jerusalem in 1887, the Third Crusade begins. 

1191  Crusaders arrive at and besiege the port city of Acre, on the coast of Lebanon. Richard I arrives in June. Saladin fails to break the siege and in July the city falls to the crusaders. In August, Richard the First (the "Lion-hearted") slaughters 4,000 Muslim prisoners. Richard then takes the coastal town of Jaffa. 

1192  Saladin holds off Richard's advance against Jerusalem. Richard and Saladin sign a treaty that leaves Jerusalem under Muslim control and allows Christian pilgrims to visit. Some coastal towns and Cyprus are left in Christian hands. Richard leaves for England. The Third Crusade is over, and many will see it as a failure because Jerusalem remains in the hands of Muslims rather than Christians. 

1200  Commerce has been growing, and the century ends with the seaport city of Venice as Europe's commercial capital. Its population is around 80,000, equal to Paris, Milan and Florence, Europe's leading cities in population. 

1200  In Western Europe the Catholic Church has been organizing law that had vanished with Imperial Rome's state power. Natural law, a phrase coined by the Romans, is being applied to property rights because, it is said, God forbade stealing. Contractual rights are also being supported on the ground of "natural law," including the contracts that emperors, kings or princes have made with their subjects.

1201  King John of England grants the town of Cambridge a charter. 

1202  Europeans are beginning to learn Arabic numerals - as opposed to Roman numerals - and the zero. 

1202  The Fourth Crusade is underway, Pope Innocent III responding to the failure of the Third Crusade to recover Jerusalem.  Crusaders have attacked the Christian city of Zara, on the Dalmatian coast, with the Venetians, on whom they are dependent for transportation. The Pope excommunicates those crusaders who have attacked Zara. 

1202  People called jesters begin to entertain in the courts of Europe's kings. They were impoverished or are of sub-normal intelligence. They are beginning an art form in Europe for people who enjoy watching people make fools of themselves.  

1204  Another crusade fails to work out as planned. Constantinople has revolted against the presence of the crusaders, and the Crusaders have retaliated, seizing the city in a three-day orgy of rape and the plundering of palaces and Eastern Orthodox convents and churches. Fire has destroyed much of the city. Constantinople's emperor has fled. Helping the crusaders are the Venetians with whom the crusaders have made an agreement to share the booty. Pope Innocent III is delighted by the news of the fall of Constantinople to Roman Christianity. When he hears of the atrocities that have attended the victory he is shocked, but he continues to approve of the conquest. Soon in Constantinople, Latin (Roman) prelates will replace Greek (Eastern Orthodox) prelates. The schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity is complete. Jerusalem continues to be in the hands of Muslims. 

1212  Thousands of children with a few adults and clerics, fired up by preaching against heretics, start for Jerusalem to rescue the Holy Land from Muslims. They are deficient in money and organization but believe that as children they are favored by God and could work miracles that adults cannot. Before the year is over it ends in disaster. Many children die or are sold into slavery.  

1214  King John of England wanted his fiefs in Normandy and Anjou back. He allies himself with Emperor Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor. But Philip Augustus of France defeats them at the Battle of Bovines. 

1214  Genghis Khan and his army overrun Beijing. They ravage the countryside, gathering information and booty. Then they pull back to northern frontier passes.

1215  Frustrated by the growing power of the kings of England, English nobles join together and force King John to sign a document they hope will protect them  from imprisonment or loss of property without a trial by a jury of their peers. 

1215  The Church's Fourth Lateran Council meets in Rome to enact legislation as to what is heresy and what is not. The Council decides that all Catholics are to confess their sins at least once a year, that clergy is to remain celibate, sober and to refrain from gambling, hunting, engaging in trade, going to taverns or wearing bright or ornate clothing. The Council decrees that marriage will be a Church affair and that Jews will wear a yellow label.

1217  The Fifth Crusade had begun. It was planned by Pope Innocent III, who died in 1226. Its purpose, to rescue Jerusalem from the Muslims. But it is not the popular movement that previous crusades were. It begins with small-scale military operations against powers that be in Syria. Muslim opposition to the new crusade is divided, giving the crusade a better chance of success.

1219  Genghis Khan wanted trade on his western frontier. Instead his envoys were killed. He is now moving his army westward and over-running prosperous cities such as Bukhara and Samarkand. 

1223  Genghis Khan has pushed into Persia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, defeating Christian knights and capturing a Genoese trading fortress in the Crimea. He has invaded Russia, and on his way back home in 1223 he routes a Slavic army at the battle of Kalka River. 

1223  Philip Augustus of France dies. He has greatly expanded his family's territory. The French monarchy has become a maritime and commercial power, and Paris has become a fortified city with a university that attracts students from various other lands.  

1225  The manufacture of cotton cloth has begun in Spain. 

1228  The Sixth Crusade begins, led by the excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who is being ignored by Pope Gregory IX. Frederick wants control over Jerusalem, which he believes he has inherited through marriage. 

1229  Frederick signs a ten-year truce and an alliance with the Sultan of Egypt, al-Kamil, who is struggling against Muslim opponents. Al-Kamil recognizes Frederick as King of Jerusalem and cedes to him Bethlehem and Nazareth, but Frederick is not allowed to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, destroyed by Saladin in 1187.

1229  Fearing confused responses to reading the Bible, church leaders at Toulouse forbid common people to read it.

1231  The institution known as the Inquisition begins. Pope Gregory IX is taking responsibility for orthodoxy away from bishops and putting inquisitors under jurisdiction of the papacy.

1233  Coal is mined for the first time at a place in England called Newcastle.

1242  While withdrawing to their stronghold in Russia, in the Crimea the Mongols set up trade with sea-going Italian merchants, exchanging many of their European war-captives for manufactured goods. It is the beginning of routine business between the Mongols and the Italians - from Venice and Genoa - and their selling of slaves to the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, who has a slave army.  

1242  In Estonia, Alexander Nevsky defeats the Teutonic Knights, to be seen as stopping a Germanic drive into Russia.

1242  The city of Avignon is concerned about cleanliness. It is decreed that streets shall be widened, that people shall not discard into the street refuse, bath water, "dirt" and "human filth." It is decreed that Jews and whores are forbidden to touch bread or fruit for sale in market places.

1253  Jews in England are forbidden to live in towns that do not alread have a Jewish comununity.

1256  The Mongols are on their way to Baghdad. At a mountain stronghold near the Caspian Sea the Mongols force the surrender of the Imam of a Shia Muslim community, the Nizari Ismailis, to be known by Europeans as the Assassins. The Assassins believe their Imam was chosen by God and therefore infallible. They had spread their rule through terror from a chain of mountainous safe havens. But in the Mongols they meet a force they cannot intimidate, and it is the beginning of their end. 

1258  An army that includes Christians and Shia, led by Mongke's brother, Hulegu, attacks Baghdad, the spiritual capital of the Sunni Muslims. The Abbasid caliphate there comes to an end.

1259  Hulegu's army enters Damascus, and Christians there greet the Mongol army with joy. Meanwhile, Mongke has led an army into China's Sichuan province, and there he dies in battle.

1260  A Mameluke army from defeats the Mongols near Nazareth. Taking revenge on the Christian Crusaders for having allied themselves with the Mongols, the Mamelukes destroy Crusader strongholds, leaving the Crusaders at Acre, Tyre and Tripoli.  

1260  Nicolo and his brother Maffeo, father and uncle of the now six-year-old Marco Polo, begin their first trip to the East, during which they will visit China.

1269  In the wars between the King of England and barons, Jews are considered instruments of the king's oppressions. Jewish communities are attacked and many inhabitants killed. The King of England has been borrowing money from Jews, but he has switched to Italian bankers, reducing his dependence on Jews. And now the king restricts Jews from holding land and Jewish children from inheriting their parent's money. When a Jew dies his money is to be confiscated by the royal government.

1274  Another grandson of Genghis Khan, to be known as Kubilai Khan, is conquering in the Far East. He has sent a force from Korea to Japan, but a typhoon makes his stay there impossible. The Japanese believe that God is on their side and give credit to God's wind (Kami kaze)

1275  King Edward I of England forbids Jews to lend money on interest.

1277  The Archbishop of Paris declares as heresy the works of Thomas Aquinas, and this is repeated in England by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

1284  An Italian, Salvino D'Armate creates wearable eye glasses, but it will be awhile before use of them will spread.  

1290  King Edward I of England expels all Jews (between 4 and 16 thousand). Many go to France and Germany.

1291  The Crusaders give up the last of their territory in the Middle East, on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, driven out by the Mamelukes, who capture the city of Acre. Crusaders have been in the Middle East almost 200 years. Many of these years were peaceful and with amicable relations with Muslims. There was trade, and the crusaders learned from the Muslims. This, including a lot of death, is the nearly the sum of the results of an effort to save the Holy Land for Christianity. Added are those of mixed offspring the crusaders leave behind, a legacy to appear in the blond hair and blue eyes of some in modern times in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.   

1291  The League of the Three Forest Cantons forms for mutual defense - a beginning of Switzerland.

1295  Marco Polo is back in Venice following his journey as far as China. People do not believe him when he describes the Chinese as using paper money.

1296  A conflict over power and wealth erupts between the king of France and the Pope. King Philip IV of France has continued to tax Church property, taxes that were originally intended to finance the last Crusade. Pope Boniface issues the bull Clericis laicos, which asserts the Church's authority and rights vis-à-vis secular heads of state. Philip threatens to prevent the Church from collecting taxes and tithes within France. Pope Boniface backs down. England's king, Edward I, wins a concession from the Pope similar to the one that the Pope makes for France.

1297  William Wallace launches a series of attacks on English troops while fighting for self-determination for Scots. 

1300  Agriculture had been growing, but a Little Ice Age has begun, and is to last 400 years, bringing wetter weather and a shorter growing season in the northern climes. Farm expansion in Western Europe has come to an end. Cattle raising has declined, reducing the amount of protein in diets and reducing manure for fertilizer, contributing to a decline in crop yields. Herring, a major food source, is beginning to disappear.

1303  Church power is in decline. Concerned about kings taxing church property, Pope Boniface VIII has issued a papal decree, Unam Sanctam, to maintain Church authority over kings. King Philip IV of France (r. 1285-1314) fears that he will be excommunicated and sends men who seize Boniface from one of his palaces. Boniface is rescued but shaken, and his dies soon afterward. 

1305  French influence in the College of Cardinals results in the selection of the Bishop of Bordeaux, who becomes Pope Clement V. People in Rome, opposed to a Frenchman as pope, riot.  

1305  William Wallace of Scotland  is captured, taken to London, convicted of treason, hanged and his corpse drawn and quartered.

1306  King Philip IV, of France, has been extorting money from Jews. He needs money to pursue empire. He seizes the belongings of some Jews and expels them from his realm.

1307  Muslims have driven "Crusaders" from the Middle East, including the order called the Templars. Templars have arrived in France. They are wealthy, and King Philip accuses them of magic and heresy - the only way he can lawfully seize Templar assets. For good measure the Templars are accused also of sodomy and of being in league with the Muslims. Philip has the Templars arrested on Friday the 13th (giving Friday the13th its reputation as a day of bad luck). Some Templars are tortured and executed.

1309  At the request of King Philip, Pope Clement V moves his court to Avignon, away from hostility in Rome.

1310  The Knights of St. John (a crusading order established in Jerusalem in 1113) have fled the Middle East and they conquer the island of  Rhodes. 

1315  An Italian surgeon, Mondino de Luzzi, oversees dissection of a corpse. His manual on anatomy will be the first that is founded on practical dissection.

1315  A climate change has taken place, and this year in Europe rains are continuous, with people talking about the return of the flood described in Genesis. Crops are ruined and famine begins in some areas.

1318  Four Franciscans are burned at the stake for maintaining absolute poverty.

1320  The production of paper begins in Germany.

1328  The English have been driven from Scotland by Robert the Bruce. The Treaty of Edinburgh-Northhampton recognizes Scotland's independence.

1325  A man who had saved his money and bought a lot of property begins to rule as lord of Moscow. He is called Ivan and is  the first of a dynasty of Russian kings.  

1326  The Ottoman Turks are expanding from their base in the northwest of Asia Minor. They conquer to the city of Burs, about fifty miles south of Constantinople. And Ottoman warriors cross into Thrace (into Europe) to plunder. The Ottoman sultan, Orhan, allies himself with one of the Christian contenders for the throne in Constantinople, John Cantacuzemus, and marries his daughter, Theodora.

1328  The first sawmill appears in Europe. It is to encourage shipbuilding.

1328  The system of chapters for the New Testament is created by Cardinal Hugo de S. Caro. 

1338  The Diet (assembly) in Frankfort, in the Holy Roman Empire, decrees that the empire's emperor may be chosen without papal participation.

1340  Tatars are ravaged by the bubonic plague - the black death - and they pass the disease on to Genoese merchants returning from China.

1346  Edward III of England invades France, beginning in earnest the Hundred Years' War. His army of 10,000 men, using the longbow, crush France's cavalry at the Battle of Crecy (pronounced cressy).

1348  The black death reaches France, Denmark, Norway and Britain, striking at a population weakened by nearly two generations of malnutrition. Around one-third of the people in affected areas are to die.  

1350  Some Europeans are blaming Jews for the plague. Some are blaming the rich and some the Catholic Church. The belief in witchcraft is revitalized. Believing that the end of the world is at hand, some groups engage in frenzied bacchanals and orgies. Those called Flagellants believe that the plague is the judgment of God on sinful mankind. Walking across countryside, men and women flog one another. They preach that anyone doing this for thirty-three days will be cleansed of all sin - one day for every year that Christ lived. The Church is on guard against creative, heretical theology and Pope Clement VI condemns the movement.

1351  The towns of Florence and Milan go to war as Milan attempts to extend its power southeasterly into Tuscany.

1356  At the Battle of Poiters, the English capture and hold for ransom the French king and many French nobles. Warfare by  armored knights with lances and sword on horseback is near its end.  

1358  Peasants in France are unhappy about the tax burden created by the Hundred Years' War. Near Paris, peasants called the Jacquerie move through the countryside, killing nobles. In their anger against authority they feel free to rape the wives and daughters of noblemen, to set fire to castle interiors and to destroy estates.

1360  The first phase of the Hundred Years' War ends in a tenuous treaty - the Peace of Brétigny. Out of work mercenary soldiers who had been hired by the English are living off plundering the French.

1361  The black death reappears in England and ravages Europe. The survivors of the first wave of Black Death are better able to resist the disease than were people in general during the first wave in 1348, and the second wave of plague is less severe than the first wave.

1369  Nobles of Gascony (south of Bordeaux) complain to the French king, Charles V, about oppressive taxation by Edward III of England. Charles confiscates English holdings. Edward III reasserts his claim to the French throne, and the Hundred Years' War begins again.  

1377  Pope Gregory XI takes the papacy from Avignon back to Rome, and there he dies.

1378  Roman mobs demand that the College of Cardinals elect a Roman pope, and under this pressure the cardinals elect Urban VI. Then this is rejected, and a second election selects as pope Clement VII, who takes his papacy back to Avignon. There are now two popes: Urban VI in Rome and Clement VII in Avignon. They are to excommunicate each other. France, Scotland, and Spain will support the claims of Pope Clement. England, the Holy Roman Empire and most of Italy will support Urban VI.  Some in the Church want both popes to resign and a new election.  

1382  John Wyclif, a biblical scholar with a doctorate from Oxford University, has begun translating the Vulgate Bible from Latin into English. He is also vocal in criticism of the Catholic Church. Unwilling to modify his rhetoric, he is forced to leave Oxford, and his works are to be banned by the university. . 

1397  In Florence the Medici bank is founded.

1406  The geography of Ptolemy, an ancient Greek, is introduced in Europe. This holds that the earth is the center of the universe and that all heavenly bodies revolve around it in perfect circles.

1408  In Britain, John Wyclif's England language bible has been published.

1409  Prelates meet at Pisa to name a pope to replace the two claiming to be pope. The two existing popes refuse to step aside.

1410  A Germanic force, the Teutonic Knights, are trying to gain control of Poland. The knights are allied with the kings of Bohemia and Hungary. Their army has volunteer "crusaders" and numbers around 27,000.  An army of 39,000 fighting for the Polish king, Wladyslaw Jagiello, includes Lithuanians, Ruthenians and Tatars in addition to Poles, and they defeat the Germans. The Teutonic Knights decline in power and Eastern Europe does not become a German colony.

1413  In England, followers of John Wyclif, dead since 1384, hold that the Bible is the only rule of faith. They appeal to the Catholic clergy to return to the simple life of the early Church. They oppose war, the doctrine of transubstantiation, confession, and images in worship. They march on London, and Henry V, fearing social disorder, suppresses the movement.

1415  John Hus, a Czech and former dean of philosophy at the University of Prague, travels to the Council of Constance to propose his reforms for the Church. Upon his arrival he is tried for heresy and burned at the stake.

1415  Prince Henry of Portugal, with a fleet of 200 ships and 20,000 men, captures the port of Ceuta from the Moors.

1419  Lately the Portuguese have been building latine-rigged ships, which can tack into the wind. They are are exploring waters off the coast of northern Africa, and they lay claim to the island of Madiera. 

1421  In Austria, Jews are imprisoned and expelled. 

1428  Pope Martin V orders John Wyclif's bones exhumed and burned.

1428  King Alfonso V, king of Naples and Sicily, orders Jews in Sicily to convert to Catholicism.

1429  The Hundred Years' War is still on, and, in May, Joan of Arc defeats the English at Orleans. In August she enters Paris in triumph.

1431  Some Englishmen see Joan of Arc as truly a witch and as an agent of the devil - a common response to adversity in this age. Joan is captured. The English turn her over to ecclesiastic authorities - the Inquisition - and at the French town of Rouen, then under English rule, Joan is burned at the stake.

1431  Admiral Zheng He of China leads a fleet of 52 ships, with nearly 30,000 men, to the east coast of Africa.

1434  In this pre-industrial age the biggest business is banking, and in the Tuscan city of Florence a banking family, the Medici, begins to dominate the city politically.

1434  Portuguese start sailing past Cape Bojador, beyond which had been considered a "Sea of Darkness" from which no European had returned.

1439  Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church leaders agree to reunify these two branches of Christianity. The Russians do not agree and the Russian Orthodox Church is to remain independent of the Vatican in Rome.

1441  In one of their caravels, the Portuguese transport around 200 slaves from Africa to Portugal.

1448  The Russian Orthodox Church becomes independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

1453  Constantinople had its power destroyed by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and it has been declining economically, in population and military strength. Using European artillery experts, and European artillery, the Ottoman Turks break through Constantinople's walls. Disciplined Muslim forces capture the city, ending the reign of Eastern Orthodox Christianity there and that city's thousand years as the heart of what had been the remains of the Roman Empire.

** 1453 The French capture Bordeaux, the last place the English hold except for the port city of Calais, on the English channel. The Hundred Years' War ends without a formal treaty signed and no renouncing of rights to the French throne by an English king.  Nationalism had increased, and common people in England are upset at what they see as England having lost the war. With the end of the Hundred Years' War, trade revives and economic depression ends. 

1453  Forty-one Jews are burned at the stake in Breslau, Poland.

** 1455 In the German town of Mainz, Johann Gutenberg, using metal type in a screw-type printing press, prints the "Gutenberg" Bible.

1455  With humanistic leanings and an enthusiasm for literature and art, Pope Nicholas V has in the last five years given rebirth to the Vatican Library - putting it on course to becoming one of the largest libraries in the world. He dies at age 58.

1456  Judges and commissioners in the archbishop's palace in the city of Rouen declare that Joan of Arc was innocent of the charges that led to her execution - after nineteen years of appeal and almost one year of hearings. The Archbishop declares the case ended.

1456  The Ottoman Turks overrun Athens, begin a stay that will last 400 years, and they turn the Parthenon into a mosque.

1459  The Ottoman Turks have taken control of all Serbia.

1461  Two families, both descended from King Edward III (who reigned from 1327 to 1377 and was of the Plantagenet dynasty) have been at war for years. One family is the House of York the other the House of Lancaster. This is the War of the Roses. Edward, from the House of York, defeats the Lancastrians at Mortimor's Cross. He is proclaimed king and ascends the throne as Edward IV.

1461  King Loius XI of France creates a postal service.

1477  France's Louis XI gains control of Burgundy.

1478  A conspiracy, that includes the Archbishop of Pisa and has the support of Pope Sixtus IV,  leads to an attack on the Medici while they are in church. The Archbishop and several others are hanged. Pope Sixtus puts Florence under the interdict and excommunicates the Medici leader of Florence, Lorenzo de Medici. The pope forms a military alliance with the King of Naples, and  Lorenzo's diplomacy prevents an attack.

1479  After four years of war, Spain accepts monopoly trade for Portugal along Africa's Atlantic coast and Portugal acknowledges Spain's rights in the Canary Islands.

1479  The Ottoman Turks and Venice have been at war since 1463.  Venice is defeated militarily and gives up that part of its empire, along the Adriatic Sea, that the Ottoman Turks occupy. 

1500  Portugal settles the islands of Sao Tome and Principe off the Atlantic coast of Africa.