The siege of Damietta: Fifth Crusade Europeans attack Jerusalem In 1216 AD, Pope Honorius III succeeded in getting some more Europeans to agree to try again to conquer Jerusalem from the Ayyubids. The Fourth [...]
St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice, Italy (about 1100 AD) The Seljuks destabilize Europe's neighbors In 1071 AD, the Byzantine Empire lost most of Anatolia (modern Turkey) to the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert. [...]
Saladin (Salah al-din) When the Mamluk general Imad-ed-din Zangi died, he was succeeded by his son Nureddin, who added Damascus to the land his father had gathered together. And after Nureddin died in 1174 AD, [...]
Castle of Edessa After the First Crusade After the First Crusade in 1096 AD set up Christian kingdoms all along the coast of Israel and Lebanon, of course the Fatimid caliphs who had ruled that area before [...]
Outer walls of Caen castle, Normandy, France The Vikings settle in northern France Around 1000 AD, some of the Vikings who had been raiding France got permission from the French king to settle down and live [...]
Medieval Italy: Matilda of Canossa (ca. 1100 AD) Matilda of Canossa By about 900 AD, the Holy Roman Emperors started to lose power over Northern Italy. The Counts of Canossa controlled most of Northern [...]
A Viking ship. Viking trade took the Vikings all over the world. Who were the Vikings? The Vikings were Indo-European people from Scandinavia (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden). Around the 400s AD the Vikings started to [...]
The Empress Zoe (from the church of Hagia Irene) Zoe and Romanus III Although he lived a long time and ruled nearly fifty years, Basil II never had any sons. When he [...]
Alexios I Comneni, the Byzantine emperor (1081 AD) The Battle of Manzikert The Battle of Manzikert in 1071 was the end of Basil's Armenian Dynasty. The Byzantines had lost Armenia to Alp Arslan [...]
Outer walls of Caen castle, Normandy, France What is Caen castle? This is the castle that William the Conqueror built before he left to conquer England, to defend his own territory in Normandy, [...]
