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 [...]
Empress Agnes of the Holy Roman Empire holding Henry IV Agnes and the Pope After the death of Henry III in 1056 AD, his widow Agnes ran the Holy Roman Empire. With the [...]
Eleanor of Aquitaine (Cloisters Museum, New York City) Eleanor of Aquitaine was fifteen years old in 1137 AD, and not yet married, when her father, the Duke of Aquitaine, died suddenly. [...]
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 [...]
Façade of Pisa's Duomo We call this kind of building Romanesque because it is a little like Roman architecture, with its columns and round arches. But people built Romanesque buildings around 1000-1200 AD instead [...]
Saladin Saladin started the Ayyubids When the First Crusade defeated the Fatimid Caliphs and captured Jerusalem in 1099 AD, people were very upset. People in Egypt and Syria gradually decided that the Fatimids were too weak to [...]
