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Merchants and Bankers
From Crusader Times 1095AD to 1400AD

Trade - an international perspective

This Merchants and Bankers Listings website is years old and is now (from 2009) undergoing a marked identity change. Its timeline material on economic history (for 1560-1930) is being moved to a website managed by Ken Cozens and Dan Byrnes, The Merchant Networks Project. This will empty many of this website's pages which have always been in series. In due course, Merchants and Bankers Listings will carry information from the Crusades on the early development of what became “capitalism” in Europe to 1560 or so. As well as a conglomeration of data on modern developments, mostly on modern/technical industry, computing, and for the future, today's climate change problems. The editor's view is that in the context of climate change, the views of Merchants and Bankers (and Economists), the keepers of matters economic, are due for a considerable shake-up. If this website can encourage the shake-up, and help inform it reliably, well and good. -Ed

C11thAD: Earliest known colonists of Singapore are Sumatrans, who call it Singa Pura (lion city), later arrived in the C14th, Javanese, Siamese and Chinese merchants, till the island was conquered by Malacca.

The Merchant Networks Project

	The history websites on this domain now have a companion website on a new domain, at Merchant Networks Project produced by Dan Byrnes and Ken Cozens (of London). This website (it is hoped) will become a major exercise in economic and maritime history, with some attention to Sydney, Australia.

1095AD: Crusaders, By now, a noted French fighter of Moslem forces in Spain is Raymond of St Gilles, Count of Toulouse, Marquis of Provence, who early becomes an enthusiastic recruit to the spirit of Crusading in the Holy Land. By July 1096 another recruit was Hugh of Vermandois, brother of King Philip of France. Genoa would be asked for maritime support for any Crusade. The Genoese fleet set sail in July 1097.

1095AD-1099AD: The First Crusade.

1095AD: Crusaders, March, Council of Piacena, then in November, Council of Clermont. Beginning of The First Crusade to Palestine as preached by Pope Urban II.
The the First Crusade (1095-1099) that set off Godfrey of Bouillon in a blaze of holy hope was called by Pope Urban II at the council at Clermont-Ferrand in France in 1095. The view was that in Jerusalem, Moslem factions had (deliberately?) despoiled The Holy Sepulchre, straining relations.

From 1095-1097AD: Notable Crusaders were to be Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin (who was later Baldwin I of Jerusalem. Bohemond, Raymond IV of Toulouse, Hugh of Vermandois, brother of Philip I of France, Tancred De Hauteville and his sons (and daughters).
One of the first crusaders to go to the Holy Land, mentioned in material such as any encyclopedia entry, is Godfrey of Bouillon (1060-1100), Duke of Lorraine, with a wife, if he had one, who seems untraceable, which is where a problem starts. (Godfrey was brother of Baldwin of Le Bourg (died 1131) who would become the first king of Jerusalem.)

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The de Bouillon line (Counts Boulogne) arose from Dagobert II. An early-identifiable ancestor of the de Bouillon line is Bera IV (de Bouillon, died 975AD), "The Architect".

A subsidiary line of de Bouillon married into the family of William the Conqueror, De Conteville, but importantly, one or several members of this subsidiary line married into the influential, later royal family of Jiminez/Pamplona in Spain; as is not generally mentioned.

Godfrey of the First Crusade was son of Eustace III Bouillon, Count Boulogne, and his wife, Saint Ida (1040-1113) of Provence. This Eustace III was son of Eustace II Bouillon, (died 1091?), husband of Mary Stuart, daughter of Malcolm III Stuart/Canmore, King of Scotland, and St Margaret of Wessex, who was daughter of a German Hohenstaufer.

Eustace III and St Ida also had sons, crusader Eustace IV Bouillon. (Who became Lord of Sidon in Palestine). Eustace II Bouillon Count Boulogne, (died 1081), came from Boulogne, coastal France, or, Aux Grenons, His father was Eustace I Bouillon Count Boulogne and Matilda/Maud Hainault. Eustace III Bouillon, Count Boulogne, of the first Crusade, was known to be active by 1066, (Eustace III may have had an illegitimate brother, Geoffrey.)

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Notably in 1066, Eustace III was with William the Conqueror and charged dramatically with a gold cross/consecrated gonfanon, at the Battle of Hastings. That flag may have been, or may have inspired, the banners and crosses of the Crusaders? In Barlow's tables on Edward Confessor Eustace III marries Mary, daughter of Malcolm III King of Scots, sister of Matilda/Edith, the wife of Henry I king of England, the son of William the Conqueror. (But some other available tables have that man as Eustace II. (?)

The Crusades...A First Crusader, Raymond Capet (died c. 1097) came into Portugal and became Lord Galicia. He was son of William Capet, Lord Burgundy, husband of Adelaide De Conteville. This Raymond married Urraca (from the Pamplona line), who later married Alfonso The Battler (died 1134), who was also of the Pamplona line. The son of this Raymond and Urraca was the famous Alfonso VII of Portugal (1105-1157), Alfonso Henriques, who had three wives: Berengaria/Berenguela Borell of Barcelona, daughter of a Count of Barcelona; Matilda of Savoy; and Ryska of Poland, daughter of Vladislav II of Poland and Agnes Hohenstaufer.
(The ruling families of Europe as they faced their so-called Moslem threat were so to speak, multi-cultural as far as the Christian world of their day went?)

C11th: Pope Gregory VII does away with clerical marriage in the Roman Church.

1095AD-1099AD: The First Crusade.

September 1096AD: Crusaders, More Crusaders join the movement, including Robert II of Flanders; Robert Duke of Normandy and his-brother-in law Stephen Count of Blois. Loyalists to Henry IV who joined the Crusade included Godfrey of Bouillon Duke of Lower Lorraine, and his brothers Eustace, Count of Boulogne, and Baldwin. A De Hauteville recruit from Italy was Roger Guiscard's son, Bohemond, Prince of Taranto. But the Crusader movement had become so powerful that no group of nobles or clerics could control it, and so arose the crowds responding to preachers such as Peter the Hermit. During 1096 is departure of first crusaders and anti-Jewish riots. August, departure of the barons, October, first Crusader defeats. In 1096 the Crusaders move through Rome. In 3 May 1096 is an attack by Crusaders on the Jews of Speyer. Similar at Mainz on 25-29 May, on a larger scale. There are some forced conversions of Jews, toward Prague, after earlier anti-Jewish violence at Cologne, Metz, Trier and the lower Rhine Valley. The Pope orders Godfrey of Bouillon not to harm Jews. Godfrey is accompanied by his brothers Eustace and Baldwin, and Counts Hainault, Toul, many lords of Brabant, Lorraine and Luxemburg. Around August, 1096, King Coloman of Hungary wreaks violence on violently-travelling Crusaders. (Item from Jean Richard)

1096AD: Islam, The Fatimite Caliph, Mustali, takes Jerusalem. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., Vol. 8, pp. 32ff.)

Spring 1096AD: Peasants' Crusade sets out from Europe. Emperor Alexius ships them over the Bosporus in August.

1096AD: 15 August: Crusaders are readying to depart. This departure date takes account of harvest times, in order to assist food supplies. They leave in spring and are at the Hungarian border by May. Transport by sea is not considered, though it will be in later Crusades. The Byzantines "hastily" transport Crusaders to Asia by sea. (Item from Jean Richard)

October 1096AD: Crusaders: Peasants' Crusade annihilated in Anatolia by Turks.

From 1095-1097AD: Notable Crusaders were to be Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin (who was later Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem. Bohemond, Raymond IV of Toulouse, Hugh of Vermandois, brother of Philip I of France, Tancred De Hauteville and his sons (and daughters).
One of the first Crusaders to go to the Holy Land, mentioned in material such as any encyclopedia entry, is Godfrey of Bouillon (1060-1100), Duke of Lorraine, with a wife, if he had one, who seems untraceable, which is where a problem starts. (Godfrey was cousin of Baldwin of Le Bourg (died 1131) who would become the first King of Jerusalem.)

1097AD: Crusaders, End of April, First Crusade begins march in Anatolia to Nicaea, in Turkey. 19 June, Capture of Nicaea, July, Battle of Dorylaeum, December - 3 June 1098, Siege of Antioch. In 1097, War of Prince Louis with William Rufus of England.

Spring 1097AD: Crusaders, First Crusade contingents assembling in Constantinople.
1097AD: Crusaders, Knights of First Crusade defeat Turks at Dorylaeum (Modern Turkey).

1098: Distinguishing himself in First Crusade is Italian Ottone Visconti, of the family later ruling Milan. By 1078 he is Viscount of Milan.

1098AD: Jerusalem is taken by Afdal from the Turks, but the city months later yields to the Crusaders. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.)

1098AD: 3 June: Crusaders: End of Siege of Antioch. It is possible that by 1098, Venetians have reconsidered their positions regarding fleets to the East. 3 June, 1098, Firuz opens Antioch to Bohemond De Hauteville and First Crusaders. 5-9 June, Kerbogha arrived before Antioch and besieges the besiegers. 14 June, Peter Bartholomew finds the supposed Lance of the Crucifixion. 28 June, Crusaders beat back Kerbogha's siege of Crusader-held Antioch.

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1098AD: February: Crusaders: Baldwin is at Edessa, 28 June, Victory over Kerbogha at Battle of Antioch, August, Recapture of Jerusalem by the Egyptians. Citizens of Edessa give Baldwin control of their city.

1098AD: May, A Crusader army is below Antioch and later capture it.

1098AD: 21 October: Crusaders arrived before Antioch, long bitter siege ensues.

1098AD: Jerusalem is taken by Afdal from the Turks, but the city months later yields to the Crusaders. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.)

1099AD: 15 July: Crusaders: Capture of Jerusalem, 12 August, Victory at Ascalon. Follows, fortification of Jerusalem and improvement of the walls of the port, Jaffa. Jews are expelled from Jerusalem. (Item from Jean Richard) 12 August, 1099, Crusaders beat back the Fatimids at Ascalon.

1099AD: Crusaders, In The First Crusade, Crusaders defeat the Egyptians at Ascalon on the Palestine Coast. The Egyptian Fatimite army is under command of Afdal. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.) The Crusaders succeed in taking the whole of Asia Minor. In 1099, the Archbishop of Milan is asked to preach the Crusade in Lombardy, Italy. Genoese galleys arrive off Jaffa to help with building of siege engines. Pascal II becomes Pope. By 13 January, Raymond of Toulouse leads the first contingent away from Antioch and toward Jerusalem. 14 February, Raymond begins desultory siege of Arqahm, near Tripoli. Late March, Godfrey of Bouillon and Robert of Flanders join siege of Arqah. Mid-May, Raymond gives up on Arqah and takes all present to Jerusalem. 6 June, 1099, Citizens of Bethlehem invite Tancred De Hauteville to protect them.

1100AD: Crusaders, July, Death on 18 July 1100 of prestigious Godfrey of Bouillon/Boulogne, August, Capture of Bohemond. Tancred De Hauteville is regent of Antioch. In 1100, Henry I becomes King of England.

1100AD: By now, the existence of the three separate Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

6 December, 1100 AD: Crusaders, A Venetian war fleet returns from crusading activity, having been out for 18 months to ports such as Jaffa (modern Tel Aviv), Haifa, Pisa, Rhodes. At Jaffa they learned of the Crusader, Godfrey de Bouillon.

1101AD: Crusaders, April-May, Genoese Crusade. Capture of Arsur and Caesarea, 7 September, Victory at Ramla, August-September, Disaster of Crusade of 1101. In 1101, as the Genoese arrive at Caiphas in March, Baldwin of Jerusalem marches on Arsur, which opens its gates to avoid the date of Caesarea, in vain, as Baldwin sacks the town completely and kills most inhabitants. (Item from Jean Richard)

1101AD: France, Vicomte of Bourges acquired by Philip I.

1101AD: Islam, Death of Mustali, succeeded by his son Emir, aged five years. Country is governed by Afdal until Emir reaches majority, when he puts Afdal to death. Baldwin takes Ptolemias. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.)

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February, 1101AD: Count William II of Nevers sets out with a Crusader army of 15,000 men for Brindisi, Thessalonica, to Antioch. The Turks employ defensive scorched-earth policies. (Item from Jean Richard)

1102AD: Crusaders, Capture of Tortosa by Count Raymond of St Gilles (Count Toulouse), May, Defeat of Baldwin Iat Ramla and victory of Jaffa. With Count Raymond (now Count Tripoli) are William of Poitiers, Counts Blois, Burgundy, and Conrad the Constable. (Item from Jean Richard)

1102AD: War of Prince Louis and the Count of Roucy.

1102AD: China establishes a public medical service.

1103AD: Crusaders, Capture of Acre. Liberation of Bohemond. Siege of Tripoli begins. In 1103, Bohemond is freed from captivity by a large ransom. (Item from Jean Richard)

1103AD: Treaty of Dover between Henry I of England and the Count of Flanders.

1104AD: Crusaders, Defeat of Harran, Capture of Baldwin De Bourg (Bourcq) During 1104-1108, Roger (De Hauteville) of Salerno governs Edessa for Tancred De Hauteville. In 1104, by March, a new Genoese fleets cruises the Palestinian coast, helps Raymond of St Gilles (Toulouse) to take Gibelet. Then Baldwin I attacks Acre. (Item from Jean Richard) In 1104, negotiating with the Genoese, Baldwin promises them a third of Cairo, if they helped him conquer the city. The Genoese in 1104 aid the capture of Caesarea, "the Genoese Crusade".

1104AD: Crusaders, Baldwin takes Tripoli. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.)

About 1105AD: The Abbot of Savigny, France, is given papal authority to establish windmills in Normandy, and so French technology travelled to England. In 1105, Tancred De Hauteville moves against the Turks of Aleppo. He smashes Ridwan's army on the plain of Tizin on 20 April, 1105. At this time, the Shi Moslems are trying to capture Moslem power in Syria. Tancred also confronts the Byzantines. (Item from Jean Richard)

1105-1106AD: The Almoravid conqueror, Yusuf ibn Tashfin, mounts an expedition to re-take Jerusalem, but his 70 ships and thousands of men are lost in a storm. (Item from Jean Richard)

1106AD: 26 May, A Council is held at Poitiers, France, where Bruno of Segni recommends a Crusading "vow of the Sepulchre". (Item from Jean Richard)

1107AD: Crusaders, Bohemond De Hauteville, Duke of Antioch, recently married to daughter of the King of France, lands at Avlona; invasion of Byzantine Empire. Bohemond's army has soldiers from Normandy, France and Germany. In 1107, Egyptian Moslems raid Hebron. There have been earlier skirmishes between Egyptians and Crusaders.

1108AD: Louis VI (The Fat) is King of Franks.

1108AD: Crusaders, September, Treaty of Devol. Liberation of Baldwin De Bourg. War against Tancred De Hauteville. The Armenians of Edessa try to revolt against the Prince of Antioch.

1109AD: 12 July: Crusaders: Capture of Tripoli. In 1109 are decisions on which Crusaders barons shall rule which areas. In 1109, appointment of a Bishop of Nazareth (home of the Holy Family). In 1109, Bertrand of St Gilles (Toulouse), captures Tripoli, which has held out due to assistance by sea. Genoese fleet helps Crusader capture of Beirut. War between Louis VI of France and Henry I of England.

April-May 1110AD: Crusaders, Moslems under Mawdud march on Edessa and besiege it. Later, Ridwan of Aleppo broke his truce with Antioch and ravaged its territory. Tancred attacked the lands of Aleppo. (Item from Jean Richard) In 1110, a Norwegian fleet of Crusaders arrives. The Egyptians are unwilling to do battle with the Norwegians over Tripoli. Soon the Crusaders take Tyre, which has been blockaded since 1105, when the lord of Tiberias, Hugh of St Omer, had built the Castle of Toron.

1111-1112AD: Campaigns of Louis VI against Henry I, Theobald of Champagne and also the Lord of Le Puiset.

1111AD: Henry V is Emperor. Sack of Paris by Count of Meulan.

1111AD: The governor of Ascalon who is in revolt wishes for protection of the Franks, and Baldwin gives him a garrison of 300 men, who are killed by the inhabitants. (Item from Jean Richard)

1110-1113AD: Crusaders, Expedition of the Moslem, atabeg Mawdud. Once, against Jerusalem. (Item from Jean Richard) Later, Mawdud is assassinated in the mosque of Damascus.

1112AD: 6 March: Crusaders, Bohemond I De Hauteville dies in Apulia, Italy, ill in the years preceding, leaving an heir, Bohemond II. Was he preparing a large fleet when he died, or was he broken by defeat? (Item from Jean Richard)

1113AD: Hospitallers are recognised as an independent order. In 1113, Egyptians near the walls of Jerusalem.

1113-1115AD: Crusaders, Occupation of Kaysun, Raban and Armenian lordships by Baldwin of Edessa.

1113AD: Hospitallers are recognised as an independent order. In 1113, Egyptians move near the walls of Jerusalem.

1114AD: Crusaders, The last Moslem enclave on the Palestinian coast, Margat, is captured by Crusaders. (Item from Jean Richard) Ridwan dies in 1114.

1115AD: Crusaders of the atabeg Bursuqi at Tell Danith. Egyptian Moslems attack Jaffa. (Item from Jean Richard) In 1115AD: Louis VI attacks Thomas of Marle.

1116AD: Formation of Second Bulgarian Kingdom of Bulgarians and Vallachians south of the Danube, with rebellion against Emperor Isaac II of Byzantium. Some of these people regard themselves as descendants of Romans.

1117AD: Scotland, The earldom of Orkney is split between two squabbling cousins, joint-earls (jarls), Magnus and Hakon. In 1117 they try to meet in peace, but Hakon does not play by the rules, and executes Magnus. Magnus however has a loyal nephew, Rognvald Kali, who builds a church to his uncle's memory - St Magnus, or, Earl Magnus the Holy. Magnus was killed by a great blow to the head.

1118AD-1130AD: Italy, Venice, With Domenico Michiel as Doge, Venice has naval victories at Ascalon and in the Aegean Sea.

1118AD: March-April: Crusaders: Baldwin I's capture of Farama and death. 28 June, Defeat and death of Roger De Hauteville of Antioch at Field of Blood. Regency of Baldwin II. Moslems massacred all prisoners. In 1118, Capture of Saragossa by French and Spanish crusaders. Foundation of The Order of the Temple. Baldwin II is King of Jerusalem.

1118-1119AD: Crusaders, Foundation of the Order of the Templars, partly a creation of Hugh of Payns/Payens. The Templars later become bankers.

1118AD-1130AD: Italy, Venice, With Domenico Michiel as Doge, Venice has naval victories at Ascalon and in the Aegean Sea.

1119AD: Crusaders, 14 August, Victory of Baldwin at Tell Danith.

1119AD: Defeat by Louis VI at Bremule of Henry I of England. Council of Rheims. Charles the Good is Count of Flanders.

1120: A Council at Nablus forbids Crusader settlers to engage in the concubinage (domestic slavery) of captured women. (Item from Jean Richard)

1120AD: Foundation of The Premonstratensians. In 1120, 700 Christian pilgrims are attacked by Moslems, and 360 are killed, 60 are captured. In 1119, a group of knights had grouped to provide escorts for pilgrims. A new religious order arises, still debated, The Temple of Solomon. Hugh of Payens backs this new order and helps to have it recognised officially. (Item from Jean Richard)

1121AD: Murder of the vizier of Cairo, al-Afdal. (Item from Jean Richard)

1122AD: Concordat of Worms. In 1122, Joscelin of Courtenay is captured in September by an Ortoqid emir, Balak. (Item from Jean Richard) Balak seizes power in Aleppo but is killed in 1124. In summer 1122, Venice sends a fleet which diverted to Corfu, where it laid siege. It arrived in 1123 to aid the siege of Tyre, "the Venetian Crusade".

1123AD: First Lateran Council, for Christendom.

1123-1124AD: Crusaders, Venetian Crusade. On 18 April 1123, Baldwin II falls into hands of the Moslem Balak.

1123AD: Crusaders, Capture of Baldwin II. In May 1123 an army and a fleet from Egypt lays siege to Jaffa. The Constable of Jaffa is Eustace Grenier, who gives battle. In May 1123, a fleet from Venice commanded by the Doge himself, arrives to Syria. Venice aims at the capture of Tyre. The Venetians set a trap for Egyptians, successfully. The Egyptian Fatimids have lost their last base in Phoenicia. (Item from Jean Richard)

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1124AD: Famine in Flanders. War between Emperor Henry V and Louis VI of France.

1124AD: 7 July: Crusaders: Capture of Tyre from Crusaders.

By about 1125: The rulers of the Mandingo Kingdom of Mali about now seem to become Muslims. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1125AD: China: Northern China is abandoned to nomad invaders by the Sung Dynasty.

1127AD: Assassination of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders.

1127AD: From Manchuria, the Jurchen people move south conquering into Northern China, establishing the Chin Dynasty.

1128AD: Crusaders, Zengi occupies Aleppo. In Islam, Death of Mustarshid, succeeded by his son Mustarshid. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

1128AD: Crusaders: Council of Troyes grants a Rule to The Templars.

1129AD: Crusaders: Marriage of Fulk of Anjou and expedition against Damascus.

1129AD: Emir put to death by partisans of Afdai, whose son Abu Ali Akhmed usurps government making Hafidh, grandson of Mustansir, nominal caliph. (Fatimite Egypt). (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.)

1130AD: First recorded use in Europe of breast-strap harness for horses allowing them to haul ploughs and heavy loads.

1130AD: Crusaders: Roger II crowned King of Sicily at Palermo. A major clan of Moslem raiders, to about 1130, live in a fortified cave, the Cave of Tyron, in the mountainous hinterland of Tyre, Sidon and Beirut. They recognise both the Franks and the Turks. (Item from Jean Richard) In 1130, Innocent II becomes Pope.

1131AD: More to come

fix 1324: Arrival in Cairo of the African Mandingo king of Mali, Mansa Musa, on his way to Mecca as a pilgrim, causes a sensation. He travels with thousands of followers, 100 camel-loads of gold attended by 500 slaves each of whom carry a golden staff weighing about three kilograms. Stories of this fabled African wealth reached Europe. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1133AD: More to come

1134AD: More to come

1135AD: Islam, Murder of Mustarshid by the Assassins. His son Rashid succeeds. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

1135AD: Chinese use paddle boats for military purposes.

1135AD: Stephen of Blois becomes King of England.

1133AD: Lothar III becomes Emperor.

1132AD: Crusaders, Revolt of Hugh Le Puiset. Jaffa is "confiscated" from Hugh Le Puiset.

1131AD: Crusaders, 21 August, Death of Baldwin II. Fulk of Anjou becomes King of Jerusalem. Coronation of Louis VII.

1136AD: Crusaders, Raymond of Poitiers is Prince of Antioch. In 1136, War is waged on Thomas of Marle by Louis VI. Barons of England revolt.

1136AD: Islam: Rashid defends Baghdad against the Turks, but is murdered by the Assassins. His uncle Muktafi succeeds. This reign is marked by great disorders in Persia, as governors all make themselves independent. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

1137AD: Spain: Union of Aragon and Catalonia under Ramon Berenguer IV. In 1137, Marriage of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. King of France is recognised as feudal superior by Count of Forez. Conrad III is Emperor.

1137AD: Crusaders: Attack on Antioch by John Comnenus. Siege of Shaizar. Defeat and death of Pons of Tripoli. Fulk is besieged in Montferrand.

1139AD: Second Lateran Council.

1139AD: First pilgrimage to Holy Land of Thierry of Flanders.

1140AD: Opening of St Gothard Pass in the Alps as a commercial route. In 1161AD, First recorded use of explosives in battle near Najing, China.

1142-1144AD: The castle Crac des Chevaliers is granted to the Hospitallers by the Count of Tripoli.

1141-1144AD: Conquest of Normandy by Geoffrey Plantagenet (Anjou).

1142AD: Crusaders: Byzantine John Comnenus at Antioch.

1142AD: War between Louis VII and Theobald of Champagne. Appearance of heretics in Rhine Valley.

1144AD: 26 December: Crusaders: Fall of Edessa.

1145AD: 14 December: Proclamation of The Second Crusade as preached in 1146 by St. Bernard. In 1145, Eugenius III a Cistercian becomes Pope.

1146AD: Second invasion by Europeans of Byzantine Empire. Roger, King of Sicily, collects a powerful fleet at Brindisi, either to attack Manuel 1 or to transport Crusaders to Palestine. Roger dominates Corfu. The Norman fleet then plundered the island of Euboae, then the coasts of Arcanania and Etolia. Will they take Thebes (silk industry)? From the Scala of Salona, the Normans march to Delphi, then to Thebes, where they plunder barbarously. Then the Normans try Corinth, where citizens are taken for ransom or as slaves. The Greeks in question had already been weakened by oppressions from the Byzantines, which opened the way for the later oppressions of the Franks and Venetian on southern Greece.

1146AD: 31 March, St Bernard at Vezelay; 25 December, St Bernard at Speyer.

1147AD-1149AD: The Peasants Crusade.

1147-1148AD: Second Crusade.
Or, The Second Crusade 1189-1192CE. (Why are dates discrepant?) In 1147, Louis VII embarks on Crusade. Germans crusade against the Slavs.

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1147AD: 24 October, Capture of Lisbon by the Crusaders/Afonso I of Portugal. November-December, Defeat of German armies in Anatolia.

1147AD: Spain: Invasion of Spain by the Alomohades.

1148AD: Crusaders, March, Louis VII at Antioch. 23-28 July, Siege of Damascus. Louis VII and Conrad III fail to capture Damascus. With them is Eleanor of Aquitaine.

1149AD: Dhafir, son of Hafhid, (Fatimite Egypt), succeeds to Caliphate, After short reign, on account of his licentiousness, is assassinated in 1154AD by his vizier, is succeeded by Al-Faiz, only five-years-old, and reign is filled with factions of rival viziers. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.)

1149AD: 29 July: Defeat and death of Raymond of Poitiers at Fons Murez. 15 July, 1149, Dedication of the Crusader Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

1150AD: Approx, as John Merson writes, About 1150, a Chinese government official heard of productivity of fast-growing rice varieties in Champa, a southern tributary state now in Vietnam, and brought this variety north. State promoted its use by building and maintaining large canal works, to provide ways to cultivate this wet-productive rice. This was a C12th "green revolution".

1150AD: Crusaders, May, Capture of Jocelyn II Courtenay. Grant of County of Edessa to the Byzantines.

1152AD: Marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry Plantagenet (Anjou) of England. Frederick Barbarossa becomes King of Germany.

July 1153: Date given for introduction of Islam to the Maldives Islands, Indian Ocean, which earlier had been Hindu or Buddhist in religion. Date is firmed by an inscription in the Friday Mosque of Male, the main island there. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1153AD: The Maldives Islands near India and Ceylon - how the islanders adopted the faith of Islam. Maldives is comprised of 1,190 small islands forming a chain of 26 atolls, running north to south for 820km and no more than 130km wide. The indigenous people are known as Dhivehin (islanders), though their original number has been added to by Arab travellers and African slaves. The legend exists that a travelling Arab Saint, Abu al-Barakat, converted the islanders to Islam in 1153 after ridding the area of a pagan spirit which arose each month to murder a virgin girl. From 1153 to 1968 the Maldives was a Sultanate.

1153AD: Crusaders, Reynald of Chatillon now Prince of Antioch. 19 August, Capture of Ascalon.

1154AD: Crusaders, Occupation of Damascus by Nur-al-Din. Reunification by Moslems (Nur ad-Din) of Damascus and Aleppo. (Item from Jean Richard) In 1154, Henry II Plantagenet is King of England.

1156AD: Creation of the Duchy of Austria. In 1156, Frederick Barbarossa becomes Emperor. In 1157 is a rift between Emperor and Pope.

1157AD: Crusaders, War against Nur-al-Din and demonstration against Shaizar. Third expedition of Thierry of Flanders.

1159AD: Manuel Comnenus enters Antioch. In 1159, Alexander III becomes Pope. Schism: Frederick Barbarossa secures election of an anti-pope. In 1159, Byzantine Emperor Manuel concludes a peace treaty with William I of Sicily, re Thebes and its silk industry (many Jewish merchants).

1160AD: Crusaders, Capture of Reynald of Chatillon. In the 1160s, series of Crusader invasions into Egypt.

1160AD: Death in Fatimite Egypt of al-Faiz, who is succeeded by Adid, grandson of Hafidh, and last of the Fatimite caliphs. Rival viziers continue to argue. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 43ff.)

1162AD: Islam: Adil, son of Adid (Fatimite Egypt), dispossesses Shawir of his government in Upper Egypt and Shawir marches against Adil, kills him and makes himself vizier in his place. Is put to flight by Al-Dirgham and takes refuge with Nur ad-Din.

1162AD: Alfonso II is King of Aragon. The Count of Barcelona leaves the allegiance of the King of France. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 43ff.)

1163AD: Crusaders: First campaign in Egypt. Nur-al-Din defeated at the Biqa. 11 August, Victory of Nur-al-Din at Harenc. 1163-1174, Aumary is King of Jerusalem.

1163AD: Council of Tours (Context of papal schism.) Beginning of building of Notre Dame Cathedral.

1163AD: Nur ad-Din sends army under Shirkuh to reinstate Shawir. Dirgham defeated, and Shawir reinstated. He soon throws off allegiance to Nur ad-Din, and allies himself with Crusaders. Shirkuh withdraws. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 43-45.)

1164AD: Crusaders: Second expedition into Egypt.

1165AD: Nur ad-Din again sends Shirkuh to Egypt with a great army, accompanied by Saladin. Battle at Al-Babain, victory for invaders. Alexandria falls into their hands. Crusaders oppose them. Adid requests aid from Nur ad-Din. Shirkuh is sent again and he and Saladin again enter Cairo. Shirkuh is appointed vizier by Adid, and when he dies, Saladin is appointed vizier. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 43ff.)

1165AD: By 1165 in Jerusalem, amongst goldsmiths, money changers and minters are many Frenchmen, Lorrainers, Normans, Auvergnats, Italians, Spaniards, Burgundians. The city has a large Frankish population. (Item from Jean Richard)

1165AD: Canonization of Charlemagne by anti-pope Paschal III.

1166AD: Seizure of Brittany by Henry II of England.

1167AD: Formation of the Lombard League.

1167AD: Crusaders and Fatimite Egypt, Third Egyptian Campaign. Defeat of Babain and siege of Alexandria.

1168AD: Crusaders: Attempted conquest of Egypt by Balbain. Capture of Bilbeis, burning of Fustat and evacuation of Egypt.

1169AD: Islam: Shirkuh becomes vizier in Egypt and accepts leadership of Nur ad-Din.

1169AD: Heretical assembly in the Lauragais area of Southern France.

1169AD: Vladimir becomes capital of Russia.

1169AD: October-December: Crusaders: Franco-Byzantine attempt on Damietta.

1170AD, Crusaders: By 1170 appears from France the family Villehardouin, destined to be influential in the occupation of Southern Greece, as with the Duchy of Athens, the Morea, Archaea.

1170-1172AD: Campaign of Nur-al-Din and Saladin in Oultrejourdain.

1170AD: Murder in England of Thomas Becket. In France, conversion of merchant of Lyons, Pierre Valdes, and founder of the Waldensian sect.

1170AD: Islam, Death of Mustanjid, succeeded by his son Mustadi. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

1171AD: Islam, Sultan of Egypt, Saladin, destroys the Fatimite Dynasty there. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

1174AD: Crusaders: Saladin takes Damascus.

1174-1182AD: Building of Monreale in Sicily.

1174AD: Saladin now master of Damascus. Death of Amalric.

1174-1185AD: Baldwin IV is King of Jerusalem. May 1174: Death of Nur ad-Din.

1175AD: Circa, Benedict of St Maure writes History of the Dukes of Normandy.

1176AD: Defeat of Manuel Comnenus at Myriokephalon. In 1176, Victory of the Lombard League over Frederick I.

1177AD: Crusaders, Crusade of Philip of Flanders, Siege of Harenc. 25-26 November, Victory of Baldwin IV at Montgisard. In 1177, Pope and Emperor meet in Venice: Peace of Venice. November, 1177, Crusader army defeats Saladin at Mont Gisard.

1178AD: Papal mission to the Albigensian heretics.

1179AD: Third Lateran Council. Attempts to end Christian schisms. Raid on Tyre by Saladin.

1180 or so: Genoese merchants from Italy sail through the Straits of Gibraltar and south to trade with the Atlantic coast of Morocco. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1180AD: Defeat of Baldwin IV at Banyas and Jacob's Ford. Marriage of Sibylla of Jerusalem and Guy of Lusignan. In 1180, Philip II Augustus is King of France. Seizure of French Jews.

1180AD: Islam, Death of Mustadi, succeeded by his son, Nasir. He recognizes the usurpation of Saladin. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

1182AD: Slaughter of Crusaders at Constantinople.

1183AD: Expeditions of Reynald of Chatillon in Arabia and Red Sea area. Saladin now master of Aleppo. Siege of Kerak. In Islam, Fall of Ghazni. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.) In 1183, Peace of Constance, liberties of the Lombard towns is recognised by Frederick I.

1184AD: Crusaders: Rebellion of Guy of Lusignan. Surrender of Montargis to the French king.

By 1185AD: Paris as city has paving for pedestrians. In France, acquisition of Arras and the Vermandois by Philip II. In 1185, last attempt of the Sicilian Normans (William II) to subdue the Byzantine Empire. Tancred De Hauteville raises a powerful fleet, the pretext for movement is the alleged cruelty of Byzantine Andronicus I, and attacks Dyrrachium. Thessalonica is then approached with great cruelty. The altars of Greek churches are defiled. In time, Andronicus I is dethroned, anyway; Tancred's Sicilian fleet approaches Constantinople. On 7 November, 1185, the Byzantines win; the Norman generals Count Aldoin and Richard Acerra are taken prisoner. Tancred regroups and returns to Sicily, leaving behind hatred in Greece. Ecclesiastics squabbled bitterly.

1186-1194AD: Crusaders: Guy of Lusignan is King of Jerusalem.

1186AD: Appearance of treatise on Courtly Love by Andreas Cappellanus.

1186AD: Crusaders, September, Accession of Guy of Lusignan and rebellion of Raymond III. Treacherous seizure of the Damascus caravan by Reynald of Chatillon, leading to revenges. 1185-1186, Baldwin V is King of Jerusalem.

1187AD-1188: Seizure of Berry by Philip II of France.

1187AD: Islam: Saladin defeats Crusaders 4 July at Battle of Hattin. Followed by conquest of Acre, Jaffa, Haifa, Caesarea, Toron and Sidon, then Beirut and Ascalon. 20 September-2 October, Siege and capitulation of Jerusalem to Saladin. August-December, Proclamation of The Third Crusade.

1188AD: Crusaders, 2 January, Saladin lifts siege of Tyre. Arrival of Sicilian fleet. Failure of Saladin before Tripoli. Part-conquest of principality of Antioch.

Follows a mini-booklist relevant to this section of this website

A. Beardwood, Alien Merchants in England, 1350-1377. Cambridge, Mass., 1931.
E. A. Bond, 'Extracts relative to Loans supplied by Italian merchants to the kings of England in the 13th and 14th centuries', Archaeologia, 28, 1840.
C. Brooke and G. Keir, London 800-1216. 1975.
E. M. Carus-Wilson and O. Coleman, England's Export Trade, 1275-1547. Oxford, 1963.
W. R. Childs, Anglo-Castilian Trade in the Later Middle Ages. Manchester, 1978.
George Finlay, The History of Greece From its Conquest by the Crusaders to its Conquest by the Turks, and of the Empire of Trebizond, 1204-1461. Edinburgh, Blackwood and Sons, MDCCCLI/1851.
On the Riccardi, see R. W. Kaeuper, Bankers to the Crown. Princeton, NJ, 1973.
R. W. Kaeuper, 'The Frescobaldi of Florence and the English Crown', Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, I, 1973.
J. Klein, The Mesta: A Study in Spanish Economic History, 1272-1836. Cambridge, Mass., 1932.
T. H. Lloyd, Alien Merchants in England in the High Middle Ages. Harvester Press, Sussex/St Martin's Press, New York, 1982.
T. H. Lloyd, The English Wool Trade in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 1977.
W. E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England to 1327. Cambridge, Mass., 1939.

W. Miller, The Latins in the Levant: A History of Frankish Greece (1204-1556). 1908.
K. Polyani, 'Ports of Trade in early societies', Journal of Economic History, 23, 1963.
M. M. Postan, Medieval Trade and Finance. Cambridge, 1973.
M. Prestwich, 'Italian merchants in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century England. in The Dawn of Modern Banking. New Haven and London, 1979.
A. A. Ruddock, Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton, 1270-1600. Southampton, 1951.
Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades. Especially, Vol. III, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades. Cambridge University Press, 1955.
Steven Runciman,The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus and his Reign: A Study of Tenth-Century Byzantium. Sydney, Cambridge University Press, 1988 edn.
Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century. Cambridge at the University Press, 1958. (For genealogical tables especially)
Steven Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades. 3 volumes. N.Y., 1965. (Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades. New York, Harper and Row 1964-)
T. F. Ruiz, 'Castilian merchants and England, 1248-1350', in W. C. Jordan, (Ed.), Order and Innovation in the later Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ, 1976, which also has A. R. Lewis, 'Northern European sea power and the straits of Gibraltar, 1031-1350AD'.
Kenneth M. Setton, A History of the Crusades. Volume I. The First Hundred Years. edited by M.W. Baldwin (1955); Volume 2. The Later Crusades. edited by R.L. Wolff (1962); Volume 3. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. edited by H.W. Hazard (1975); Volume 4. The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States. edited by H.W. Hazard (1977). 2d ed. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1969-1989.
Kenneth Setton, Harry W. Hazard and Norman P. Zacour, A History of the Crusades. 6 volumes. Last volume: Madison, 1989. (An exhaustive series of essays on each Crusade and on many related topics with extensive bibliography)
Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571. Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1976-1984.
V. M. Shillington and A. B. W. Chapman, The Commercial Relations of England and Portugal. London, 1907.
C. Verlinden, 'The Rise of the Spanish trade in the Middle Ages', ECHR, 10, 1939-1940.

1189-1192AD: Third Crusade.

1189AD: May: Departure of Emperor Frederick (1) Barbarossa. August-12 July 1191, See Siege of Acre. In 1189, Richard I The Lionheart is King of England. Henry VI is King of Germany.

1190AD: Crusaders: Foundation of The Teutonic Knights. Winter 1190-1191, French and English stay in Sicily.

1190AD: 10 June: Death of Frederick II in Cilicia/Anatolia by drowning. July, arrival of Henry of Champagne at Acre. Philip Augustus and Richard I The Lionheart at Vezelay. Philip II departs Vezelay on Third Crusade. Work begins on Paris city walls.

1191AD: Henry VI is Emperor.

1191AD: 20 April, Philip arrives at Acre. 6 May, Landing of Richard on Cyprus. 8 June, Richard arrives at Acre which surrenders on 21 July. 7 September, Crusader victory of Arsur/Arsuf (Richard the Lionheart meets Saladin. Nov-Dec, Richard's Crusaders march to Jerusalem but fall back to the coast.

1192AD: Philip II back in France seizes Artois.

1192AD: December-January, Crusader army at Betenople. Retreat to Ascalon. 28 April, Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat. Henry of Champagne becomes lord of the kingdom. June-July, Crusaders are again at Betenople; Richard's Crusaders march again to Jerusalem but are turned back again. July-August, Richard has victory at Jaffa. 2 September, Franco-Moslem truces.

1193AD: France: Philip II repudiates his wife Ingeborg of Denmark. Capture of Richard I in Austria. Seizure of Plantagenet lands in France by Philip II.

1193AD: 4 March: Islam: Death of Saladin, enemy of the European Crusaders. Saladin's heirs display rivalry.

1194AD: Crusaders: Conquest of Sicily by Henry VI. Recovery of lands in France by Richard I. Defeat of Philip II at Freteval. Synod of Compiegne. Work starts on new cathedral of Notre-Dame at Chartres.

1194-1199AD: Islam: Moslem conquest of Northern India and Bengal.

1194AD: Crusaders: Ambush of Baghras and Armenians lose their hold on Antioch.

1196AD: Circa, Appearance of book History of the Kings of France by Andrew of Marchiennes.

1197AD: Crusaders: Abortive Crusade of Henry VI. Recapture of Jaffa by Al-Adil and death of Henry of Champagne. October, Recapture of Beirut. Siege of Toron.

1198AD: Crusaders: Promulgation of The Fourth Crusade as preached by Fulk of Neuilly. In 1198, Innocent III is Pope. In 1198, French routed before Gisors by Richard I. 1194-1224, Albert of Buxtehude expands the Baltic Crusades. August 1198, Innocent III calls the Fourth Crusade.

1199AD: Death of King Richard I (The Lionheart), after being wounded while besieging castle of Chalus in France, succeeded by his brother John. Transfer of Gien to Philip II. John (Lackland) is King of England.

1200AD: Islam: Unification of Ayyubid empire by al-Adil.

Circa 1200AD: France: In France, foundation of University of Paris. France placed under interdict by Innocent III and Philip II acknowledges Ingeborg of Denmark as his lawful wife. County of Evreux becomes part of French royal domain.

1200AD: The Mongols learn of balloons by about 1200AD from the Chinese they have conquered. There are descriptions of the use of balloons in 1241 when Poles fight the Mongols at the Battle of Legnica. The Mongol balloon seems to have been a signalling device, or, a standard for rallying Mongol troops. (Source: James/Thorpe).

1201AD: Crusaders: Death of Bohemond III and beginning of disputed succession to Antioch. April, Treaty between Venice and the Crusaders (1201-1213).

1201-1204AD: Fourth Crusade. Philip Hurepel is legitimized by Pope Innocent III. Champagne is now under royal jurisdiction.

1202AD: October-November: Crusaders: Siege of Zara (Christian port on Dalmatian coast) and sacking by Venetians and Crusaders. .

1202-1204AD: Conquest of Normandy by Philip II from King John of France.

1203AD: Duchies of Greece: Crusaders: Landing in Constantinople, and recapture. Restoration of Isaac II. On 23 June, 1203, the Venetian fleet (Doge Henry Dandalo) carrying an army of Crusaders sights Constantinople, and one ship breaks the chain of the harbour. Flemish knights battle with England and Danes of the Varangian Guard. Alexius III abandons Constantinople, his brother Isaac is released from prison and placed on the throne. The Treaty of Zara is re-ratified. Then appears Alexius IV. Constantinople (almost 300,000 population) is wrecked (by 20,000 Crusaders) and never quite recovers. Alexius IV is dethroned and murdered by Alexius V (Mourzouphlous). The reputation of Franks (French-speakers) is forever stained. Pope Innocent III objects at reports of the Crusaders' behaviour. Baldwin, Count of Flanders and Emperor Romania, counts three hundred thousand marks of silver and 10,0000 horses and mules. Baldwin of Flanders on 9 May is elected Emperor, against Boniface, the Marquis of Montferrat, who becomes King of Salonica with a title to Crete. Venice received three-eighths of the Empire. The rest of the territory was given to vassals. The most important Greek area was the principality of Archaia, which went first to William of Champlitte, then to Geoffrey Villehardouin.
Doge of Venice Henry Dandalo seems to be noted In Lane on Venice, p. 37. He is in control of the departure of the Fourth Crusade, where Villehardouin is a figure. He is Enrico or Arrigo, is blind from a battle wound to head, is aged when elected, and becomes last of the crusading Doges; he is reigning eight years when news comes that Pope Innocent III has called 4th/5th Crusade. He has son Renier (in Cheetham, pp. 274-275.) He also has nephew Marino Dandolo.
In Miller, on Frankish history, p. 43, he has nephew, Crusader Marco Sanudo, who sells Crete to republic of Venice.
See Mrs Aubrey Richardson, The Doges of Venice. London, Methuen, 1914. Also on Doges, see D. S. Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580. London, Thames and Hudson, 1970.

1204AD: Crusaders: 12 April, Capture and sack of Constantinople; in September, Truces with Amalric, reoccupation of Sidon and Jaffa. In 1204 in Venice, Partition of Byzantine Empire under Doge Enrico Dandolo. In effect, the Venetians and the Crusaders partition and the carve up the Byzantine Empire. Boniface of Montferrat "sells" Crete to Venice. Genoese are already resident on Crete, including Count of Malta, Enrico Pescatore. Miller (in Latins in the Levant, p. 49), writes, "The usual tendency of the desperately logical Latin intellect, when brought face to face with a new set of political conditions, is to frame a paper constitution, absolutely perfect in theory, and absolutely unworkable in practice". But in the case of occupying Greece, the French involved simply transplanted feudalism.

1204AD: Crusaders, Capture of Thessalonica by Boniface Marquis of Montferrat (who is married to Margaret, daughter of King of Hungary). Occupation of Normandy, Anjou and Poitou by Philip II. Foundation of Christian Empire in the East. Baldwin IX, Count Flanders, is elected Emperor in Constantinople. King Peter of Aragon becomes a papal vassal.

1204AD: Beginning of the campaigns of Genghis Khan.

1205AD: Duchies of Greece, A fleet which takes the first Latin patriarch to Constantinople takes possession of Corfu in name of Venetian republic. The people of Corfu resist.

1205AD: Crusaders, Duchies of Greece, Conquest of the Morea by William of Champlitte. (Sometimes known as "of Champagne") Earlier, Boniface of Montferrat had done homage to the Emperor re the Kingdom of Salonica, and is made commander-in-chief of the force which will march across Morea and take possession of baronies made possible by the partition. In 1205, one army under Count of Blois and Henry of Flanders, the Emperor's brother, attacked the Greeks in Asia, while the King of Salonica invaded Greece. In time, the title King of Salonica becomes a hollow title. Once the Franks had left, the Greeks of Adrianople rise in revolt, aided by Joannes, King of Bulgaria and Vallachia. Joannes cuts Emperor Baldwin's rescue army to pieces and kills Baldwin. The Bulgarians ravage Greece and the Greeks learn how the cruelty of the Franks can be exceeded. The Franks retreat to Rhedestos. Baldwin's brother, Henry of Flanders, becomes Emperor, crowned 20 August, 1206. In 1205, Otho de la Roche, a Burgundian noble, marches south with the army of Boniface of Montferrat and gains possession of Athens (Lord Athens and Thebes). Shortly, the Burgundian influence at Athens was challenged by a Greek notable, Leo Sgourous, who fought but was forced back to Corinth. Otho de la Roche retains control of Attica and Boetia.

1206AD: Duchies of Greece: A large Venetian fleet under command of son of Doge Dandalo sails to retake control of Corfu. Sixty resisters (pirates?) are executed. This puts fear into a "fellow-pirate", Matthew Orsini, who rules over Cephalonia and Zante, and by 1208 Orsini has adopted the view of Venice on affairs.

1206AD: Duchies of Greece: Henry of Flanders is Emperor of Constantinople. Principality of Morea is founded in Greece. In March 1206, the ecclesiastical affairs of the Byzantine Empire are resettled. One fifteenth of lands taken will be given to the Latin Church.

1206-1227AD: Conquests of Genghis Kahn. In 1206, Genghis proclaims himself Khan of the Mongols. He conquers much territory 1218-1221.

1206AD: Iraqi scientist al-Jazari, completes a book on marvellous machines. (Such as, birds that drop stones onto cymbals). (Source: James/Thorpe).

1207AD: Duchies of Greece: Boniface of Montferrat is killed in a fight with Bulgarians. The Kingdom of Salonica is later ruined, partly by the incompetence of Lombards.

1209-1226AD: Albigensian Crusades.

1209AD: Duchies of Greece: Henry of Flanders at a small town, Ravenika, calls a high court of his vassals to determine the (French-defined) feudal relations to be transplanted in Greece. Lombards from Italy are trying to make inroads on situations. Thebes is restored to Otho de la Roche. Mark Sanudo is given island of Naxos as Duke of the Archipelago (of the Aegean). Geoffrey Villehardouin the Younger is made Seneschal of Romania. Raven dalle Carceri has Negroponte.
1209AD: Duchies of Greece: Villehardouin becomes "man of the Emperor" and is given office of Seneschal of Romania. Shortly Villehardouin has to negotiate with Venice, then try to outsmart the newly-arriving Robert of Champlitte, cousin of Champlittes already in the area. Meantime, Othon de la Roche encourages the Burgundian influences of France, at the Court of Athens. (Othon marries Isabelle, heiress of Guy de Ray.)
1209AD: Duchies of Greece, Villehardouin, one of the invaders of Greece, (Baron of Kalamata and Arkadia, or Kyparissia), appoints his nephew Hugh as his deputy in Archaia and sails for the west, but dies in Apulia, Italy. Archaia and parts of southern Greece have been divided into 12 baronies, the barons forming a high court. One of the invaders' fortresses is Matagrifon ("Kill-Greek"), built by the baron of Akova, Walter de Rosieres. Some other barons are Hugues de Bruyeres and his son Geoffrey; Jean de Neuilly, hereditary marshal of Archaia, Hugues de Lille de Charpigny, Othon de Tournay, Audebert de la Tremouille, the Belgian Matthew de Valaincourt de Mons, William de Morlay, Guy de Nivelet, William Aleman of a Provencal family. The headquarters of the Teutonic knights were near Kalamata. Serfs in the various baronies were "assigned" to their new lords. It so happened that later, many estates passed into the hands of women, in a militarised context and society, which in time had disastrous consequences. (Miller, Latins in the Levant, p. 55).

1210-1211AD: Resumption of hostilities in the Holy Land.

1210AD: Excommunication of Otto IV by Innocent III.

1211AD: Frederick II is King of Germany.

July 1212AD: Crusaders: King Alfonso VIII of Castile expands the Reconquista, King Sancho VII of Navarre wins the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.

1213AD: Another date for The Children's Crusade, Announcement of Fifth Crusade. In France in 1213AD, Battle of Muret. Vermandois, Valois and the Auvergne are absorbed into royal French domain.

1214AD: John of England invades France. French Victory at Bouvines. Establishment of a new port at Paris by Philip II.

1214: Duchies of Greece: Michael I, founder of the despotate of Epirus, is assassinated by one of his slaves.

1215AD: The Catholic Church declares the fuller doctrine of marriage as a Christian sacrament. (It took the great families to make the idea stick, as an aid to keeping feudal property intact.)

1215AD: Genoese build a castle in Monaco, and control of it passes to the Grimaldi family of Genoa. Grimaldi have held it ever since. (Prince Rainier who married actress Grace Kelly is then a Grimaldi.)
See Reader's Digest, History of Man: The Last Two Million Years. Sydney, The Reader's Digest Association, 1973-1974.

1215AD: In England, writing of the Magna Carta.
In 1215AD: at Runnymede, King John forced to sign Magna Carta by nobles. Magna Carta is condemned by Pope Innocent III.

1215AD: November, Fourth Lateran Council.

1216AD: Crusaders: Prince Louis wages war in England. Fifth Crusade preached by Pope Honorious III. Henry III is King of England. In 1216, in the area of Greece, Emperor Henry of Flanders dies.

1217AD, August: Crusaders: Departure of the Duke of Austria and the King of Hungary,. November-December, Siege of Mount Tabor. In 1217, Peter Capet of Courtenay is Emperor of Constantinople. In 1217, in Duchies of Greece, Peter Capet is defeated and captured by Theodore I Angelos Comnenos Dukas. Theodore, by 1224 has taken Adrianople and has lands from the Adriatic to the Black Sea; he plans to take Constantinople but is interrupted by war with John Asen, king of Bulgaria, who had Theodore blinded for his intrigues after capture in 1230.

The Children's Crusade 1218-1221AD. (Another date is 1212?)

1218AD, 28 May: Crusaders: Landing of John of Brienne in Egypt. May, Fifth Crusaders begin siege of Damietta. 24 August, Capture of the Tower of the Chain. In 1218, Death of Simon of Montfort before Toulouse.

1219AD: 5 November: Crusaders: Capture of Damietta. Prince Louis makes expedition into the Langeudoc in France.

1220: Building of Chartres Cathedral, France.

1220AD: Frederick II is Emperor.

1221AD: 30 August: Crusaders: Capitulation of the Crusader army at Baramun and evacuation of Damietta.

1222AD: Duchess of Greece: Despot Theodore of Thessalonica subdues the Kingdom of Salonica. William Marquis of Montferrat plans to retake the kingdom of Salonica on behalf of its king, his younger brother Demetrius. William here has financial help from the Papacy. This campaign to retake Salonica begins in 1225. Demetrius died in 1227 while planning another expedition to retake Salonica. The empty title of King of Salonica had been passed by Demetrius to Emperor Frederic II, who declined, so it went to Boniface III Marquis of Montferrat, then William dalle Carceri, Baron Negroponte, who had married a niece of Demetrius', inherited from Boniface III. However, at this point the title was also claimed by William V, Marquis of Montferrat, The Great (Longsword, who married Isabella, daughter of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III). Longsword gave the title to his daughter Irene as dowry when she married the Greek Emperor Andronicus II in 1284AD. So the title returned to the Byzantine Empire. Also, in 1266AD, Baldwin II, driven from Constantinople, ceded the title of King of Salonica to Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy. Hugh IV gave the title to his brother Robert, then the title went to a nephew, Hugh V, Duke of Burgundy.

1223AD: Louis VIII becomes King of France.

1224AD: Duchies of Greece: Frankish army is defeated by Emperor John III Vatatzes at Battle of Pemaneon. Soon Anrianople is captured by Theodore, despot of Epirus. There arises a gruesome story at this point. A daughter of the knight of Neuville, a veteran Crusader, lately dead, is betrothed to a Burgundian knight. The elected young Emperor Robert, brother of the recalcitrant Belgian, Philip of Namur, falls in love with the Neuville daughter. The girl's mother approves, so Robert invites both to live in his palace. The rejected Burgundian vowed revenge. He gathered friends, some of whom dressed in their armour, and walked unsuspected into the palace. He made his way to the women's apartments, and his friends took the girl's mother and drowned her in the Bosphorus. The Burgundian then mutilated the girl by cutting off her nose and lips, then departed.

1224AD: Armenia, Hayton I, Some of the kings are Latin princes, who are trying to make their subjects conform to the Roman Church. May break up the country into discordant factions? (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 46.) In 1224, areas around Albi and Carcassone are surrendered by Aumary of Montfort to Louis VIII. French conquest of Saintonge and Poitou is complete.

1225-1226AD: France, Louis VIII campaigns into the Languedoc.

1225AD: University of Bologna institutes a Chair of Astrology.

1225AD: Duchies of Greece, Otho de la Roche Lord Athens resigns government of Athens and Thebes to his nephew Guy, son of Otho's brother, Pons le Ray.

1225AD: Crusaders: Marriage of Frederick II and Isabella of Jerusalem.

1225AD: Islam, Death of Nasir, succeeded by his son Dahir, who dies in 1226 to be succeeded by his Mustansir. The whole of Persia is now subject to the Mongols. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

1226AD: Death of St Francis of Assisi. Regency of Blanche of Castile, mother of Louis IX.

1227AD: October: Crusaders: Landing of German and English troops at Acre. Rebuilding of Sidon and Caesarea. In 1227, Gregory IX is Pope.

1228AD: 7 September: Crusaders: Arrival of Frederick II at Acre. Frederick II is King of Jerusalem through marriage to Isabel (Yolande).

1228-1229AD: Crusade of Frederick II.

1228-1229AD: The Fifth Crusade.

1229AD: 18 February: Crusaders: Treaty of Jaffa and restoration of Jerusalem to Frederick II from Al-Kamil. In 1229, Treaty of Paris between Louis IX and Raymond of Toulouse; Carcassone, Beziers, Nimes and Beaucaire become part of the French royal domain. Council of Toulouse, organisation of the Inquisition and foundation of the University of Toulouse.

1230AD: Union of Castile and Leon under Ferdinand II. In Duchies of Greece, John Asen, King of Bulgaria, sickens of the intrigues of his captive Theodore Angelos Comnenus Dukas, brother of Michael I, and has Theodore blinded. John Asen however falls in love with Theodore's daughter, marries her, then releases his father-in-law, who continues with intrigues.

1230-1233AD: War between Filangieri and the Guelph party. The Commune of Acre.

1233AD: The Inquisition is entrusted to The Friars.

1234AD: Marriage of Louis IX and Margaret of Provence. In 1234, short-lived empire of Thessalonica ceases to exist. In 1236 it is reunited with the Greek Empire.

1236AD: Spain: Capture of Cordova by Ferdinand III of Castile.

1237AD: Marriage of Jeanne of Toulouse and Alfonso of Poitiers. With Duchies of Greece, death in 1237 of John of Brienne, whose "empire" is confined to a narrow circuit around the walls of Constantinople. About now, Saint Louis of France buys from Baldwin, the alleged Relics of Jesus including: a piece of the true cross, the linen cloth in which the body of Jesus had been shrouded, the bonds, the sponge and the cup of the crucifixion, a piece of the skull of John the Baptist. And the rod of Moses!

1238AD: Spain, Reduction of Valencia by James I. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1238-1492AD: In 1238 founding of the Moslem Kingdom of Granada. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1238AD: Crusaders: Pope Gregory X's crusade to assist Constantinople.

1239AD: Crusaders: August, Departure of Crusaders for Holy Land. 13 November, Defeat of Sixth Crusaders at Gaza. Frederick II is excommunicated.

Circa 1240AD: Possible first recorded European contact with China after Mongol Empire allows use of safer travel through Asia.

1240AD, 11 October: Crusaders: Arrival in Holy Land of Richard of Cornwall.

1241AD: Mongol invasion of Hungary and Poland.

1241AD: 23 April: Crusaders: Treaty between Richard of Cornwall and the Sultan of Egypt.

1243AD: July: Crusaders: Tyre seized from supporters of Frederick II. In 1243, Innocent IV becomes Pope.

1244AD: Crusaders: Loss of Jerusalem by Christians. In France, capture of Cathar Castle of Montsegur.

1244AD, 23 August: Crusaders: Loss of Jerusalem, in 17 October, Disaster of La Forbie. December, St Louis vows to make a Crusade.

1245-1246AD: Mission of John of Plano Carpini/Carpine to the Mongols. Louis IX conducts great inquiry into the Kingdom.

1245AD: Islam: Death of Mustansir, his son Mustasim succeeds. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

1245AD: Spain, Muhammed cedes the town of Jaen to Ferdinand III of Castile, and it becomes a tributary of Castile. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1245AD: June-July, Council of Lyons.

1246AD: Heretic trials at Toulouse.

1247AD: Council of Lyons.

1248-1254AD: Crusaders: First Crusade of St Louis/Sixth Crusade. In 1248: 25 August, departure from Aigues-Mortes. September-May, 1249, St Louis in Cyprus, Andrew of Longjumeau is sent to the Mongols.

1248AD: Spain: Surrender of Seville to Ferdinand. Other cities follow. Christians take Seville from the Moslems. The Moslems took Granada in 1492. Mathematics, astrology and medicine all benefited from Moslem influences. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1249AD: 5 June: Crusaders: Landing of the Crusaders (Seventh Crusade) of Damietta, and capture. In 1249, Alfonso of Poitiers becomes Count of Toulouse.

1249-1250AD: Swedish expedition to Finland.

1248-1254AD: The Sixth Crusade.

1250AD: 8 February: Crusaders: Crossing of Bahr-al-Saghir. Battle of Mansurah. 6 April, Capture of Louis IV and disaster of Fariskur. 2 May, Murder of the Sultan Turanshah and seizure of power by the Mamluks. 6 May, Surrender of Damietta.

1250AD: Approx. Global warming? The first one-third of the second millennium has much warmer than weather we have now. "Greenland" was actually green and Viking settlers managed to grow crops there, something which current temperatures do not support", according to Barry Hearn, co-ordinator of an Australian environmental group, EVAG. (Comparison: The 1990s were Australia's hottest decade since records-keeping began.)

1250AD approx: C13th generally. Axial stern-post rudder and the compass reach the Mediterranean from China. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1250-1517AD: Mameluke Dynasty rules Egypt independently. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1252AD: Crusaders: Alliance between Louis IX and the Mamluks.

1252AD: Financial event, Florence and Genoa strike gold florins.

1252: Gold coins are first struck for trading use in Genoa and Florence. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1253: Genoese merchants establish a West African trading station further south, in Safi. It seems probably that they learn of the gold-producing lands south of the Sahara. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1253AD: Italy, Venice, Doge is Ranieri Zeno. First Genoese War. Fort of Marcamo is built on the Po River.

1253AD: Muhammed founds the Alhambra at Granada, Spain. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1254AD: 24 April: Crusaders: St Louis leaves Acre and departs Holy Land. Truce with the Moslems. In Spain, Alfonso X of Castile conquers many Moorish cities in southern Spain. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.) In 1254, Alexander IV becomes Pope.

1255AD: France, Reforming ordinances of Louis IX.

1256-1258AD: Crusaders, War of St. Sabas, Revolt of the barons of Tripoli against Bohemond VI. Feb, 1258, Capture of Baghdad by the Mongols.

1256AD: Islam: Hulagu, Khan of the Mongols, invades Persia and exterminates the Assassins. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

From 1258AD: Korea is under Mongol influence. The Mongols go into India and establish the Mogul kingships; but are later invaded by Tamerlane, who sacked Delhi in 1398 and killed 100,000 people.

1258AD: Islam: The Mongols under Hulagu take Baghdad and kill Mustasim. End of the Islamic Abbasid Dynasty. (Mongols also manage to attack both Java and Japan.)

1259AD: Treaty of Paris between Louis IX and Henry III of England. In Duchies of Greece, Battle of Pelagonia, before which, John Dukas, natural son of despot Michael II, deserts his father. This John Dukas becomes first Prince of Vlachia; his unknown son was second Prince Vlachia.

1260AD: Crusaders: Mongol campaign in Syria. Capture of Aleppo and Damascus, in September, Mongol defeat at Ayn Jalut. Accession of Sultan Baybars.

1260AD: Circa, Marco Polo begins travel to Mongol Empire.

1260AD: Crusaders: Mongol campaign in Syria. Capture of Aleppo and Damascus, in September, Mongol defeat at Ayn Jalut. Accession of Sultan Baybars.

1261AD: Recapture of Constantinople by Michael Palaeologus. In 1261, Frenchman Urban IV becomes Pope.

1261AD: Islam Muhammed in Spain attempts to cast off the yoke of Castile, and encourages Andalusia and Murcia to rebel. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1261AD: Islam Muhammed in Spain attempts to cast off the yoke of Castile, and encourages Andalusia and Murcia to rebel. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1262AD: Spain: Capture of Cadiz.

1263AD: Crusaders: Attack on Acre by Baybars. From 1263-1266 in France, establishment of a single currency for the realm, creation of gros tournois.

1264AD: Moslem Spain, Peace with Castile, Granada is again a tributary. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

Circa 1264AD: Duchies of Greece, Death of Duke of Athens Guy I de la Roche, who is succeeded by his son John (died 1275 who does not marry). William a brother succeeds John in 1275.

1264AD: Crusaders: Hulegu offers alliance to Saint Louis (of France). In France, uprisings of the Barons.

1264AD: Moslem Spain, Peace with Castile, Granada is again a tributary. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1265AD: Crusaders, Capture of Caesarea, Caiphas and Arsur. Crusade of Count Eudes of Nevers. In 1265, Clement IV (a Frenchman) becomes Pope.

Circa 1265: Italian Banker, SCALA, active by the 1260s.
See Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 171.

1266AD: The Eighth Crusade against Tunisia.

1266AD: Crusaders: Capture of Saphet and Toron. In Spain, Capture of Murcia by James I. All Spain is now Christian, except Granada. In 1266, Marco Polo arrives in Peking/Beijing, China.

1266AD, Duchies of Greece: Baldwin II, driven from Constantinople, cedes the empty title of King of Salonica to Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy. Hugh IV gave the title to his brother Robert, then the title went to a nephew, Hugh V, Duke of Burgundy.

1266AD: Greenland accepts a Norwegian king.
Note:
Mark Kurlanksy, The Basque History of the World. Jonathan Cape, 1999-2000. Basques speak "an ancient and forbidden" language, Euskera, which has no linguistic relative. They are the only surviving pre-Indo-European people in Europe. They have been cod fishermen sailing to Greenland, pioneers in the spice trade between Europe and the Americas, and sold hot-peppers to Europe. They became large-scale manufacturers of chocolate. They were named as a people by the Romans. They have no nation, (living in both France and Spain), and no borders.

1267AD: Iceland accepts a Norwegian king.

Circa 1268: Italian Banker CERCHI. By 1282 the Cerchi have split into two groups, known as Durand la Bon and Cerchi, or, Cerchi Bianchi and Cerchi Neri. As it were, into black and white factions. (In Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 171.)

By 1268AD: Venice: The City Fathers of Venice have solved a knotty problem for the election of the Doge, leader of the republic of Venice. In 1229, the voting contest for Giacomo Tiepolo and Marino Dandolo was fiercely factional, and the two men gained equal votes from a nominating committee. The contest for the Dogeship has already become a matter of fierce rivalry between powerful families and factions. The Venetians found a way out, as follows: they elaborated a series of nominations of nominating committees by nominating committees, and by lot. By 1268, the procedure was as follows: From the Great Council there was chosen by lot 30;
the 30 were reduced by lot to 9;
the 9 named 40:
the 40 were reduced by lot to 12;
the 12 named 25;
the 25 were reduced by lot to 9;
the 9 named 45;
, the 45 were reduced by lot to 11;
the 11 named 41;
the 41 nominated the Doge for approval by the Assembly. The re-selections blurred factional alignments and helped promote the "objectively best" candidate.
(Taken from Frederic C. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic. London, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973., p. 111.)

1268AD: Polo brothers return to China with young Marco with them.

1268AD: Crusaders: Capture of Jaffa (Tel Aviv) and Beaufort, attack on Tripoli, capture of Antioch by Saracens and fall of Baghras. Promulgation of the Eighth Crusade. Defeat in 1268 of last descendant of Frederick II by Charles of Anjou.

1269AD: Crusaders: Aragonese Crusade.

1270AD: St Louis' Crusade: Tunis campaign and death of the king Louis IX at Tunis. Philip III becomes King of France.

1271AD: The great Crusader castle Krak de Chevaliers in Syria, built by Knights Hospitaller of St. John, is forced to surrender. Crusades can be seen as a stimulus to trade. Merchant classes grow in Pisa, Milan, Genoa, Venice, Florence and Siena, as investors and tax collectors for the Pope. Medici banking family of Florence has branches at Milan, Naples, Pisa, Venice, Geneva, Lyons, Avignon, Bruges and London.

1271: Marco Polo travels to China.
(Giles Milton, Nathaniel's Nutmeg. Penguin Books, 1999/2000.)

1271AD: Crusaders: Fall of Crac des Chevaliers, Chastel Blanc and Gibelcar, then Montfort. Edward I's Crusade in the Holy Land. In 1271, Gregory X becomes Pope. In 1271, County of Toulouse is annexed to French Crown by inheritance.
1270++AD: The Seventh Crusade - The Last Crusades.

1270AD: Circa: More on the little-known Duchy of Athens: Isabella Villehardouin (died 1311 in Holland) was of "the Duchy of Athens", this Isabella also married Florent II (d.1279) of Hainault and one daughter of Florent II married Guy II (d.1308) de la Roche, Duke Athens. We find amongst the Dukes of Athens (DA), the following: the first Duke of Athens, Guy de la Roche, (d.1263), John (of) Livadio (?) died 1280 succeeded as DA by his brother William; Guy II de la Roche died 1308 was DA; Walter Brienne DA died 1311, Manfred Borell died young in 1317 was DA; Walter III Brienne died 1333 was DA; William II Borell DA and Prince Taranto died 1338 was DA; John II Borell died 1347-48, DA may perhaps be the same as John of Randazzo, DA, (d.1348); Walter II Brienne d. 1356 had failed to recover his duchy of Athens.

Sonhier d'Enghien (d.1367) DA, whose brother Louis as DA died in 1394. Frederick II Borell (d. 1377) DA and King of Sicily, Peter IV Borell, King of Aragon, DA, (d.1387), as Duchess of Athens, Maria Borell (d.1402), Queen Sicily, wife of Martin I (II) Borell of Sicily. Isabelle Brienne, who sold remnants of the Duchy to Venetian interests. Antonio I Acciajuoli, of the Florentine family of bankers, DA, died 1435, he was DA for about 35 years after the Navareese Company had ousted the Catalan Company from Southern Greece (Archaea), and therein lies another tale, for how did the Catalan Company, which must have had some connection with the Counts of Barcelona, come to be exploiting Southern Greece?

The Borell line (Counts of Barcelona), intermarried in a multicultural way. Internationally, Borell men married as follows:
Pedro II Borell married Maria of Carinthia, (a title of Italy, probably Germanic in origin);
Peter III Borell married Constance Hohenstaufer;
Raymond-Alfonso II married Richeza of Poland;
James I married Violante Arpad of Hungary;
James II married Eschiva Lusignan.
Raymond Borell married Richeza of Poland;
And Borell women married:
Adelaida married Roger I of Tosny (De Tosny/De Toni, a French title), and after 1066, the Tosnys happened to do well in England;
Isabella married Richard of Cornwall, a Frenchman in the process of becoming "English";
Constanza married Leo V of the Armenian royal family;
Constance married Frederick Hohenstaufer and also Emmerich Arpad, of Hungary;
Margaret married Rudolf of the Palatine;
Isabella married Stephen of Bavaria.

A member of the Borell family (considered by surname) was within the range of grandparent for the following notable marriages:

King Philip III (d.1285) of France married Isabella of Aragon (d.1271), daughter of James I Borell and Violante Arpad. Philip III's mother was Margaret Borell, married to Louis IX of France; this Margaret Borell was daughter of Raymond V Borell (d.1245), Count Provence, and Beatrice of Savoy (d.1266);

and when Eleanor of Provence (d.1291) married Henry III (d.1272) of England

This Eleanor of Provence had a sister Margaret married to Louis IX King of France and Crusader, also a sister Beatrice who married Charles I (Capet) (d.1282-85), King of Sicily and King of Jerusalem, and this Charles I married also to Isabelle Villehardouin, Princess Archaea (southern Greece including Athens), a descendant of the family of the historian of the Crusades, Geoffrey Villehardouin, and the Villehardouins, more or less in retreat from the stress of the Crusades, and unwilling to go back to France, had stayed in Southern Greece, or Archaea, taking advantage of the weaknesses of the Byzantines.

1271: Beginnings of the Silk Road trades partly due to Mongol hegemony. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1272: Italian Banker FRESCOBALDI, active about 1272. This group of bankers had split into "black and white factions" by 1287.
in Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 171. R. Kaeuper, 'The Frescobaldi of Florence and the English crown', Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 10, 1973.

1272: Italian Banker FALCONIERI, active about 1272.
Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 171.

1272AD, 22 May: Crusaders: Truce with the Mamluks. In 1272, Edward I is king of England.

1273AD: Islam: The Merinids arrive in Spain from Africa, to assist the Moors. Death of Muhammed. His son Muhammed II succeeds. He makes a treaty with Alfonso X of Castile. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.) In 1273, Rudolf of Habsburg becomes Emperor.

1274AD: May-July, Second Council of Lyons, promulgation of Crusade, in liaison with the Mongols. In 1274, Council of Lyons.

1274AD: The Ninth Crusade under Edward I of England.

Circa 1275: Italian Banker/merchant RUSTIGACCIO, active circa 1275 in England, by the Guadagnabene.
Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 173.

Circa 1275: Italian Banker/merchant MOZZI, active about 1275,
See Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 171.

Circa 1275: Italian Banker/wool merchant VELUTI.
Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 172.

1275AD: Islam: Spain, Abu Yusuf, king of the Merinids, brings a large army to Spain. The Castilians and Aragonese are defeated, but Alfonso defeats the conqueror. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1275: Edward I (from a website) began his reign with heavy debts incurred due to crusading, and his various wars also were costly. In 1275 Edward gained a secure financial basis when he negotiated a grant of export duties on wool, woolfells, and hides that brought in an average of £10,000 a year. He borrowed extensively from Italian bankers on the security of these customs revenues. The system of levying taxes on an assessment of the value of movable goods was also of great value. Successive profitable taxes were granted, mostly in Parliament. It was partly in return for one such tax, in 1290, that Edward expelled the Jews from England. Their moneylending activities had made them unpopular, and royal exploitation had so impoverished the Jews that there was no longer an advantage for Edward in keeping them in England. The Riccardi, Edward's bankers in the first part of the reign, were effectively bankrupted in 1294, and their eventual successors, the Frescobaldi, were unable to give the king the same level of support as their predecessors.

1276AD: Crusaders: Hugh III Lusignan becomes King of Jerusalem, abandons Syria.

1275-1282AD: Crusaders: War in Holy Land between Guy of Gibelet, the Temple and Bohemond VII.

1277: Italy: The Della Torre family of Milan dispute and lose with the Visconti, led by Archbishop of Milan and Canon of Desio, at Destio, Ottone Visconti. Ottone imprisons Napoleone Della Torre and five of his relatives.

1277AD: January: Crusaders: Maria of Antioch cedes her rights to the throne to Charles of Anjou, and in June, seizure of power in Acre in name of Charles of Anjou. In 1277, Failure of the claim of Charles of Anjou to Kingdom of Jerusalem.

1277AD: First use of military mines, against the Mongol invaders by the Chinese. (Land mine booby trap?) In 1127, the Chinese halt the advance of the Tartars and establish a border that lasts for a century. (Source: James/Thorpe)

1278AD: The Moslem Merinids drive the remaining Almohads from Spain.
(Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1279AD: Mongols under Kublai Khan conquer the whole of China.

1279: Kublai Khan grandson of Genghis Kahn conquers and then rules China. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002 - hardcover edition)

1280AD: more to come

1281AD: Mongol campaign in Syria, their defeat at Homs.

1281AD: Islam: Spain, Alfonso allies himself with the Merinids to suppress a revolt in Castile.

1281AD: Frenchman Martin IV becomes Pope.
(Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1282-1283AD: Conquest of Wales by Edward I of England.

1282AD: The Sicilian Vespers, a careful and successful massacre on the island of Sicily of the French (Angevin) rulers with complicated international reverberations.

1282: Issue of first gold ducat of Venice, Italy. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1283AD: Teutonic Knights complete conquest of Prussia.

1284AD: France: Acquisition by Prince Philip through marriage of administration of Champagne and Navarre.

1284AD: The Japanese defeat the Mongols, with aid from a tornado, which destroyed an invading fleet.

Circa 1280s: Italian Banker/Merchant SCOTTI, active about 1285, He is of Piacenza, Italy, dealing with (Italian?) merchants in the Low Countries and England. At first a prominent company, but of little importance by the 1280s.
Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 173.

1285AD: Spain, Death of Abu Yusuf. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1285AD: Crusaders: Conquest of Margat and retreat from Maraclea. In 1285, Philip IV The Fair becomes King of France.

1286AD: Crusaders: Restoration of dynastic union between Cyprus and Jerusalem.

1287AD: Crusaders: Loss of Latakia. In 1287, agreement on Naples and Sicily between Philip the Fair and Alfonso III of Aragon through arbitration of Edward I.

1287-1288AD: Rabban Sauma's embassy to Rome, Bordeaux and Paris, preparations for a joint campaign with the Mongols.

1288AD: Crusaders: Rebellion of Tripoli against the Princess Lucia.

1289AD: 26 April: Crusaders: Fall of Tripoli.

1289AD: Doge of Venice is Pietro Gradenigo. Second Genoese War. War of Ferrara. Tiepolo-Querini Conspiracy in Venice.

1289AD: Ibn-al-Nafis, a doctor in Egypt writes a book on medicine which advances idea of circulation of the blood.

1290: Jews expelled from England.

1284: A Venetian law refers to use of reading glasses:

1284: a book written for Alfonso X of Castile gives first description in a European language of the game of chess.

1290AD: Promulgation of a Christian Crusade. In England, in 1290AD: Expulsion of the Jews from England. In Duchies of Greece, a Genoese fleets assails Arta. Nicephorus Angelos the despot of Epirus is aided by Florenz of Hainault Prince of Archaia and Richard Count Cephalonia. Nicephorus (died 1293) had one daughter married to John Count Cephalonia and another, Ithamar, who married as first wife of Philip of Tarentum.

1290AD: Duchies of Greece, Death of Duke of Athens William de la Roche, who is succeeded by his son Guy II de la Roche. In 1304, Guy II marries Matilda (Maud) of Hainault, the eleven-year-old daughter of Isabella Villehardouin, Princess of Archaia. Matilda has Kalamata as her dowry.

Circa 1291: Italian Banker/merchant of Siena , BONSIGNORI, re payment to Riccardi on behalf of Edward I to go to the Papacy, working in England. The Bonsignori later failed. (Lloyd, Alien Merchants, pp. 170-173.)

1291AD: Crusaders: Fall of Acre and the Crusading states in Syria. 1291AD: Vivalda/Vivaldi brothers attempt to find a sea route to India. 1291: Two brothers from Genoa, Italy, Ugolino and Vadino Vivaldi, sail through the Pillars of Hercules, Gibraltar Strait, and sail down the West African coast seeking a way to India. But they vanished and were never seen again. This became the first recorded attempt to sail around Africa since antiquity. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005) 1291AD, 28 May: Crusaders: Fall of Acre. Other Crusader towns are evacuated.

1275-1292: Years that Marco Polo is in China. About 1292, Polo travels China Sea, the Malacca Straits and Indian Ocean.

1292AD: Spain: The Castilians take Tarifa, after defeating the Moorish fleet at Tangiers. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.)

1293AD: More to come

1294AD: Spain: Unsuccessful attempt by the Moors to recapture Tarifa. The Merinids finally withdraw from Spain. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 41.) In 1294, Confiscation of Plantagenet Aquitaine by Philip IV. In 1294, Boniface VIII becomes Pope.

Circa 1294: Italian Banker/merchant SPINI, active about 1294. The Spini antecedents are uncertain but by 1292 their leaders had belonged to the Mozzi group. (Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 171.)

Circa 1294: Italian Banker/trader RICCARDI of Lucca, an Italian merchant-banking company. Edward I dismissed them in 1294 from tax collection/civil services. tempe Edward 1, Riccardi help with negotiations re marriage of the Maid of Norway to Prince Edward. A loan from the Norwegian king to Edward I, and helping Riccardi here is William Servat, who appears in England from the early 1270s, associated with the Soliz Bros (Arndold de Soliz) and Arnold Griffin. Griffin has been in England since the 1250s, and he is associated with the Soliz group till about 1288, and to 1304 or so he does business with Norway. Servat deals also in wine, to October 1309. By 1305, Servat has a London house " Servat's Tower", and is a well-established and a London alderman; he is a countryman of Poncius de Mora, a butler to Henry II (a Cahorsin). (Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 35, pp. 95ff. On the Riccardi, see R. W. Kaeuper, Bankers to the Crown. Princeton, NJ, 1973.)

Circa 1294: Italian Banker/merchant BELLARDI, active about 1294. Italians arrive in England from Lucca, about 1294 and are later joined by Moriconi and Godele. (Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 173.)

1295AD: First major French monetary crisis.

1298AD: Marco Polo presents his book on his travels, a first European glance at China's government, economy and geography.

1298AD: Marco Polo presents his book on his travels, a first European glance at China's government, economy and geography.

1299AD: The Mongols enter Damascus.

1300AD: Crusaders: Frankish landings as Rosetta and Tortosa.

C1300AD: Use of the herb mandrake in China to deaden pain for medical operations.

1300'sAD: Opium disappears for two hundred years from European historical record. Opium had become a taboo subject for those in circles of learning during the Holy Inquisition. In the eyes of the Inquisition, anything from the East was linked to the Devil.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

1300AD: Italy: By now, Venice is one of the third or fourth largest of the cities of Europe. By about 1200AD, Venice has about 80,000 people and about 160,000 in the entire lagoon area about 120,000 in the city by 1300. In Europe west of Italy, only Paris approached about 100,000.

1300AD: Crusaders: Frankish landings at Rosetta and Tortosa.

1301AD: Pope Boniface VIII calls on Charles of Valois to pacify Italy. In 1301, the Arpad Dynasty in Hungary is replaced by Angevines of France.

1302AD: French Estates General support French king against papal claims.

1303AD: Crusaders: Loss for Crusaders of Isle of Ruad. Evacuation of Gibelet in The Holy Land. In 1303 in France, revolt in Flanders. Proposed excommunication of Philip IV. French ambassadors attack Ope at Anagni. Death of Pope Boniface VIII.

1304: More to come

1305AD: Clement V from Gascony becomes Pope.

1306AD: Expulsion of the Jews from France.

1307AD: Destruction of Order of The Templars, suppression by King Philip IV of France. 1307-1314AD: Trial of The Templars.

1308AD: Duchies of Greece: Death of Duke of Athens, Prince Archaia, Guy II de la Roche. Guy earlier has developed a view (unreasonable?) that Philip of Savoy, the third husband of Guy's mother-in-law, Isabelle Villehardouin, holds territories from Guy illegally, so Guy employs mercenaries in the form of ex-members of the Grand Company of Catalans of Cyziko, as led by Fernand Ximines. Guy II has no children and is succeeded as Duke Athens by his cousin, Walter de Brienne. This Walter de Brienne is son of Isabella de la Roche, sister of the Dukes of Athens William and John. Isabella here had married Hugh de Brienne, Count Lecce in the Kingdom of Naples. Walter Brienne the succeeding Duke of Athens continues talks with Fernand Ximines and the Catalan Company, which winters in 1308 at Cassandra. Finlay comments in History of Greece/Trebizond, p. 171, "The expedition of the Catalans in the East is a wonderful instance of the success which sometimes attends a career of rapacity and crime, in opposition to all the ordinary maxims of human prudence". Internal dissension reigned amongst the Catalans, their leaders quarrelled, the chiefs assassinated one another, the troops murdered or banished their generals, yet they won victories. Their leader, Roger de Florez, was assassinated by Greeks.
D'Entenza, one of their best chiefs, was murdered by his own troops as the Catalans marched from Gallipoli to Cassandra. Fernand Ximines had to flee. Responsible for some such disturbances was Rocafort, the oldest general in the Grand Company, was finally seized by his own officers, and given to a French admiral who took him to Naples where Rocafort died in prison, starved to death by the Angevines. Other Catalans loyal to Rocafort murdered fourteen army chiefs who had delivered Rocafort to the French. One outcome was that the Catalan Company (about 3500 cavalry and 3000 infantry ) held firmer to certain ideals of Republicanism, and wished to establish permanent territorial dominions in Greece.

1309AD: Pope Clement V begins residence at Avignon, France.

1310AD: Duchies of Greece: The mercenary army the Catalan Company succeeds with a campaign for Walter de Brienne, Duke Athens (and an Angevine), against his enemies. Walter captured 30 castles. Walter attempts to be rid of the Catalans, as their costs reduce his treasury and they oppress his subjects. The Catalans decide to stay. The Catalans demand back pay and permission to march into the Morea. Brienne refuses and threatens to hang them.

1311AD: Duchies of Athens: The disgruntled Catalan Company march down the plain of Boetia and take positions on the banks of the Cephissus River. Brienne the Duke of Athens prepares to fight them. The Catalans secretly used irrigation water to conceal a marsh, which the forces of Brienne had to cross to join battle. The Catalans found their armoured enemies could not advance nor retreat. Only two nobles with Brienne survived, Boniface of Verona and Roger Desalu of Roussillon. The Catalans took the camp and baggage of their enemies. Successor to Brienne as Duke of Athens is his son, Walter. The Catalans later destroy the palace at Thebes, built by Nicholas St. Omer, so the French could never use it as a stronghold. The Catalans shared out the fiefs of killed nobles and distributed their wives and heiresses in marriages to officers. The Catalans became aware of their own inadequacies with civil government, and appointed Roger Desalu (died 1326) to act as Duke of Athens till they had arranged their own affairs with their masters, the house of Aragon. The Catalans expanded their territory and frightened French barons not earlier involved so badly, the French asked for aid from the Pope.

1312AD: Suppression of The Order of the Temple by Pope. In 1312 in France, treaty of Pontoise gives Lille, Douai and Bethune to the French Crown. In 1312 in Paris, Hugh V Duke of Burgundy, "King of Salonica", is one of a party of negotiators deciding on fate of lost empire of Romania and Greek principality of Archaia. Hugh V then cedes his title to his younger brother Louis who has just become Prince of Archaia due to marriage with Maud of Hainault, possessor of title of Archaia. On the death of Louis, the title went to his brother, Eudes IV, Duke Burgundy, who sold his claims in 1320 to titular emperor of Romania, Philip of Tarentum (who married Catherine of Valois).

1314AD: Louis X is King of France.

1315-1317AD: Severe famine in Northern Europe.

1316: Pope John XXII sends some Dominican priests afield as far as Ethiopia, where they made several conversions. One such priest was Jean de Severac, who produced a name which led to the legend of the mythical king, Prester John. In 1402 Prester John is deemed to have sent an emissary to Venice. In 1427, Abyssinians appeared at the court of the King of Aragon, later in Lisbon. (Theologically, was Prester John a Nestorian or a monophysite? - the latter). Later, information gained by Portuguese Joao Afonso de Aveiro in Guinea showed that the influence of the King of Ethiopia reached as far as the small kingdoms of the Guinea Coast. From Renault, The Caravels of Christ, p. 91.

1316AD: Great Famine in Western Europe. Pope sends Dominican monks to East Africa in search of mythical Christian leader, Prester John. In 1316, John XXII from Southern France becomes Pope. Philip V (The Tall) becomes King of France. County of Burgundy becomes part of French kingdom.

1317: More to come

1318AD: Last Despot of Epirus of the Angelos family, Thomas, is murdered by his nephew, Thomas a Count of Cephalonia. This Thomas was then murdered by his brother John; John who was then murdered by his own wife Anne, a daughter of Andronicus Palaeologus, Protovestiarios of the Byzantine Empire.

Circa 1319: Italian Banker/merchant BARDI, are merchants of Florence in England by 1319 or so.
Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 169.

1319AD: Dynastic Union of Norway and Sweden.

1320: More to come

Circa 1325: Portugal king Diniz (1279-1325) amongst other initiatives creates a navy, importing Genoese admiral Emmanuel di Pozagna, and also makes a commercial treaty with England.

1321AD: Death of Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy.

1322AD: Charles IV (The Handsome) becomes King of France.

Circa 1323: Date given re Italian Banker/merchant PORTINARI. (Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 172.)

1323-1328AD: France: Revolt of maritime Flanders.

1325: See Tim Mackintosh-Smith, The Travels of Ibn-Battutah. Picador, 203, 325pp. (On one of the great travellers of the medieval world, moving from Morocco/Tangier to India and China from 1325 and later) (Date is also item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1325: Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta departs Tangier.

1326AD: Rise of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

1326AD: Duchies of Greece: After the death of acting-Duke of Athens, Roger Desalu, the Catalan Company in Greece sends a deputation to Sicily to ask Frederick II to invest his son Manfred as Duke of Athens. From now the Duchy of Athens and Neopatras are an appendage of the House of Aragon. The succession of the Duchy of Athens then passed to Frederick II's sons, Manfred (died c.1330), William (died 1338), John (Regent of Sicily, died 1848); then John's son Frederick, Marquis of Randazzo, who never once visited Athens. The Duchy of Athens then reverted to Frederick III of Sicily, whose daughter Maria inherited it in 1377. From Maria the title passed to Alphonso V, King of Aragon, and the kings of Spain retained the duchy after the union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile. While the Duchy of Athens was held by the Sicilian branch of the house of Aragon, the Catalans attacked the despots of Epirus, the Venetians in Euboea, and the French in Archaia. The Catalans were finally undone by disputes over the marriage of a young Countess of Salona, to which the Franks of Archaia and Nerio Acciajuoli, banker-ruler, governor of Corinth, objected. Nerio ended in taking Athens. This conflict began in 1386.

1327AD: More to come

1328: France: Capetian line of France dies out, and Philip of Valois founds a new dynasty. (1337-1453, so-called Hundred Years War.)

1328AD: France: French bishops and nobility elect Philip VI (Valois) King of France, in preference to Edward III of England, grandson of Philip the Fair.

1329AD: Edward III does homage to Philip VI for Aquitaine.

1330AD: More to come

1331AD: Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta moves from Aden/Arabian Peninsula to the East African Coast, to Mogadishu, and finds there wealthy merchants, and various famous textiles. It is apparent that Mogadishu has enjoyed long cultural and trading contact with India. He also finds on the East African coast, various ports which might almost be described as merchant republics, In his next years, Battuta travels to Mombasa, Kilwa, then to Dhufar of Oman, across the Gulf of Hormuz, Iran, Anatolia, Central Asia, Indus River, Sultanate of Delhi, Cambay, west coast of India, Malabar coast, Calicut, Sonargaon of modern Bangladesh, Samudra on the coast of Indonesian Sumatra (at the time already a Muslim area), then from 1346 to China (reports uncertain for time in China), briefly, then home to Morocco. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1331AD: Duchies of Greece: Following the Battle of Cephissus in 1311 when the Catalan Company takes over the Duchy of Athens, the displaced Duke of Athens Walter de Brienne, a general of Florence and expelled from their as a tyrant, lands near Arta to reclaim his Duchy of Athens, but is repulsed. He later becomes Constable of France and dies at Battle of Poitiers in 1356.

1323-1328AD: Revolt of maritime Flanders.

1322AD: Charles IV (The Handsome) becomes King of France.

1332-1342AD: First papal palace built at Avignon.

1332AD: Moscow becomes the civil and church capital of Christian Russia with accession of Ivan "the Pouch". In 1332 in France, Condemnation of Robert III of Artois because of his claims to Artois.

1330-1523: Hospitallers continue with Crusader action from Rhodes.

Circa 1330: Italian Banker/courtier, Niccolo ACCIAJUOLI, Count Malta, who about 1310 is Lord Corinth. Died 8 Nov. 1365. Parents unknown. He married uncommonly well, to Marie of Bourbon, and was chamberlain, advisor and lover of Catherine de Valois, titular Empress Constantinople. He was a distinguished banker, grand seneschal of Kingdom of Sicily (Southern Italy), Count of Malta and Gozo. In William Miller (pp. 286-287), he "dined on the spoils of Greece". This firm works in England at time of beginning of Hundred Years War. Acciajuoli took over the estates of the Ghisi and acquired estates in the Morea (Southern Greece). (He is also friend and confidant of Robert II of Anjou-Taranto, Prince of Achaea (1346-1364) and brother of Philip III of Taranto, Latin Emperor at Constantinople. Remarkably, the family survived till 1834. The family takes a pro-Guelph line, and began when a Brescian ironworker, Gugliarello, settled in Florence about 1160, and established a foundry for steel manufacture. (steel = acciaio); hence the family name, Setton p. 66. The Acciajuoli handle papal funds and rival other bankers, the Bardi, the Peruzzi and the Frescobaldi. This man once "sold" Avignon to the Papacy. He divided his estate between his eldest living son Angelo and a cousin's son, whom he adopted, also named Angelo (later archbishop of Patras). Acciajuoli is succeeded by his son Angelo who was succeeded as Seneschal by son Robert, died 1420.
Lloyd, Alien Merchants, p. 173. Cheetham's genealogical table on Acciajuoli. Setton, pp. 64-68, p. 118.

1334AD: Benedict XII becomes Pope.

1334: Crusader navy defeats Turkish pirates in Gulf of Edremit.

1334-1402: Crusaders hold port of Smyrna.

1337AD: Start of The Hundred Years War. Claim of Edward III to French Crown. Confiscation of Aquitaine by Philip VI.

1334AD: Benedict XII becomes Pope. 1334: Crusader navy defeats Turkish pirates in Gulf of Edremit.

1334-1402: Crusaders hold port of Smyrna.

1335AD: One of the earliest dates for reference to use of a clock, at Church of Saint Gothard in Milan. Another item: in 1090AD in China, a "Cosmic Engine" clock, over thirty feet high, is built by astronomer Su Sung at orders of emperor Ying Zong. An astronomical clock tower. (Source: James/Thorpe.)

1338AD: Ottoman Turks reach the Bosporus.

1338: The Franciscan John of Marignolli is sent to Cathay in 1338, returning by sea to Quilon, thence via the Holy Land back to Avignon in 1353. See H. Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither. Second edition. London, 1913-1916. (In volumes) From J. H. Parry, The European Reconnaissance: Selected Documents. London, Macmillan, 1968., p. 7.

1302-1339: Life span of Azzo Visconti, who buys the title of Imperial Vicar for 25,000 florins. He conquers ten towns, murders his uncle Marco (in 1329), suppresses a revolt by his cousin Lodrisio, reorganizes administration of his estates, and is succeeded by his uncles Lucchino and Giovanni.

1340AD: English destroy French fleet at Sluys.

Circa: 1340: Francesco Balducci Pegolitti, a clerk in the Bardi bank of Florence, stationed in the Genoese trading post at Kaffa in the Crimea, writes a handbook for merchants. His work describes in detail the trade routes and commercial conditions of Central Asia. Pegolitti writes that under Mongol administration the long overland route from the Black Sea to China is completely safe. (Judd, A History of Civilization, p. 216)

1341: More to come

1342: More to come

1343AD: Italy: Venice: Doge is Andrea Dandolo. Ducal palace is extended. Third Genoese War. Loss of Dalmatia.

1344: More to come

Note:
Some of the remarkable complications of the Duchy of Athens/Morea can be seen in the associated complications of the rising Italian banker family, Acciajuoli
Descendants of ACCIAJUOLI Senior (partial genealogy)
1. ACCIAJUOLI Senior
sp: UNKNOWN Miss
2. Senior ACCIAJUOLI
sp: UNKNOWN Miss
3. Banker, Count Malta, Courtier ACCIAJUOLI Niccolo-33149 (b.1310;d.8 Nov 1365)
sp: BOURBON Marie (a family problem?)
4. Banker, Lord Corinth ACCIAJUOLI Angelo
sp: UNKNOWN Miss
5. Robert ACCIAJUOLI
sp: Empress Constantinople VALOIS Catherine De Valois Courtenay (b.1307;d.1346)
3. Alamanno ACCIAJUOLI
3. Banker ACCIAJUOLI Giacomo
sp: UNKNOWN
4. Vicar Morea ACCIAJUOLI Donato (c.1366;d.1400)
sp: UNKNOWN Miss
5. Lord Sykaminon ACCIAJUOLI Franco
sp: UNKNOWN Miss
6. Duke Athens Antonio II ACCIAJUOLI-110921 (d.1441)
6. Laudamia ACCIAJUOLI
6. Duke Athens ACCIAJUOLI Nerio II (d.1451)
sp: Miss NOTKNOWN
7. Francesco ACCIAJUOLI
4. Banker, Duke Athens ACCIAJUOLI Nerio Rainerio (d.1394)
sp: Agnes SARACENO
5. Nerio II ACCIAJUOLI
sp: Duchess Chiara Zorzi GIORGIO wife2
5. Antonio II ACCIAJUOLI
5. Bartolomea no issue ACCIAJUOLI (c.1380)
sp: Theodore I PALAEOLOGUS-66095 (c.1380;m.1385;d.1407)
5. Countess of Cephalonia Francesca ACCIAJUOLI
sp: Duke Carlo Leucas Carlo I TOCCO Duke Zante (c.1381;d.1448)
sp: Maria RENDI
5. Duke Athens Antonio I ACCIAJUOLI Illegit (c.1393;d.1435)
sp: Duchess Maria MELISSENA
sp: UNKNOWN 5. Duke Athens Antonio I ACCIAJUOLI Illegit (c.1393;d.1435)
4. Archbishop of Patras Giovanni (John) ACCIAJUOLI
4. Gismonda ACCIAJUOLI

1356: English beat French in battle at Poitiers.

1346AD: French are defeated by English at Crecy.

1347AD: Venice: A Venetian galley returns from Kaffa in the Crimea and brings possibly the first rats and plague into Italy. 1347-1354AD: As the Black Death moves through Europe, and in Germany and Switzerland, Jews are blamed for the pestilence and are massacred.

1347AD: Queen Johanna of Naples founds a public brothel, or bordello, in Avignon with strict regulations on the lives of the prostitutes, who were compelled to wear a red knot on their shoulder. (R. Brasch, How Did Sex Begin?)

1347: English capture Calais, France.

1348AD: A year of the Black Plague in Europe.

1349: Moroccan world traveller Ibn Battuta returns to Morocco, having been to India, retailing stories of upper-class life in the Middle East and India. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

1349AD: Philip VI purchases Montpellier. Transfer of the Dauphine to the Crown. The French king's grandson Charles takes title of Dauphine.

1349: Italy: Poisoning of Lucchino Visconti, by his wife Isabella Fieschi. He had bought Parma from Obizzo d'Este and made Pisa dependent on Milan.

1350AD: John II (The Good) is King of France. In Duchies of Greece, partly aided by effect of civil wars in Byzantine Empire, Stephen, King of Serbia, conquers all Epirus and takes most of Thessaly.

1351: More to come

1352: China: Great flood strikes parts of China - Yellow River bursts it banks. China is anyway plagued by famine and disease, and is poor due to rule of Mongol overlords. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002 - hardcover edition)

1353AD: A Moroccan explorer and Moslem, Ibn Batuta, travels to China.

1353: Italy: The Visconti of Milan annex Genoa.

1354: More to come

1355AD: France: Dauphin Charles becomes Duke of Normandy.

1355: Assassination because of his revolting immorality, of Matteo II Visconti, by his brothers, Galeazzo II and Bernabo.

1355AD: Italy: Venice: Doge Marino Falier beheaded.

1357-1358AD: France: The Jacquerie, Revolt of Etienne Marcel (later assassinated) in Paris against the Dauphin. The capital is handed to the English ally Charles (The Bad) of Navarre.

1356AD: Victory of the Black Prince over the French at Poitiers. John II and his eldest son prisoners of the English. Killed at the Battle of Poitiers is the displaced Duke of Athens, now Constable of France, Walter de Brienne. His successor as Duke Athens is his nephew, Sohier d'Enghien, whose successor was his childless son Walter, who died in 1381. The family d'Enghien ended with a female who sold Argos and Nauplia to the Venetian Republic.

1356: Zhu Yuanzhang has an army which captures Nanjing and cuts off supplies of corn to the Mongol's northern capital, at Beijing, or Ta-tu. Zhu Di is born in about 1348. Zhu Yuanzhang proclaims new dynasty, the Ming, and has dynastic title, Hong Wu. The last Mongol emperor of China is Toghon Temur. Zhu Di's father is a mystery, his mother was a Mongol princess who married Hong Wu, but Hong Wu is unaware she is already pregnant with Zhu Di. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002 - hardcover edition)

1357: More to come

1358: More to come

1359: More to come

1360AD: Treaty of Breigny ratified at Calais; Edward II abandons claims to French throne in return for sovereignty over Aquitaine.

1360: China: Later emperor of China, Zhu Di of early Ming Dynasty is born 1360 as son4 of Zhu Yuanzhang, son of a hired labourer, who rises from humble birth to be first Ming Emperor.

1360: Zhu Yuanzhang this year or later joins rebels in Pearl River delta area and rises to eminence. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002 - hardcover edition)

1360-1369: Mongol leader Tamerlane (Timur) rises in power.

1361: More to come

1362: More to come

1363: More to come

1364AD: Charles V is King of France. Royal control over finance and the army is tightened; monetary stabilization, creation of the gold franc. Defeat of Charles the Bad at Cocherel.

1365AD: Crusaders: Crusaders under Peter I of Cyprus sack Alexandria.

1366AD: Irish Parliament forbids English-Irish marriages.

1367: More to come

1368: More to come

About 1369: China: Zhu Di is in cavalry and later is fighting on border areas of modern Tibet and Laos. In 1382 Zhu Di is ordered to remove the Mongols from their last stronghold at Kun Ming, south of The Cloud Mountains. Chinese butcher the adults and castrate thousands of young Mongol boys. One is Ma He, who goes into household of Zhu Di, and becomes Zheng He, who remains a Moslem. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002 - hardcover edition)

1369AD-1377AD: Recovery of Normandy and part of Aquitaine by French. (In 1371-1373, reconquest of Poitou, the Aunis and the Saintonge.

1370AD: Louis I of Anjou, King of Hungary, inherits the Polish Crown.

1371AD: Ottoman Turks invade Balkans and take Bulgaria.

1372: More to come

1373AD: Crusaders, Saint Catherine of Sienna encourages Pope Gregory to start yet another crusade.

1374: More to come

1375: The Jew Abraham Cresques in Majorca draws the famous Catalan Atlas, using scraps of information on Africa from the Arabian travellers of Africa, Masudi, Ibn Haukal, El-Bakri and Ibn Batuta. From J. H. Parry, The European Reconnaissance: Selected Documents. London, Macmillan, 1968., p. 7.

1375AD, A world-history is begun by Abd al-Rahman ibn Khaldun. He can be regarded as "the father of sociology". He wrote Al-Muqaddimah.

1376: More to come

1377AD: English population estimated at 1,361,478 people. In 1377, Richard II is King of England. In 1377, the Papacy leaves Avignon and is re-established at Rome.

1378-1417AD: Rome, Great Western Schism. Loyalty of Charles V to Pope Clement VII.

1378AD: Confiscation of the lands of Charles the Bad in Normandy.

1378AD-1381: Italy, Venice, War of Chioggia.

1379: More to come

1380AD: Death of St Catherine of Sienna.

1381AD: England: Peasant's Revolt led by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw worries the English throne.

1382AD: Urban revolt in Paris, Rouen and the Languedoc.

1382: China: Zhu Di (who becomes Prince of Yen) expels the last Mongols from China. and sends his eunuch Isiha to the troubled region of Manchuria in the far north-east. In 1413 the Jurchen people of Manchuria send a prestigious mission to Beijing re trading rights and so on. China also courts Japan, and Japan opens ports to Chinese trade. After Manchuria, Zhu Di works to bring Tibet into the fold of China. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002 - hardcover edition)

1383: More to come

1384AD: Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, inherits the county of Flanders.

1385: 14 August: Independence of Portugal established: John of Portugal and his constable Nun' Alvares Pereira, with only 2000 lances and 4000 soldiers of foot, and 800 crossbowmen, defeats the Spanish Castilians with 20,000 horse and 10,000 infantry. From Renault, The Caravels of Christ, p. 17.

Joao I (Aviz), "The Great", King Portugal (a natural son of Pedro I), 1385-1433.

1386AD: The Venetian senate outlaws the marketing of bondsmen in the piazza. Between 1414 and 1423, some 10,000 slaves were sold in Venice. At about this time, Aragon and Catalonia were slaves societies "from top to bottom", the supply of Moslem captives from North Africa was augmented by Circassians and Georgians from the Black Sea. (From D. B. Davis, p. 43).

1387: China: Chinese after 30 years of fighting have freed China from the Mongols. Zhu Di renames Ta-tu as Beijing and makes it his capital. Zhu Yuanzhang becomes paranoid and brutally purges his army command. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002 - hardcover edition)

1388: More to come

1389: More to come

1390: More to come

1391AD: Massacres of Jews in Castile.

1392AD: Madness of King Charles VI of France; co-regency of his uncles. Expedition of Louis of Orleans to Italy.

1393: More to come

1394AD: France: Expulsion of the Jews of France.

Circa 1394: Italian banker Nerio Rainerio Acciajuoli, is Duke of Athens, Lord Corinth, Nerio I of Florence. Son of banker of the major Florentine banker family, Giacomo Acciajuoli and mother unknown. Married to Agnes Saraceno (who has no children) and has mistress Maria Rendi about 1388, daughter of Demetrius Rendi; this Maria has a son Antonio who becomes Duke Athens. Nerio is related to Grand Seneschal of Sicily, and is once ill-advised to trust the Navarrese Co. (Commander in 1389 is Peter of San Superan, which allies with the Turks after they win at Kossovo), and is imprisoned by the Venetians. His illegitimate son Antonio is given Thebes. Nerio has large interests in Southern Greece, Achaea and Morea. (Setton, p. 68, pp. 122-123, pp. 168ff. Miller, Latins in Levant, p. 545. Runciman, Mistra, p. 61. George Finlay, pp. 149ff.)

1395: Tamerlane (Timur) defeats The Godlen Horde.

1396AD: France: Struggle between Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans as result of king's madness.

1396, Crusade of Nicopolis.

1397: Queen Margaret of Denmark unites her country with Norway and Sweden.

1398-1399AD: India: Tamerlane sacks Delhi.

1399: More to come:

1398: Death of paranoid old emperor of China, Zhu Yuanzhang, who has continued policy of killing rivals.

1400AD: More to come

- Dan Byrnes (otherwise indicated in these pages as -Editor)

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