Middle Ages
Order of Assassins: Hasan-i Sabbah and Alamut Castle
The Nizari Ismailis held a state of mountain fortresses in Iran and Syria for over 160 years until the Mongols and Mamluks destroyed it.
Era · c. 500 – 1500
Middle Ages
Kingdoms, crusades and plagues: the medieval world from the end of the Western Roman Empire to the fall of Constantinople.
Middle Ages
Durham Cathedral: Norman Romanesque Masterpiece of England
A great Norman cathedral and Benedictine priory church was built around St Cuthbert's shrine, with some of the earliest high rib vaults in Europe.
Middle Ages
El Cid and the Capture of Valencia (1094): Spain's Hero
El Cid took Valencia after a siege of nearly a year and ruled it as an independent lord until his death in 1099; the city fell to the Almoravids in 1102.
Middle Ages
Al-Ghazali's Incoherence of the Philosophers (1095)
A landmark critique of Aristotelian philosophy in Islam that shaped theology for centuries and provoked Averroes' famous reply.
Middle Ages
People's Crusade (1096): Peter the Hermit's Doomed March
The expedition was destroyed by Seljuk Turks near Civetot in October 1096; a few thousand survivors were rescued by the Byzantines.
Middle Ages
First Crusade (1096-1099): From Clermont to Jerusalem
Crusader capture of Jerusalem in 1099 and creation of four Latin states in the Levant: Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem and Tripoli.
Middle Ages
University of Oxford: How England's Oldest University Began
Oxford became England's first university, a self-governing guild of masters and students whose colleges and privileges shaped higher education in the English-speaking world.
Middle Ages
Battle of Dorylaeum (1097): The First Crusade in Anatolia
Crusader victory; Kilij Arslan's army was routed and the crusaders could cross Anatolia towards Syria.
Middle Ages
Siege of Antioch (1097-1098): The First Crusade's Ordeal
Crusaders captured Antioch on 3 June 1098 and defeated Kerbogha's relief army on 28 June; Bohemond founded the Principality of Antioch.
Middle Ages
Founding of Cîteaux (1098): Rise of the Cistercian Order
The 'New Monastery' became the head of the Cistercian Order, which grew to hundreds of abbeys across Europe within a century.
Middle Ages
Siege of Jerusalem (1099): The Crusaders Take the Holy City
Crusaders stormed Jerusalem on 15 July 1099, massacred many inhabitants and founded the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Middle Ages
Gao-Saney Royal Stelae: Early Muslim Kings of Gao (c. 1100)
The stelae proved that Gao had Muslim kings by about 1100 and preserved names of a royal dynasty otherwise missing from later chronicles.