Middle Ages
Golden Horde: Batu Khan's Mongol State on the Volga (1242)
Batu's ulus became an independent khanate that controlled the western steppe and collected tribute from the Rus principalities for more than two centuries.
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
Battle on the Ice (1242): Alexander Nevsky at Lake Peipus
Victory for Novgorod and its allies; the Livonian Order gave up its recent conquests in the Pskov and Novgorod lands and made peace.
Middle Ages
Sainte-Chapelle: Louis IX's Jewel Box Chapel in Paris
A royal palace chapel that turned Paris into a great relic shrine and became a masterpiece of Rayonnant Gothic stained glass.
Middle Ages
Battle of La Forbie (1244): Crusader Defeat near Gaza
Decisive Egyptian and Khwarazmian victory; the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was destroyed and its Syrian Muslim allies routed.
Middle Ages
Rumi and Shams of Tabriz: The Mystic Poet of Konya (1244)
Rumi turned from a conventional scholar into a mystic poet whose Divan and Masnavi became classics of Persian literature and inspired the Mevlevi Sufi order.
Middle Ages
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine's Mission to the Mongols (1245)
Carpine returned with Güyük's letter demanding the pope's submission and wrote the first detailed European account of the Mongols.
Middle Ages
Westminster Abbey: Henry III's Gothic Rebuilding of 1245
The east end, transepts and part of the nave were rebuilt in Gothic style, and the Confessor's relics were moved to a new shrine in 1269.
Middle Ages
Seventh Crusade (1248-1254): Louis IX's Campaign in Egypt
Crusader defeat; Louis IX was captured and ransomed, and the crisis helped bring the Mamluks to power in Egypt.
Middle Ages
Cologne Cathedral: A Gothic Church 632 Years in the Making
The medieval choir was finished in 1322, but the nave and towers were completed only between 1842 and 1880, following the original thirteenth-century design.
Middle Ages
Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517): Slave Soldiers Who Ruled Egypt
A military state that defended the Middle East against Mongols and crusaders, until the Ottoman conquest of 1516-1517.
Middle Ages
Moai of Rapa Nui: History of the Easter Island Statues
Nearly 1,000 statues were carved to honour ancestors; all had been toppled by the mid-1800s, and some have since been re-erected as a World Heritage Site.
Middle Ages
Konark Sun Temple: The Stone Chariot of Narasimhadeva I
A colossal temple to Surya was completed in the mid-13th century; its main tower later collapsed, but the surviving hall and carvings became a World Heritage Site in 1984.