Middle Ages
Chartres Cathedral: Stained Glass and High Gothic Design
The rebuilt cathedral, largely complete by about 1220–1230, set the pattern for High Gothic architecture and preserved one of the largest collections of medieval stained glass.
Region
Europe
Middle Ages
Battle of Alarcos (1195): Almohad Victory Over Castile
Decisive Almohad victory; Castile lost its southern frontier fortresses, and the defeat later spurred the Christian coalition that won at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212.
Middle Ages
University of Paris (1200): The Royal Charter and the Sorbonne
The masters and students of Paris became a self-governing corporation with royal and papal privileges, and Paris became the leading centre of theology in Latin Christendom.
Middle Ages
Fibonacci's Liber Abaci (1202): Arabic Numerals Reach Europe
The book became the foundation of Italian commercial arithmetic and a key channel for the spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe.
Middle Ages
Sack of Constantinople (1204): The Fourth Crusade's Betrayal
Crusaders and Venetians captured and plundered Constantinople, divided much of the Byzantine Empire and founded the Latin Empire, which lasted until 1261.
Middle Ages
University of Cambridge (1209): Founded by Scholars From Oxford
Scholars leaving Oxford formed a lasting community of masters at Cambridge, which gained royal and papal privileges and became England's second university.
Middle Ages
Francis of Assisi and the Founding of the Franciscan Order
Francis's brotherhood of poor preachers became the Order of Friars Minor, one of the largest and most influential religious orders of the Middle Ages.
Middle Ages
Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229): War Against the Cathars
The Cathar church was broken and the County of Toulouse passed under the control of the French crown by the Treaty of Meaux-Paris (1229).
Middle Ages
Reims Cathedral: Gothic Coronation Church of French Kings
A new High Gothic cathedral rose on the site of the burned church and served as the coronation church of most French kings until 1825.
Middle Ages
Children's Crusade (1212): The History Behind the Legend
Neither movement reached the Holy Land; the marchers dispersed, returned home or settled in Italy, and later writers turned the episode into a tale of children sold into slavery.
Middle Ages
Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212): Turning of the Reconquista
Decisive Christian victory that broke Almohad power in Iberia and opened the Guadalquivir valley to conquest by Castile.
Middle Ages
Battle of Bouvines (1214): Philip Augustus Triumphs
Decisive French victory; the coalition of Otto IV, King John and the rebel counts collapsed and Capetian control of former Angevin lands was secured.