1055

1051 1052 1053 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058 1059 1060

political events

Bohemia's Bretislav I (the Restorer) dies January 10 at age 49 (approximate). He has regained much of the territory taken before he assumed the throne in 1034, and has attached the province of Moravia to Bohemia, but has failed to recover Slovakia from Hungary. Bretislav is succeeded by his eldest son, now 20, who will reign until 1061 as Spytihnev II.

The Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich III seizes Beatrice and Matilda, wife and step-daughter, respectively, of Godfrey, duke of Upper Lorraine, and takes them to Germany (see 1054; 1056).

Siward the Strong, earl of Northumbria, dies after having helped to rout Scotland's Macbeth and make Malcolm III king of Cumbria. Strong enough to lift an armored man onto a horse, he has kept the Scots at bay and is succeeded by Tostig, a brother of Harold Godwine, 2nd earl of Wessex, and brother-in-law of Edward the Confessor. Tostig was married 4 years ago to Judith, sister (or daughter) of Baldwin V, count of Flanders, and is given the title earl of Northumbria. The new earl will employ severe measures in his efforts to bring order to the wilder northern reaches of his territories (see 1065).

The Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus dies at age 55 after a 13-year reign, leaving his sister-in-law Theodora to rule alone.

Seljuk Turks under the command of their sultan Tughril Beg enter Baghdad in December to liberate the Abbasid caliphate from Shiite captivity. Tughril Beg quickly gains dominion over most of Mesopotamia, restores Sunni power, and makes himself temporal master of the caliph Al-Qaim, who commissions him to overthrow the Shiite Fatimid caliph Abu al-Mustansir at Cairo and restore religious and political unity to the Islamic world (but see 1056)

religion

The vacancy that has existed in the papacy since the death last year of Pope Leo IX ends with the election of a cleric who will reign until 1057 as Victor II.

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