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Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization religion |
Swabia's Friedrich II Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia, dies April 4 at age 56 (approximate) after a 42-year reign. His 24-year-old son will reign until his own death in 1190 as Friedrich III (see 1152).
Heinrich III (der Löwe [the Lion]), duke of Saxony, lays claim to Bavaria (see 1142). He will marry Clementia, daughter of Conrad, duke of Zähringen (the marriage will be dissolved in 1162) (see 1154).
Marrakech falls to Almohad forces in April, ending more than 80 years of Almoravid rule in North Africa and Spain (where some Muslim rulers recognize the Almohad leader Abd al-Mumin as caliph).
Castile and León's Alfonso VII and Navarre's García IV (or V) join forces to participate in the conquest of Almeria from the Muslim Almoravids.
The distraction of a Second Crusade enables Sicily's Roger II to seize the Greek islands and to attack Athens, Thebes, and Corinth. An 11-year war begins between Sicily and the Byzantine Empire.
Moscow is founded April 4 (traditional date) by Yuri Dolgoruky, prince of Suzdal, who has conquered Vladimir, Suzdal, and other towns in a struggle against other princes for the throne of Kiev (see 1125). He has been angered by his host, the boyar Stepan Kuchka, and ordered him killed. Yuri receives the boyar's brother Prince Svyatoslav Olgovich of Novgorod-Seversky at a great banquet held in his ally's honor (see kremlin, 1156).
The Second Crusade departs June 11 under the leadership of France's Louis VII and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who rides up on a white horse, clad in gilded buckskin boots and armor, surrounded by Sybelle, Countess of Flanders; Mamille of Roucy; Florine of Bourgogne; and Faydide of Toulouse, all of them armored (see 1146). The crusade assembles 500,000 men in the Holy Land under the leadership of Louis VII and the German king Conrad III, who take separate routes but give the crusade no coherent command. Eleanor of Aquitaine receives a cordial welcome at Jerusalem from Melissande, queen of the Christians, and sees the life of eastern Christians in Raymond's court, where the sensuous indulgence that she observes seems far more attractive to her than the tedious routines of Paris. Louis VII has left his crown in the care of his adviser Suger, abbé of Saint-Dénis, who rules in his absence as regent; the king takes alarm at what he sees of life at Jerusalem and takes his wife prisoner in order to get her away from the corrupting influence of her handsome young uncle, Raymond of Poitiers, prince of Antioch (see 1148).
Portugal's Afonso Henriques marshals a 13,000-man allied Christian army of English, Flemish, and German crusaders that drives Muslim forces out of Lisbon October 28 after a 17-week siege. The evacuation is peaceful, and it leaves Afonso, who rules from his capital at Coimbra, in control of most of Portugal's northern and western seaboard.
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