1219

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political events

England's regent William Marshal, 1st earl of Pembroke, dies at Caversham, Berkshire, May 14 at age 72 (approximate). The so-called Barons' War continues to roil the kingdom, whose monarch Henry III is still too young to rule (see 1223).

A Danish fleet under the command of Valdemar II lands near Lindanise Castle in June to begin a colonization of what later will be Estonia. The Danes win a narrow victory June 25 at Reval, which will soon be the site of Tallinn; the archbishop of Lund becomes the first Danish regent (see 1223). Legend will have it that during the battle the sky took on a red color with a white cross, and Valdemar next year will adopt the Danneborg (or Dannebrog); it will survive as the world's oldest national flag.

Genghis Khan sweeps across central Asia, taking the Muslim cities of Bukhara and Merv. He has the Islamic leaders of Bukhara rounded up and executed.

Minamoto family control of the Japanese shōgunate ends in January with the assassination of the shōgun Sanetomo Minamoto while he is returning from the shrine at Kamakura. His uncle Yoshitoke Hojo, 57, has encouraged the assassins and installs Yoritsume Fujiwara as shōgun, although the real power remains in his own hands and in those of his sister Masako, and the Hojo family will rule Japan until 1333.

The Nicaean emperor Theodore Lascaris concludes a lucrative commercial accord with Venice in August.

religion

Pope Honorius III calls for a new crusade against the Cathar "heretics," France's crown prince Louis leads a punitive expedition into Languedoc; his men methodically massacre every man, woman, and child in the market town of Marmande (population: about 7,000); Louis spends a few weeks outside the walls of Toulouse, then sets fire to his siege engines and rides home to Paris after just 40 days, leaving the late Simon de Montfort's son Amaury to quell the Albigensian rebels. But Amaury will have virtually no success (see 1226).

A quarrel among Roman families forces Pope Honorius III to take refuge in June at Viterbo (see politics, 1220).

The Nicaean emperor Theodore Lascaris proposes that Greek and Latin clergymen meet at Nicaea to discuss a possible reunion of their two churches.

environment

Floods following a storm in the northern Netherlands January 16 leave thousands dead (see Zuider Zee seawall collapse, 1287).

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