A. D.

William of Normandy, the conqueror, was also descended from English kings and was convinced that King Edward had promised him the succession. The disputed succession following the death of King Edward the Confessor, brought new invasions and new wars to England. Then two great battles fought in the fall of 1066, decided the country’s future. At Stamford Bridge, Harold, King of England, defeated his cousin and namesake Harold of Norway. His joy was short-lived; immediately after the battle, King Harold learnt that another cousin and claimant to the throne, William of Normandy, had crossed the Channel from France and had landed, only one hundred miles away. Overconfident after his recent victory, Harold rushed south with half his army, but was soundly defeated by William of Normandy at Hastings. Although undertaken with the blessings of the Pope, William’s invasion was in a sense, the last great Norse conquest and ironically, it brought England more closely into the orbit of continental Europe. The sheer white cliffs of the English coast, where William the Conqueror is thought to have landed with his army. At about nine o’clock on the morning of October 14, 1066, two armies of approximately equal size, faced each other across the valley between Telham Hill and a nameless rise, marked by the presence of a “hoary apple tree”, close to the modern town of Battle. William, Duke of Normandy, commanded a motley host of Norman retainers, Breton allies and Flemish mercenaries — the majority of them adventurers, whom he had persuaded to cross the Narrow Sea for loot and land. William of Normandy’s army has been estimated at somewhere between six and seven thousand men; it was probably nearer the lower figure. Perhaps 1,200 of these were mounted knights, who had brought their horses with them in the boats. …

Hugh Capet was coronated in 987 and with that, began the French dominance of Europe. During the eleventh century, a view of world history is dominated by the splendours of the Sung empire in China. Founded in the last decades of the previous century, it reached a peak during the eleventh century and that entitles it to be regarded as one of the most brilliant epochs, in the history of civilization. The European stage, is commanded by the prestige and apparent power of the German empire, founded by Otto I and ruled over by his descendants. Both the ambitions of the emperors and the ever-growing power of the great vassals contributed, with other causes, to a decline which even the reign of the great twelfth-century emperor Frederick Barbarossa, did not reverse. By 1200, power in Europe was slipping from the hands of the German emperors and was taken up by the central kingdom of France. The emergence of France as the dominant power in European affairs, during the high Middle Ages, was by no means a foregone conclusion. To observers of the coronation of Hugh Capet as king in 987, it must have seemed a very unlikely event. It is worth remembering how slow this rise was. Not for another two and a half centuries — centuries of constant struggle — was the French ascendancy to become obvious. King Philip I of France French Monarchy from Hugh Capet to Louis VI At the time of his coronation, Hugh Capet was perhaps the most important man in France. His family, founded over a century before by Robert the Strong, had already provided two kings during the troubled years of the later Carolingians. His lands, grouped around the important towns of Paris and Orléans, were strategically wellplaced; among his feudatories, were some …

Norsemen or Vikings – Danes, Norwegians and Swedes — were terrorizing the greater part of Europe, over a thousand years ago. Their earliest activities were chiefly limited to raiding and destroying; occupations for which their mastery of the sea admirably suited them. In time, they came to settle down — in the British Isles, in Iceland and in Greenland. It was this last, snow-covered and icebound land that was first colonized by Eric the Red — a man so named because of the colour of his hair, his fiery temper and murderous blood on his hands. Eric’s son Leif, introduced Christianity to Greenland and in a voyage even farther west, came upon a land, rich in grapes, that he named Vinland the Good. The Vikings did not stay long in Vinland and the colony in Greenland eventually expired. Five hundred years later, another voyager west, Christopher Columbus, rediscovered the “lost continent” and the world called it America. A gilt-bronze winged dragon, 11 inches long, frontal of a seventh-century viking shield; part of the treasure found in a viking royal ship, at Sutton Hoo, in East Anglia. To the eyes of a man born in Norway the, western coast of Greenland had perhaps a home-like look. In the year 982, Eric the Red and his small band of Vikings rowed up a fjord, to this day called Ericsfjord and found, hidden behind the barren cliffs, slopes and valleys, where the grass grew lush, in the long Arctic daylight. Eric was not actually the first Norseman to visit Greenland. Some eighty years before, an Icelander named Gunbjorn, had sailed along the glacial east coast of the island. Gunbjorn, however, judged the land to be uninhabitable. Eric was now testing this verdict and disproving it. He sailed farther west, than the boldest of …

The birth of Hungary The battle of the Lechfeld, which was so important to Western Europe, had an equally profound influence on events in Central and Eastern Europe. The almost total annihilation of their army compelled the Magyars to settle in their new home on the Hungarian plains and within sixty years they had embraced Christianity. Under King Stephen I (997-1038) , who was later canonized, they accepted Christianity from Rome, a process that had been began by Stephen’s father, Duke Geza. The new king accepted not only religion but also his royal title and crown from Pope Sylvester II. Although he had to face opposition from some of his pagan nobility, he was able to push through his religious programs and also to lay the basis of a royal administration closely modelled on that of the German empire. During the eleventh century the new kingdom, halted in its westward advance, also lost part of its territory in the southeast to the nomadic Patzinaks. This loss was balanced for a time by the Hungarian conquest, which gave the new state an important seacoast on the Adriatic. Thus in the early eleventh century, the main contours of medieval Europe had emerged and the political position of the German emperors seemed assured. Sung Dynasty, China The empire of Otto and his Saxon successors was roughly contemporary with a renewed period of grandeur and prosperity in the world’s largest empire, China. We have seen how in the late ninth century the glories of the Wang dynasty were subject to internal divisions and attacks over the frontiers by Asian barbarians. After the deposition of the last T’ang emperor in 907, there followed the fifty-year period generally known as the age of the Five Dynasties. The largest single territory was that in the north, which …

Lechfeld, the battleground outside Augsburg on St. Lawrence’s day, 10 August 955 A. D., was highly significant for the whole of Europe. On a battlefield littered with corpses and discarded weapons, the victorious Otto I, had his cheering troops proclaim him Emperor. Germany had been close to civil war and rebellious nobles had allied themselves with the barbarian Magyars, who were intent on destroying what passed for civilzation in tenth-century Germany. It was Otto’s achievement to unite the Germans against both the rebels and the invading Magyars. His new “Roman” Empire differed from the old in its strongly Christian character. Otto was the protector of the Church and constantly encouraged missionary work among the Slavs. His territorial ambitions also lay in the East, but in these he was largely frustrated. Nevertheless, Otto’s victory at the Lechfeld in 955, ensured that much of Central Europe would be safeguarded for Latin Christianity. Even the defeated Magyars who settled in Hungary, became under their great king St. Stephen, a Christian nation. The battle fought on the Lechfeld outside Augsburg on St. Lawrence’s day, August 10, A.D. 955, was highly significant for the whole of Europe. The victory of King Otto I, over the Magyars, was directly connected with the foundation of his empire and with the constitution of the German imperial Church as a leading political power — which was to survive till its destruction at Napoleon’s hands. The other consequences of Otto’s victory were the re-alignment of the eastern frontier of Bavaria with Austria; the foundation of the Hungarian kingdom with the coronation of Stephen as king; and the formation of Germany’s eastern policy for the next 1000 years. Part of the Chalice of St. Udalrich, Bishop of Augsburg, loyal priest and military leader under Otto I and hero of the battle …

Cluny, the Greatest Benedictine Abbey in Europe, was founded in 910. After the reign of the great Abd al-Rahman III, Islamic Spain was increasingly subject to internal division and the overthrow of the Cordovan Caliphate in 1013, allowed the Christians to capture the great city of Toledo. The Spanish Arabs now called on the newly converted and fanatical North African Berber tribes known as the Almoravides. By the beginning of the twelfth century, these allies, whose empire was based in Morocco, were in control of Islamic Spain. Within seventy years, they in their turn, fell to the still more puritanical sect of the Almohades. In 1195, the Almohades inflicted a crushing defeat on the armies of Alfonso VIII of Castile, but this was more than reversed by the great victory of the united kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Navarre and Aragon on the field of Las Novas de Tolosa in 1212. Islam Fails After that defeat, Islam never recovered its old power in Spain. Under the caliphate of Cordova, both the industry of the Moorish invaders, their religious toleration of the conquered Christians and the formerly persecuted Jews, contributed essentially to the great cultural flowering of the period. The Mozarabes, Christians who retained their faith on the payment of annual dues, were allowed their own places of worship. Throughout the Islamic period, save for a few years before its recapture, the city of Toledo kept itsncathedral, its archbishop and its liturgy. Despite the strict religious principles of the twelfth-century Moroccan rulers and the subsequent flight of numerous Mozerabes to the Chnistian kingdoms of the north, the cultural traditions of earlier ages was strong. It was the works of men like Avempace (d. 1138) who drew on the Aristotelian commentaries of the tenth-century Al Farabi of Damascus and above all, his great …

Caliph of Cordova’s library, raised Cordova to its great eminence. It was Europe’s most glittering capital: a place where Moslems, Christians and Jews lived, worked, studied and thought. Tenth-century Cordova was as preoccupied with philosophy, poetry and medicine, as Paris was to become in the eighteenth century. Spain’s intellectual ferment was a product of the recently established Islamic society, but it was also concerned with the old, with preserving the ancient learning of Greece and Rome. Toward the end of the century, the Caliph Al-Hakam II, gathered a library of four hundred thousand books and manuscripts, indisputably Europe’s finest collection of writings on history, science and literature. The library was largely destroyed by a fanatical successor and Cordova’s days of greatness drew to an end. The door in the western facade of the mosque of Cordova, showing the detailed decoration in tile and bas-relief, typical of the highpoint of artistic achievement under the Caliphate. Cordova, under its great caliphs of the tenth century, was the most splendid city of Western Europe. Ash-Shaquandi, the poet who sang the praises of his native al-Andalus (Andalusia) says that he rode for ten miles on end through its well-lit streets. A fine bridge spanned the river, which still bears its Moorish name of Guadalquivir and on either side stretched the quarters of the dominant Moslem population —Arabs and Berbers from Africa, as well as descendants of Spain’s indigenous inhabitants who had embraced Islam and communities of Jews, Christians (Mozarabes) and slaves from Eastern Europe. One traveller counted 300 public baths; another, 600 — a number perhaps not excessive for a population of over half a million, though it scandalized medieval Christians. Cordova’s other marvelous sights included innumerable workshops for the production of its famous leatherwork, carpets, ivory caskets and other handicrafts; more than four …

Baghdad founded and became the centre of Islamic learning and culture. England in the tenth century As a soldier, Alfred, rightly called the Great, saved his nation; as a legislator, he established the concept of a nationwide law for all the English; as a patron, he not only launched an educational revival, but himself translated Boethius’, On the Consolation of Philosophy and sponsored the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a major historical source for another two centuries. Although he had consolidated the existence of an English nation, Alfred had been able only to contain the threat of the Danes. Vast territories in the north and east of England remained independent of the kings of Wessex and their client-kingdom of English Mercia. Alfred’s son, Edward the Elder, reigned conjointly with his sister Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia. At her death the kingdom was united. During this period, the English, basing their defense on the series of fortified towns begun by Alfred, made headway against the incursions of the Scandinavian kingdoms that surrounded them. Even in the midst of a struggle for survival, Alfred had planned for the future. His fortified boroughs provided not only military bases, but the foci of local administration and trade. Edward extended the military fortifications, but an aggressive counterattack against England’s enemies did not come until the reign of Athelstan (924-39). Islamic armies on the march, from a manuscript of the Baghdad School Brother-in-law of the Carolingian Charles the Simple of France, of Hugh Capet, the greatest man in the French kingdom and of the German Emperor Otto I, Athelstan mightily defended his position at home. He inflicted the crushing defeat of Brunanburh on the combined forces of the Scots, Irish, Norse and Welsh — a fight commemorated in one of the great epic poems of Old English. The glitter …

Alfred “The Great”, alone amongst the English kings, has been awarded this title. Earlier invaders of the British Isles had been assimilated, but the thin veneer of English civilzation in the Dark Ages could not withstand the impact of Danish attacks at the end of the eighth century. The fragmented English kingdoms could not seem to unite against this new terror. Then a saviour appeared — in the guise of the young prince of Wessex, Alfred. In the first few years after he came to the throne, Alfred fought many battles against the Danes — and lost most of them. Then the tide turned; in 886, Alfred took London. He had won a capital and he had also created a nation. More than just a soldier, Alfred was a scholar, determined to foster learning among his people. He translated classical works into the vernacular and issued a new legal code based on the Golden Rule. For this combination of talents, Alfred — alone among English kings — has been awarded the title “The Great.” The Alfred jewel made of rock crystal over cloisonńe enamel, set in gold, is inscribed with the words Alfred mec heht Gewyrcan (Alfred ordered me to be made). The base is in the shape of a boar’s head, with hollow snout. Found near Athelney, the supposed sight of Alfred’s fort, the jewel is commonly thought to have belonged to that king. When King Alfred of Wessex captured London in 886, he did more than strike a heavy blow at the Danish invaders. In effect, he became the first King of England and established a new idea of nationhood. His action gave heart to Englishmen all over the land, made them feel that the Danes after all could be defeated and kindled in them the sentiment of …

Charlemagne’s empire destroyed and dissolved in the ninth century, but the idea of “Europe” survived. By the late tenth century, the eastern and western parts of the Frankish kingdom had coalesced into the dim outlines of the future kingdoms of France and Germany. The Spanish March had disintegrated and been succeeded by the Basque kingdom of Navarre and the county of Barcelona. Italy, broken into a series of ineffectual kingdoms in the peninsula, owed a nominal allegiance to the Emperor (now the King of the east Franks) that was to become gradually less meaningful as the Middle Ages progressed. Louis the Pious, from a contemporary manuscript After his death in 814, Charlemagne was succeeded by his son Louis I, called the Pious, an amiable, but often too compassionate man. Unable to command his unruly subjects or control his quarrelsome family, Louis compounded the faults of his virtues by his indulgence toward his second wife, Judith of Bavaria and her son Charles. During his reign, Louis was constantly at war with his sons, who finally brought their conflicts to a conclusion with the Treaty of Verdun in 843, three years after Louis’ death. This treaty — one of the earliest records of the emerging vernacular languages, having both German and French texts — gave the imperial title and capital to the eldest son Lothair, who also received a huge tract of territory stretching from the Low Countries to the plains of central Italy. Louis, called the German, received the eastern lands; and the favourite, Charles the Bald, got the western lands, Verdun was the inevitable consequence of the Frankish practice of dividing a father’s possessions; but in the years that followed, the Carolingian house showed a lack of family loyalty and honest dealing that was remarkable even for the times. The …