Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Eleventh Century Chronology
Excerpts from the Yahoo chronology of the eleventh century:
1004 The Fatimid Caliph Hakim began a 10-year persecution of Christians in southern Syria and Palestine.
1009 Hakim ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. By 1014, Hakim had burned or pillaged 30,000 churches.
1013 The Caliph Hakim allowed Christians to emigrate into Roman (Byzantine) territory, as a concession to the Emperor.
1014 The Nicene Creed is believed to have been used in the liturgy at Rome for the first time, at the coronation of the German (Holy Roman) Emperor Henry II (1002-24). The version of the creed used included the filioque. Pope Benedict VIII encouraged Henry to attack the Roman (Byzantine) South. He hoped to restore papal jurisdition there (which had ended in 732).
1015 Gerard, bishop of Limoges, persecuted Manichean heretics.
1016/17 Pope Benedict VIII (1012-24) turned back a Saracen attack on northern Italy. Benedict encouraged the Normans to attack forces of the Roman (Byzantine) empire in the South.
1016 Hakim’s friend Darazi announced that Hakim was God. By 1017, Hakim restored religious liberty to the Christians and returned their confiscated property. Hakim substituted his name for that of Allah in mosque services. Hakim disappeared in 1021, but Darazi’s followers, the Druze, believe he will come again.
1020 In Toulouse in about this year, a certain chaplain named Hugh was given the task of striking “a Jew, as is always the custom there each Easter.” Hugh struck the man so hard that he died. This “custom” was perhaps indicative of an increasingly un-Christian attitude (see 1040 & 1096).
1022 King Robert II of France (Robert the Pious, 996-1031) burned some Canons of St. Croix in Orleans at the stake for holding that the material world is inherently evil. One of the heretics was a certain Stephen, who had been confessor to the queen, Constance of Aquitane.
1022 Several Manichean heretics were put to death in Toulouse.
1024 When Pope Benedict VIII died in the spring, he was succeeded by his brother, John XIX (1024-32). John (real name Romanus) had been the ruler of Rome. He rose from layman to pope in a day.
1025 A certain Gundulf led a band of Manichean missionaries from Italy into the diocese of Arras. Reginald, bishop of Arras, and Gerard, bishop of Cambrai, converted the missionaries back to the Catholic faith.
1028 William V, duke of Aquitane, called a council of the bishops of Charroux to plan for the suppression of Manichean heretics. The heresy had supposedly been introduced from Italy.
1030 A community of Cathar (see 1143) heretics existed in Monteforte by this year.
1032 The fourteen year old Theophylact(grandson of Count Gregory of Tusculum, himself son or grandson of Alberic, son of Marozia) was elected Pope Benedict IX (1032-44, 1045, 47-48). Nephew of the brothers Benedict VIII (1012-24) and John XIX (1024-32), Bendict was the last pope from the Tusculani family. Some sources indicate that Theophylact (Teofilatto) was in his twenties when he was elected to the papacy. His father, Count Alberic III, won him the papacy through bribery.
1040 About this year Rodulfus Glaber (Ralph the Bald) blamed the Jews of Orleans for the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (see 1009). Ralph stated that the Jews wrote to “the prince of Cairo” encouraging him to destroy the church - “that if he did not quickly destroy the venerable church of the Christians, then they would soon occupy his whole realm, depriving him of all his power.”
1045 Benedict IX’s profligacy elicited a rebellion among the Roman populace. Benedict fled Rome and John of Sabina was elected Pope Silvester III (1045). Benedict’s brothers then drove Silvester out of town, and Benedict was restored..
1045 Giovanni Gratiano became Pope Gregory VI (1045-46). He purchased the papacy from Benedict IX for 1500 pounds of gold. Benedict had led a profligate life as pope, but fell in love with Gratiano’s niece. He wanted to marry her, but did not want to abdicate the papacy to do so without profit. Benedict later changed his mind and returned to Rome as pope. There were thus three claimants to the papacy.
1046 In December 1046, the papal situation in Rome was resolved by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III (1039-56) at a synod in Sutri. The synod deposed the three rival claimants, and Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, a German, became Clement II (1046-47). Clement then crowned Henry emperor. When Clement died in 1047, Benedict reentered Rome, was driven from Rome again, and Poppo of Brixen (another German) replaced him as Damascus II (1048).
1049 The synod at Rheims. Pope Leo IX traveled to Rheims to consecrate the church of St. Remigius (the patron saint of France). Since the king of France forebade his bishops to attend, only twenty were present. The pope demanded to know which of them had paid for their office. The bishops who confessed received pardon. Others were excommunicated and deposed.
1050The investiture controversy. Some see the period from 1050 to 1130 as one of a major world revolution. In this view, the revolutionaries are the Gregorian reformers who complain about the interference of laymen in church affairs, simony in particular. Their ideal society has complete freedom of the church from control by the state, the negation of the sacramental character of kingship, and the domination of the papacy over secular rulers. The radical revolutionary leaders are Humbert and Hildebrand, while Peter Damiani is seen as a moderate.
The reform movement may have been motivated by a desire to maintain a distinction between the clergy and laity, which was in danger of being obscured by the rising level sanctity among the common people. Kings such as Henry III (1039-56) of Germany and Edward the Confessor (1042-66) of England were extremely pious, as were many nobles. If the clergy (and the monasteries) were perceived as no more holy than the common people, how could their rights and privileges continue to be maintained?
1050 Berengar of Tours, canon of the cathedral and head of the school of Saint-Martin, began teaching a theory of the eucharist in which the Lord was present in a spiritual sense only. Berengar wrote to Lanfranc, then a teacher in Normandy but later archbishop of Canterbury (1070-89) against the latter's condemnation of Ratramnus. Lanfranc was absent when the letter arrived, however, and it was passed by others along to Pope Leo IX (1049-54), who excommunicated Berengar and ordered him to appear at the Council of Vercelli. Berengar traveled to Paris to obtain permission from King Henry I to attend the council, and Henry had him imprisoned. The De corpore of Ratramnus (see 868 above) was ordered destroyed by the Council of Vercelli, and Berengar was condemned in absentia.
1050 Between about this year and 1250, most of Spain reconquered from the Muslims. Only Granada and a small amount of nearby territory held out - until 1492.
1053 Pope Leo IX (1049-54), in a letter to Bishop Thomas of Carthage, mentioned that there were only five bishops left in North Africa. In Augustine’s time (circa 400), there had been over 600.
1053 The battle of Civitate. In June, the Normans took Leo IX prisoner. Leo was released nine months later. He had been on campaign against them in the south of Italy, but the papal army was defeated on June 18. In his war against the Normans, Leo was in league with the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Constantine Monomachos (1042-55), who promised to transfer jurisdiction over southern Italy from the the patriachate of Constantinople to the papacy. Constantine’s forces, under Argyrus, the Roman (Byzantine) governor in southern Italy, had been defeated in February.
1054 The East-West Schism (The Schism of 1054). Leo, the archbishop of Ochrida, wrote a letter to Bishop John of Trania in Italy enumerating the innovations of the Roman Church. Leo asked John to give the letter a wide hearing (all Frankish bishops and priests and peoples and the most reverend pope himself”) in order that the truth might prevail. This letter was closely followed by a letter from Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople (1043-59). Pope Leo IX (1049-54) sent a sharp reply, severely rebuking Cerularius. He wrote, “No one can deny that, just as the whole door is directed by its handle, so the order and structure of the whole church is defined by Peter and his successors. And just as the handle pushes and pulls the door while itself remaining stationary, so Peter and his successors have the right to pronounce judgment on any local church. No one should resist them in any way or try to usurp their place, for the supreme seat is not to be judged by anyone.” Leo cited the Donation of Constantine (see 754) in evidence of his rights, and accused the “Greeks” of having deleted the filioque from the Nicene Creed.
1054 The monastery at Cluny (see 909) was freed from episcopal control and placed directly under the papacy.
1058 Using large bribes, the Roman aristocracy had John Mincius, a member of the powerful Tusculani family, elected Pope Benedict X (1058-59). Peter Damian, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, would not consecrate Benedict. In December, a group of cardinals met in Siena and elected Gerard of Lorraine, the bishop of Florence, a Frenchman, as Pope Nicholas II (1058-61). Supported by imperial forces and the Roman populace (whom he lavished with gifts), Nicholas forced Benedict from Rome.
1059 At a Lateran council held in April of this year, Pope Nicholas II (1059-61) established new procedures for the election of popes, giving a controlling voice to the cardinals. Earlier, the bishop of Rome had frequently been chosen by the Roman nobility or the German emperor. In fact, when Stephen IX died in 1058, the Roman nobility and a minority of the cardinals had chosen Benedict X as pope, while the majority of the cardinals had supported Nicholas, then Gerhard, bishop of Florence. Nicholas’ election had been secured through Cardinal Hildebrand’s influence over the German emperor. In 1061 the German bishops declared Nicholas’s procedures for papal elections void.
1061 Sometime during his papacy, Pope Alexander II (1061-73) wrote to the bishops of Spain to protect the Jews from warriors fighting the Saracens.
1066 Andrew, the archbishop of Bari, a city in southern Italy, visited Constantinople. While there, he renounced Christianity, declaring himself a Jew. He then removed to Egypt.
1074 A paper mill was set up in eastern Spain in this year, the first paper mill in Europe.
For most of the period from 1080 through 1111, there were two rival popes.
1084/5 Robert Guiscard, having returned from his campaign against the Romans (Byzantines) (see 1081), raised an army of 36,000 men and marched on Rome. The German emperor Henry IV withdrew into Germany. Guiscard’s Normans sacked Rome. The populace, appaled with Pope Gregory for his ally’s behavior, refused to have him back. Clement III re-entered Rome as pope, and Pope Gregory VII died in Salerno on May 25, 1085.
1087 Pope Victor III (1086-87) sent an army to Tunis. It defeated a Saracen force there and forced them to pay tribute to Rome.
1087 Pope Victor III (1086-87) held a synod at Benevento. It excommunicated Pope Clement III (1080-1100) and condemned lay investiture.
1095At the council of Clermont (France), Pope Urban II announced the First Crusade. No German prince loyal to the Henry IV took part in this crusade.
1096 Approximately 800 Jews of the town of Worms were slaughtered by the Crusaders. Some were given refuge by the local bishop, whose protection was to no avail. The only survivors were those who underwent forcible baptism.
1098The Crusaders captured Antioch on 3 June with the assistance of an Armenian Moslem named Firouz, who betrayed the city. The Turks were massacred. Bohemund, a Norman, made himself prince of Antioch. In so doing, he reneged on the agreement made with Alexius Comnenus to return Antioch to the Roman (Byzantine) empire.
1098 In reaction to the decadence of their order, Robert of Molesme led a group of Benedictine monks in the founding of the Cistercian order. Their first monastery was in a poor, marshy part of the Burgundian forest known as Cisteaux. The Cistercians specialized in the development of marginal land, and soon became very wealthy.
1099The Crusaders took Jerusalem on 14 June, slaughtering the Moslem inhabitants, and burning the Jews alive inside their synagogue. Godfrey of Lorraine was the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, though he refused the title “king.” He was succeeded by his brother Baldwin.
1004 The Fatimid Caliph Hakim began a 10-year persecution of Christians in southern Syria and Palestine.
1009 Hakim ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. By 1014, Hakim had burned or pillaged 30,000 churches.
1013 The Caliph Hakim allowed Christians to emigrate into Roman (Byzantine) territory, as a concession to the Emperor.
1014 The Nicene Creed is believed to have been used in the liturgy at Rome for the first time, at the coronation of the German (Holy Roman) Emperor Henry II (1002-24). The version of the creed used included the filioque. Pope Benedict VIII encouraged Henry to attack the Roman (Byzantine) South. He hoped to restore papal jurisdition there (which had ended in 732).
1015 Gerard, bishop of Limoges, persecuted Manichean heretics.
1016/17 Pope Benedict VIII (1012-24) turned back a Saracen attack on northern Italy. Benedict encouraged the Normans to attack forces of the Roman (Byzantine) empire in the South.
1016 Hakim’s friend Darazi announced that Hakim was God. By 1017, Hakim restored religious liberty to the Christians and returned their confiscated property. Hakim substituted his name for that of Allah in mosque services. Hakim disappeared in 1021, but Darazi’s followers, the Druze, believe he will come again.
1020 In Toulouse in about this year, a certain chaplain named Hugh was given the task of striking “a Jew, as is always the custom there each Easter.” Hugh struck the man so hard that he died. This “custom” was perhaps indicative of an increasingly un-Christian attitude (see 1040 & 1096).
1022 King Robert II of France (Robert the Pious, 996-1031) burned some Canons of St. Croix in Orleans at the stake for holding that the material world is inherently evil. One of the heretics was a certain Stephen, who had been confessor to the queen, Constance of Aquitane.
1022 Several Manichean heretics were put to death in Toulouse.1024 When Pope Benedict VIII died in the spring, he was succeeded by his brother, John XIX (1024-32). John (real name Romanus) had been the ruler of Rome. He rose from layman to pope in a day.
1025 A certain Gundulf led a band of Manichean missionaries from Italy into the diocese of Arras. Reginald, bishop of Arras, and Gerard, bishop of Cambrai, converted the missionaries back to the Catholic faith.
1028 William V, duke of Aquitane, called a council of the bishops of Charroux to plan for the suppression of Manichean heretics. The heresy had supposedly been introduced from Italy.
1030 A community of Cathar (see 1143) heretics existed in Monteforte by this year.
1032 The fourteen year old Theophylact(grandson of Count Gregory of Tusculum, himself son or grandson of Alberic, son of Marozia) was elected Pope Benedict IX (1032-44, 1045, 47-48). Nephew of the brothers Benedict VIII (1012-24) and John XIX (1024-32), Bendict was the last pope from the Tusculani family. Some sources indicate that Theophylact (Teofilatto) was in his twenties when he was elected to the papacy. His father, Count Alberic III, won him the papacy through bribery.
1040 About this year Rodulfus Glaber (Ralph the Bald) blamed the Jews of Orleans for the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (see 1009). Ralph stated that the Jews wrote to “the prince of Cairo” encouraging him to destroy the church - “that if he did not quickly destroy the venerable church of the Christians, then they would soon occupy his whole realm, depriving him of all his power.”
1045 Benedict IX’s profligacy elicited a rebellion among the Roman populace. Benedict fled Rome and John of Sabina was elected Pope Silvester III (1045). Benedict’s brothers then drove Silvester out of town, and Benedict was restored..
1045 Giovanni Gratiano became Pope Gregory VI (1045-46). He purchased the papacy from Benedict IX for 1500 pounds of gold. Benedict had led a profligate life as pope, but fell in love with Gratiano’s niece. He wanted to marry her, but did not want to abdicate the papacy to do so without profit. Benedict later changed his mind and returned to Rome as pope. There were thus three claimants to the papacy.
1046 In December 1046, the papal situation in Rome was resolved by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III (1039-56) at a synod in Sutri. The synod deposed the three rival claimants, and Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, a German, became Clement II (1046-47). Clement then crowned Henry emperor. When Clement died in 1047, Benedict reentered Rome, was driven from Rome again, and Poppo of Brixen (another German) replaced him as Damascus II (1048).
1049 The synod at Rheims. Pope Leo IX traveled to Rheims to consecrate the church of St. Remigius (the patron saint of France). Since the king of France forebade his bishops to attend, only twenty were present. The pope demanded to know which of them had paid for their office. The bishops who confessed received pardon. Others were excommunicated and deposed.
1050The investiture controversy. Some see the period from 1050 to 1130 as one of a major world revolution. In this view, the revolutionaries are the Gregorian reformers who complain about the interference of laymen in church affairs, simony in particular. Their ideal society has complete freedom of the church from control by the state, the negation of the sacramental character of kingship, and the domination of the papacy over secular rulers. The radical revolutionary leaders are Humbert and Hildebrand, while Peter Damiani is seen as a moderate.
The reform movement may have been motivated by a desire to maintain a distinction between the clergy and laity, which was in danger of being obscured by the rising level sanctity among the common people. Kings such as Henry III (1039-56) of Germany and Edward the Confessor (1042-66) of England were extremely pious, as were many nobles. If the clergy (and the monasteries) were perceived as no more holy than the common people, how could their rights and privileges continue to be maintained?
1050 Berengar of Tours, canon of the cathedral and head of the school of Saint-Martin, began teaching a theory of the eucharist in which the Lord was present in a spiritual sense only. Berengar wrote to Lanfranc, then a teacher in Normandy but later archbishop of Canterbury (1070-89) against the latter's condemnation of Ratramnus. Lanfranc was absent when the letter arrived, however, and it was passed by others along to Pope Leo IX (1049-54), who excommunicated Berengar and ordered him to appear at the Council of Vercelli. Berengar traveled to Paris to obtain permission from King Henry I to attend the council, and Henry had him imprisoned. The De corpore of Ratramnus (see 868 above) was ordered destroyed by the Council of Vercelli, and Berengar was condemned in absentia.
1050 Between about this year and 1250, most of Spain reconquered from the Muslims. Only Granada and a small amount of nearby territory held out - until 1492.
1053 Pope Leo IX (1049-54), in a letter to Bishop Thomas of Carthage, mentioned that there were only five bishops left in North Africa. In Augustine’s time (circa 400), there had been over 600.
1053 The battle of Civitate. In June, the Normans took Leo IX prisoner. Leo was released nine months later. He had been on campaign against them in the south of Italy, but the papal army was defeated on June 18. In his war against the Normans, Leo was in league with the Roman (Byzantine) emperor Constantine Monomachos (1042-55), who promised to transfer jurisdiction over southern Italy from the the patriachate of Constantinople to the papacy. Constantine’s forces, under Argyrus, the Roman (Byzantine) governor in southern Italy, had been defeated in February.
1054 The East-West Schism (The Schism of 1054). Leo, the archbishop of Ochrida, wrote a letter to Bishop John of Trania in Italy enumerating the innovations of the Roman Church. Leo asked John to give the letter a wide hearing (all Frankish bishops and priests and peoples and the most reverend pope himself”) in order that the truth might prevail. This letter was closely followed by a letter from Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople (1043-59). Pope Leo IX (1049-54) sent a sharp reply, severely rebuking Cerularius. He wrote, “No one can deny that, just as the whole door is directed by its handle, so the order and structure of the whole church is defined by Peter and his successors. And just as the handle pushes and pulls the door while itself remaining stationary, so Peter and his successors have the right to pronounce judgment on any local church. No one should resist them in any way or try to usurp their place, for the supreme seat is not to be judged by anyone.” Leo cited the Donation of Constantine (see 754) in evidence of his rights, and accused the “Greeks” of having deleted the filioque from the Nicene Creed.
1054 The monastery at Cluny (see 909) was freed from episcopal control and placed directly under the papacy.
1058 Using large bribes, the Roman aristocracy had John Mincius, a member of the powerful Tusculani family, elected Pope Benedict X (1058-59). Peter Damian, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, would not consecrate Benedict. In December, a group of cardinals met in Siena and elected Gerard of Lorraine, the bishop of Florence, a Frenchman, as Pope Nicholas II (1058-61). Supported by imperial forces and the Roman populace (whom he lavished with gifts), Nicholas forced Benedict from Rome.
1059 At a Lateran council held in April of this year, Pope Nicholas II (1059-61) established new procedures for the election of popes, giving a controlling voice to the cardinals. Earlier, the bishop of Rome had frequently been chosen by the Roman nobility or the German emperor. In fact, when Stephen IX died in 1058, the Roman nobility and a minority of the cardinals had chosen Benedict X as pope, while the majority of the cardinals had supported Nicholas, then Gerhard, bishop of Florence. Nicholas’ election had been secured through Cardinal Hildebrand’s influence over the German emperor. In 1061 the German bishops declared Nicholas’s procedures for papal elections void.
1061 Sometime during his papacy, Pope Alexander II (1061-73) wrote to the bishops of Spain to protect the Jews from warriors fighting the Saracens.
1066 Andrew, the archbishop of Bari, a city in southern Italy, visited Constantinople. While there, he renounced Christianity, declaring himself a Jew. He then removed to Egypt.
1074 A paper mill was set up in eastern Spain in this year, the first paper mill in Europe.
For most of the period from 1080 through 1111, there were two rival popes.
1084/5 Robert Guiscard, having returned from his campaign against the Romans (Byzantines) (see 1081), raised an army of 36,000 men and marched on Rome. The German emperor Henry IV withdrew into Germany. Guiscard’s Normans sacked Rome. The populace, appaled with Pope Gregory for his ally’s behavior, refused to have him back. Clement III re-entered Rome as pope, and Pope Gregory VII died in Salerno on May 25, 1085.
1087 Pope Victor III (1086-87) sent an army to Tunis. It defeated a Saracen force there and forced them to pay tribute to Rome.
1087 Pope Victor III (1086-87) held a synod at Benevento. It excommunicated Pope Clement III (1080-1100) and condemned lay investiture.
1095At the council of Clermont (France), Pope Urban II announced the First Crusade. No German prince loyal to the Henry IV took part in this crusade.
1096 Approximately 800 Jews of the town of Worms were slaughtered by the Crusaders. Some were given refuge by the local bishop, whose protection was to no avail. The only survivors were those who underwent forcible baptism.
1098The Crusaders captured Antioch on 3 June with the assistance of an Armenian Moslem named Firouz, who betrayed the city. The Turks were massacred. Bohemund, a Norman, made himself prince of Antioch. In so doing, he reneged on the agreement made with Alexius Comnenus to return Antioch to the Roman (Byzantine) empire.
1098 In reaction to the decadence of their order, Robert of Molesme led a group of Benedictine monks in the founding of the Cistercian order. Their first monastery was in a poor, marshy part of the Burgundian forest known as Cisteaux. The Cistercians specialized in the development of marginal land, and soon became very wealthy.
1099The Crusaders took Jerusalem on 14 June, slaughtering the Moslem inhabitants, and burning the Jews alive inside their synagogue. Godfrey of Lorraine was the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, though he refused the title “king.” He was succeeded by his brother Baldwin.
Medieval Pilgrimage Site
The Joining of Heaven and Earth is a site is "dedicated to the medieval pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and the Romanesque World in which it flourished in western Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was a time of Pilgrimage and Crusade and the first revival of monumental stone sculpture since the fall of the Roman Empire."It's a beautiful site with evocative photos, clearly a labor of love. This page, for instance, describes St Guilhem le Désert, the abbey of Gellone, home to the relics of Saint Guillaume d’Orange. "Guillaume was a warrior monk, an early archetype of the Christian knight that would eventually would lead to the formation of the Order of Knights Templar... Instrumental in repulsing the Saracens from southern France, Guillaume spent his last years as a hermit in a remote valley eventually attracting other monks around him to form the abbey of Gellone, known later as Saint Guilhem le Désert."
The eleventh-century bridge was built to connect the abbey of Gellone and the abbey of Aniane across the gorge of the river Hérault. "Like many medieval bridges its construction involves a legendary story involving a duel with the Devil from which it derives its name. The road continued after the abbey upwards towards the aptly named Cirque du Bout du Monde."
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