The Curse of the Corporation
Part XII – 1100 CE to 1245 CE
1100 – 1118 CE – Palestine – Baudouin I (Baldwin I) becomes King of Jerusalem. [#]
1100 CE – Turkey – In the 12th century the Byzantine Empire still had problems with the Bogomils: the leader of the heretics, Basil, and his brethren, were burned at the stake in Constantinople, by order of Alexius I Comnenius. At the same time, the Bosnian Patarenes, with the open support of the Kulin Ban, founded an independent church; even the Pope, Innocent III, was informed. Boril’s Synodic written in 1211 CE in the section entitled “Against the Iconoclasts, Against John Italus, Against Bogomil and His Kind … “testifies that the heresy had not been uprooted in the Bulgarian Empire either. Dusan’s Code of 1349 CE contains articles in accordance with which “the sermons of the Babuni are to be severely punished”. The Bogomil movement in Russia survived the longest; the sources indicate that the shorn ones were powerful even in the 16th century. The Turks exterminated the seed of the heresy; still, there are indications that “some of the Christians converted to Islam preached the Bogomil learning”. In those troublesome ages and with the Bogomil movement the people rose in favour of a new order, a re-birth, a reformation.
The Dervish Orders appeared. (Islamic-mystic brotherhoods with hierarchical structure, initiations and exercises designed to bring man in direct contact and oneness with God). [$4]
1100 CE – Italy – Theoderic is elected pope by the Pope Clement supporters. Pope Paschal II is captured and imprisoned him after only 105-day reign. The Pope Clement party immediately elected Pope Albert, or Adalbert, 1101 CE. Some of his followers succumbed to bribery and turned him over to Pope Paschal II for imprisonment. About this time the cardinal priests and cardinal bishops are becoming the College of Cardinals or the corporate political body of the Roman church.
The Cathars appeared in Italy and southern France from an unknown source. They had contact with and were influenced by the Bogomils. [$10]
1100 – 1200 CE – Greece – A Greek version of The Key of Solomon was in existence. A copy of it is today in the collection of the British Museum. [EW]
1104 – 1134 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Alfonso I becomes the king of Aragon.
1104 CE – Palestine – Hugues de Payen made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the Count of Champagne. [p95@]
1105 CE – Italy – Silvester IV, alias Maginulf, is elected pope by the Roman aristocracy who claimed Pope Paschal II is guilty of simony and heresy. Bloody fighting erupted in Rome as Pope Paschal II tried to regain Rome. When Silvester’s money ran out, so did his support and he had to abandon the city.
1106 CE – England – France – King Henry I invaded Normandy and captured King Robert. Geoffrey Plantagennet is married to Marilda, the daughter of King Henry I, and they rule Anjou that is south and west of Normandy.
1107 CE – Lebanon – King Sigurd of Norway appeared with ships at the siege of Sidon in the Holy Land. [p9G]
1111 – 1134 CE – Turkey – John IX Agapetus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1112 CE – Spain – Afonso Henriques inherits Portugal, a vassal state of Castilla.
1113 CE – France – The Pope recognizes the Hospital of Saint John as separate monastic order (the Hospitallers) with headquarters in Acre.
1113 CE – Italy – The order of St. John achived their legitimate status by a decree by Pope Paschal II. [10$]
1114 CE – France – The Knights Templars become active, but not publicly. [p118+]
1115 CE – Italy – Countess Matilda of Tuscany, by leaving her territories to the church, helped to precipitate a long struggle between the popes and the emperors.
In Rome itself, the popes’ temporal power, almost nonexistent in the 10th century, remained greatly limited until the 14th century by the interference of the emperors, by the power of the nobles, and by the ambitions of the commune of Rome, which contended that its authority also extended over the Papal States. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the emperors renounced their claims to the duchy of Spoleto, the Romagna, and the March of Ancona; however, the free communes and petty tyrannies that dominated these regions long resisted effective papal control.
1116 CE – France – In July, the name of the Ordre de Sion (Order of Zion) appeared on official charters and documents. [p381+-]
1117 CE – France – Pope Paschal II is driven out of Rome by rioting, and again by Emperor Henry V in 1117. The future pope Gregory VIII accompanied the Emperor into Rome.
1117 – 1157 CE – Iran – The Saljug dynasty is formed, lead by Sultan Sanjar.
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| John II Comenus |
1118 – 1143 CE – Turkey – John II Comenus becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1118 CE – Palestine – France – The Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon founded by Hugues de Payen according to the official version. [p61+]
King Baldwin I of Jerusalem died this year and King Baldwin II succeed him. In 1118 CE, during the reign of Baldwin II, Hugues de Payens, a knight of Champagne, and eight companions bound themselves by a perpetual vow, taken in the presence of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to defend the Christian kingdom. These knights would swiftly grow into one of the most powerful organizations. The called themselves the Poor Knights of Jesus Christ. They took a vow of chastity, obedience and poverty with a mission to protect the roads to the Holy Land, especially for the pilgrims. They lived in the Temple of King Solomon, Jerusalem. They changed their name to the Knights of the Temple of Solomon and this is shortened to Knights Templer. Those Monk Knight Templers are a religious order but they are licensed to kill. The Templers are a secret religious order. Some think they believed in portions of the Gnostic philosophy which included the outlawed female goddess Sofia of wisdom. Baldwin accepted their services and assigned them a portion of his palace, adjoining the temple of the city; hence the title “pauvres chevaliers du temple” – Poor Knights of the Temple.
Poor indeed they were, being reduced to living on alms, and, so long as they were only nine, they were hardly prepared to render important services, unless it were as escorts to the pilgrims on their way from Jerusalem to the banks of the Jordan, then frequented as a place of devotion.
The Templars had as yet neither distinctive habit nor rule. Hugues de Payens journeyed to the West to seek the approbation of the Church and to obtain recruits. At the Council of Troyes (1128 CE) at which he assisted and at which St. Bernard was the leading spirit, the Knights Templars adopted the Rule of St. Benedict, as recently reformed by the Cistercians. They accepted not only the three perpetual vows, besides the crusader’s vow, but also the austere rules concerning the chapel, the refectory, and the dormitory.
They also adopted the white habit of the Cistercians, adding to it a red cross. The Templar Order and the Cistercian Order in the beginning were literally the same Order, carrying out the promulgation of the same philosophy. It was two hands of the same body, the cloistered monk and his martial brother. Notwithstanding the austerity of the monastic rule, recruits flocked to the new order, which thenceforth comprised four ranks of brethren: the knights, equipped like the heavy cavalry of the Middle Ages; the serjeants, who formed the light cavalry; and two ranks of non-fighting men: the farmers, entrusted with the administration of temporals; and the chaplains, who alone were vested with sacerdotal orders, to minister to the spiritual needs of the order.
The secular overlord was the Count of Champagne with spiritual leadership given by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Three hundred and fifty Cistercian houses were created in his name.
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Bernard of Clairvaux
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Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint (1090 – 1153 CE), born near Martiney, the village where Hugues De Payen was the Leige Lord holding his title from Bernard’s uncle, the Count of Champagne. In 1113 CE he became a monk with twenty of his family and friends, in the Cistercian monastery of Cîteaux, a small village south of Dijon, and in 1115 CE he became abbot of a monastery at Clairvaux, north of Dijon. Under his rule the monastery at Clairvaux became the most prominent of the Cistercian order. Reputed miracles and the eloquent preaching of Bernard attracted numerous pilgrims. Bernard becomes the patron and writes the code of the Templar Order – In Praise of the New Knighthood. Between 1130 and 1145 CE, more than ninety monasteries were founded under the auspices of the one at Clairvaux, and Bernard’s influence in the church spread throughout the world.
The secret of the spectacular growth of the Order is principally due to its organizing capabilities and the network that it built.
First they were given useless land by kings and princes, mostly uncultivated hill and bog land, which, due to their excellent animal husbandry, they turned into good agricultural land. They created Granges (their name for farms), which were linked to Abbeys each situated within a days walk of each other. They bred the best species of sheep which produced everything necessary to sustain their communities. Most important was that these sheep provided wool, which in the 12th century was as good a commodity as gold.
1118 CE – Iran – Iraq – Syria – Mohammed I ibn Malikshah dies and the Seljuq empire breaks up into independent kingdoms in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Anatolia.
1118 CE – Spain – Christian forces captured Saragossa, Spain, signifying the beginning of the Muslim decline in that country.
1118 – 1170 CE – France – Thomas à Becket, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, is born. [$2]
1118 CE – Turkey – The Arabs import gunpowder from China (a mixture of potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal) and arms and artillery are invented.
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| Gelasius II |
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| Callistus II |
1118 – 1119 CE – Italy – Gelasius II of the Pope Paschal party, is elected pope in Sta Maria in Pallara. He is immediately and brutally attacked and imprisoned by Cencius Frangipani, head of the Patrician family who detested Paschal. The Romans led by the city prefect set him free. Emperor Henry V marched on Rome, forcing Pope Gelasius to flee to his native Gaeta. The Emperor installed Gregory VIII as pope. Pope Gelasius, unable to regain Rome, withdrew to France.
1119 – 1124 CE – Italy – Callistus II, related to the royal houses of German, French and English and an anti-Paschal, is appointed pope. Emperor Henry V changed his support allowing Pope Gregory VIII to be sent into exile.
Born in France and elected at Cluny, Callistus II reached an agreement with the emperor entering the Treaty of Worms in which a rule for the election of the bishops was established. Callistus II called the first Lateran council at which the Second Crusade was proclaimed.
1120 CE – France – The creation and the rise of the Champagne fairs begins this year. These fairs were stock exchange of the Orders of Templars and Cistercians. Wool which may have been grown in Scotland, was woven in Flanders and arrived at the Champagne fairs as sheets or blankets of wool to be exchanged by the Cistercians or the Templars for goods or money which would then be sent to the headquarters at Clairvaux not many miles away, thus was business transacted from the farthest flung Abbey to the headquarters in Clairvaux. This unparalleled financial system allowed the development of the Artisan, the establishment of the guilds or lodges of knowledge, indeed an education system for the various trades and crafts. The expertise was necessary to build the abbeys, cathedrals, farms and administration centres of the Order.
In June 1128 CE, Hugues de Payen visits Scotland. Balentrodach is created from a bequest by David I, the first recognised gift of land to the Knights Templar anywhere, to be followed by bequests by future Scottish Kings.
1120 CE – Palestine – The French crusaders who controlled Jerusalem married Syrian and Armenian Christians or even baptized Saracens. Fulcher de Chartes wrote they are no longer Frenchmen, but Palestinians who are accepted as fellow countrymen. The local Christian churches are treated with contemptuous tolerance by the Latin Christian churches. The French Kingdom of Jerusalem, however, retained French as the language of administration and the ruling class claimed to be French, yet they embraced many Moslem customs including the veiling of their women.
This year the Knights Templars had a rival, the Order of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist (Hospitallers or Knights of Malta). Friar Raymond du Puy in Jerusalem succeeds Gerard the founder as master this year. This Religious Order didn’t become military until 1136 CE. St. Bernard made it possible for them to take up the sword. They differed from the Templars in that women are allowed into the order.
1122 CE – Germany – The Concordat of Worms (Pactum Callixtinum) was formulated and approved by Pope Callistus II and Emperor Henry V to settle controversy concerning the investiture of prelates. The concordat provided that the emperor could invest prelates with symbols of temporal authority but had no right to invest them with spiritual authority, which came from the Church alone, and that the emperor was not to interfere in papal elections. This was the first concordat in history.
1122 CE – France – Eleanor of Aquitaine is born. [$]
1123 CE – Germany – Freidrich I Barbarossa was born, and died June 10, 1190 while emperor of the Kingdom of Armenia. His byname Friedrich Barbarossa meant Redbeard in Italian. He was the Duke of Swabia (as Friedrich III, 1147 – 1190 CE) and German king and Holy Roman emperor, 1152 – 1190 CE, who challenged papal authority and sought to establish German predominance in western Europe. He engaged in long struggles with the cities of northern Italy, 1154 – 1183 CE, sending six major expeditions southward. He died while on the Third Crusade to the Holy Land.
1123 CE – France – Documents refer to Huges de Payens as the Master of the Knights of the Temple (Templars) although it wouldn’t be endorsed by the Christian council until 1128 CE. The first time in Christian history soldiers would live as monks. Killing for Christ is not homicide, to kill a pagan is to win glory, so wrote St. Bernard a supporting founder of the order. Isaac of Etoile an English mystic wrote that the order of the fifth gospel (Templars) that force infidel to accept the faith at the point of the sword could be an occasion of many future evils.
1124 CE – Iran – Hassan I Sabbah dies. [(]
1124 CE – Scotland – Unity was restored between the several Scottish kingdoms, when, on Alexander’s death, David I became King of Scotland. His reign is one of the most important in Scotland’s history, extending Scottish borders to the River Tees, including all of Northumberland. King David I began the practice of establishing Anglo-Norman families in Scotland. Of the early charters none survived except the Annandale charter that gave 200,000 acres to the Bruces.
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| Honorius II |
1124 – 1130 CE – Italy – Honorius II is elected pope, but it is a turbulent election. The Pierleoni family and Frangipani family tangled at sword point during the election. The cardinals are also split over this election.
1125 CE – Germany – Heinrich V dies, the power of the German empire dissolves and the German emperor becomes a figurehead.
1126 CE – Palestine – Hugues de Payen left Jerusalem for Europe. [p96@]
1126 CE – China – The Sung Empire in China is forced to retreat south of the Tangtze River due to expansion of the Chin Empire to the north being pressured by Mongol horsemen even further to the north. The Sung created a vast navy to protect their new Tangtze River boundary.
1126 CE – France – St. Bernard of France and the most powerful of Church members endorsed the Knights Templar, and the obscure religious order rapidly grew in stature and numbers. They became one of the wealthiest of the religious orders.
1129 CE – France – In January, Hugues de Payen becomes first Grand Master of the Knights Templar. He is officially pronounced so at the Synod of Troyes by Bernard de Clairvaux, who confirms the Order of the Temple, and records the gift of Balentradoch.
1130 – 1269 CE – Iberian Peninsula (Spain) – The Almohades, a dynasty founded by the Berber prophet Muhammad ibn Tumart. His successor, Abdul-Mu’min, annihilated the Almoravid army (1144 CE), after which Morocco was conquered (1146 CE).
The first documented presence of the Templars in Northeastern Spain against the Moors occurs. [34++]
1130 CE – Italy – Innocent II, alias Gregorio Papareschi, a Roman, is clandestinely elected pope by a minority of cardinals. When the majority of cardinals got the news, they refused to accept the coup and this suggests that Innocent is an anti-pope. The majority of the cardinals and people elected Anacletus II, alias Pietro Pierleoni, of Jewish ancestry as the rightful pope. Once elected, Pope Anacletus dominated Rome through the wealth, influence and weapons of his family. Both popes are consecrated on the same day resulting in an eight-year schism. Pope Anacletus aligned with Norman Roger II, 1095 – 1154 CE, whom he granted the crown to Sicily, Apulia and Calabria. Pope Innocent fled to France, but is recognized as pope except in Scotland, Aquitaine and southern Italy. His allies included Louis VI of France, 1108 – 1137 CE, and Henry I of England. King Lothair III, 1125 – 1137 CE, also is swayed to Pope Innocent.
1130 CE – Palestine – The Holy Knights Templar, with their newfound wealth and recruits, returned to the Holy Lands to smite the infidels.
1131 – 1162 CE – Barcelona (Spain) – Barcelona was a country in the Spanish March. Ramón Berenguer IV was an independent count of Barcelona.
1133 CE – Italy – Pope Innnocent II convinced King Lothair III the German to march on Rome. Rome could not be taken and Pope Innocent fled to Pisa.
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| Old San Juan de la Pena Monastery |
1134 CE – Spain – According to Catholic tradition, the Holy Grail is present at the Saint Juan de la Pena Monastery.
Alfons lo Batallador died, leaving his Kingdom of Aragon, Spain to the Templars, the Hospitallers and the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. Ramiro II becomes the king of Aragon, 1134 – 1137 CE.
1134 – 1143 CE – Turkey – Leon Styppes becomes the Patriarch of Constantinople.
1134 CE – France – The Cathedral of Chartres, (the north tower), is being built. It is the first known Gothic architecture. [p102@]
1134 CE – Scotland – Letters are sent from Bernard of Clairvaux to King David I of Scotland thanking him for the gift of the lands, and for the Rievaulx and Fountains abbeys.
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| Rievaulx Abbey |
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| Fountains Abbey |
1135 CE – England – Stephen becomes King of England. [+'] The History of the Kings of Britain is written by Geoffrey of Monmouth. [p455)]
1135 CE – France – Liber ad Milites Templi de Laude Novae Militiae is written by Bernard de Clairvaux. [p36++]
1136 CE – England – Hugues de Payen, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, dies.
1136 CE – Scotland – The Cistercian Abbey of Melrose, Scotland is created.
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| Cathedral of Saint-Denis |
1137 CE – France – Benedictine monk Suger builds the cathedral of Saint-Denis in a new style, the gothic style. Heralding the dawn of the Golden Age of Gothic Architecture in the 12th Century, a Benedictine monk named Suger realized his life’s dream of building an abbey that would have “the most radiant windows” which would “illuminate men’s minds so that they may travel through apprehension of God’s light.”
In his writings, Suger, Abbot of St. Denis from 1122 to 1151 CE, equated Divine Light with the light that shimmered through the stained glass windows of his beloved abbey.
France and Aquitaine are united after Eleanor of Aquitaine marries French King Louis VII.
1137 – 1162 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Petronilla becomes the king of Aragon.
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| Saladin |
1138 – 1193 CE – Takrit, Mesopotamia (Iraq) – Saladin (Salah ad-Din Al-Ayyubi) is born. Revered as a hero of Islam, Saladin united Arab forces and recaptured the holy city of Jerusalem from Christian Crusaders in the 12th century CE. Of Kurdish origin, Saladin became the vizier of Egypt in 1169 CE and then took full control of the country in 1171 CE; he later built the famed Citadel in Cairo. His conquest of Jerusalem in 1188 CE prompted the Third Crusade, led by Richard I of England; Richard’s forces defeated Saladin in several battles, but could not retake Jerusalem. Saladin and Richard signed an armistice in 1192 CE, and the two are often linked in histories of the era.
1139 CE – Italy – Pope Innocent II granted the Knights Templar the unique privilege to build their own churches. [P99@]
Pope Innocent II issued a Bull stating the Templars were responsible only to the Pope, and not subject to secular or church authority in any country. Gifts of land and money were showered upon the Order which soon developed into an international empire headed by a Grand Master. Money could be deposited with a Templar bank in Jerusalem and withdrawn in London on presentation of a chit and secret gestures. In fact, the Order is credited with inventing the cheque. The Templars had their own fleet which initially transported pilgrims and, later, all manner of goods. They also had their own armourers, architects, stonemasons, hospitals, surveyors, etc.
The Roman Catholic Church under Pope Innocent II entrenched mandatory celibacy among priests. Prior to this time priests, many popes and the apostles themselves are allowed to marry. Two other popes existed at this time, Pope Anacletus II and Pope Victor IV. Any Church rulings during this period must be questioned.
1140 CE – Spain – Liber Sancti Jacobi is written in Latin by Aimery Picaud. (A pilgrimage guide from Le Puy in France to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia). [p13MP])
1140 CE – Mexico – The Mexica or Tenochas arrived in the Valley of Mexico. [p28LR]
1141 CE – France – The philosopher Pierre Abelard is condemned as heretic and his books are burned for his views on the Trinity and his love for Heloise.
1141 CE – Italy – The issue of the most important Papal bull, Optimum Maximus, giving the Templar Order the right to have their own priests and to give unchallenged sanctuary, as well as freedom from all local or national taxes.
1143 CE – Portugal – Afonso Henriques is made king by the Pope and declares Portugal independent.
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| Alvastra Monastery |
1143 CE – Sweden – Alvastra Monastery is founded by Cistercien monks from France. [$] (1)
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| Manuel I |
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| Celestine II |
1143 – 1180 CE – Turkey – Manuel I becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1143 – 1144 CE – Italy – Celestine II, alias Guido, a supporter of Pope Innocent and recommended by him, is elected pope. Pope Celestine II (1143 – 1144 CE) had a certain Count Jordan condemned to a horrible death, he was strapped naked to a scalding iron chair while a red-hot crown was nailed to his head.
With the help of St. Bernard, he attempted to resolve the conflicts and controversies within the Church, but with meager results. Intimidated by new riots, he retired to a fortified monastery where he ended his days.
1143 – 1146 CE – Turkey – Michael II Kourkouas becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1144 CE – Turkey – The Muslims captures Edessa and destroy the oldest Crusader state.
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| Lucius II |
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| Blessed Eugene III |
1144 – 1145 CE – Italy – Lucius II, alias Gherardo Caccianemici, is elected Pope. Rome established a senate independent of the Holy See. Giordano Pierleoni, brother of Pope Anacletus II, became leader of the senate, called the Patrician of Rome. The people of Rome are demanding independence from ecclesiastical control and the restriction of the clergy to spiritual functions. Pope Lucius decided to take up arms, with himself at the head of the army, to revolt against the senate. His assault on the Roman capital is unsuccessful. He is injured in the assault and died shortly thereafter.
1145 – 1153 CE – Italy – Eugenius III, alias Bernardo Pignatelli, is elected immediately following the death of Pope Lucius II and only later heard that he was elected to the papacy. Pope Eugenius III refused to accept the popular commune that rejected the pope’s temporal powers, so he consecrated at Farfa, 40 km north of Rome, and resided at Viterbo. Eugenius III initiated the second crusade in a bull on December 1 to Louis VII of France against the Turks and Byzantium.
1145 – 1202 CE – Italy – Joachim of Fiore, a Calabrian hermit, claimed to have found a trinitarian system of ages in the Bible. (The theory came to have a big influence in history). [p493)]
1145 – 1150 CE – Iberian Peninsula (Spain) – The Almohades invaded and conquered Moorish Spain, after which they conquered Algeria (1152 CE) and Tunis (1158 CE).
1146 CE – Italy – Pope Eugenius III traveled to France to forward the Crusade but his secret mission is to seek the help of Conrad III of Germany, 1138 – 1152 CE, and Roger II of Sicily, 1095 – 1154 CE, to conduct a Holy War against the rebellious Romans. Conrad III however wanted to join the French against the Turks and Byzantium.
The Knights Templars adopted the splayed red cross as a symbol, initiated by Pope Eugenius III. It is the same cross used as those of the Assassins or Hashishim. [p.66+] [Inv.]
1146 – 1147 CE – Turkey – Cosmas II Atticus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
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| Louis VII |
1147 – 1149 CE – Turkey – The Second Crusade commences, led by Louis VII of France and Emperor Conrad III of Germany. The second Holy War passed through Constantinople, then on to Antioch. It is the most impressive crusade in scope, but it failed.
1147 CE – Turkey – Everard de Barre, Grand Master of the Templars, saw the Passion relics in Constantinople while in company with Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. [p190&]
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| Cambuskenneth Abbey |
1147 CE – Scotland – The ancient Stirling Lodge claimed to represent the Masons who built Cambies Kenneth Abbey. [p40-2]
1147 CE – Spain – Emperor Alfonso VII captured Calatrava, Spain and entrusted it to the Templar Order of Knights.
1147 – 1151 CE – Turkey – Nicholas IV Muzalon becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1148 CE – Italy – Pope Eugenius III excommunicated Arnold of Brescia (1100 – 1155 CE) because he allied himself with the Rome commune and denounced the pope as a man of blood.
1149 CE – France – The first Cathari bishop is established. [IllHis]
1150 – 1200 CE – France – Sepher-Ha-Bahir, a Qabalistic work, appeared in Southern France from unknown origin. It contained the first reference to the Tree and the Sephirot. [p22Q]
1151 – 1153 CE – Turkey – Theodotus II becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1152 – 1190 CE – Germany – Friedrich I Hohenstaufen, “Barbarossa,” is elected German emperor.
The House of Hohenstaufen (or the Staufer(s)) was a dynasty of Germanic Kings (1138-1254), many of whom were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor and Dukes of Swabia. In 1194 the Hohenstaufen became also Kings of Sicily. The proper name, taken from their castle in Swabia, is Staufen. Therefore the dynasty is sometimes also called Swabian dynasty after the family’s origin.
The dynasty is named after Hohenstaufen Castle, which is located on a mountain of the same name near Göppingen. The castle was built by the first known member of the dynasty, Frederick I, Duke of Swabia.
1152 CE – France – Louis VII obtained an annulment of his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine on the grounds of her misconduct with 19 year old Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy.
King Louise VII donated the Abbey of Saint Samson, Orléans, to the Prieuré de Sion. [p119+] [pp360+-] [p381+-]
1152 CE – Italy – Pope Eugenius III finally reached an understanding with the Roman Senate and they allowed him to be installed precariously in Rome.
1153 CE – France – Matilda of Anjou called a truce to her nineteen-year war with England provided her son Henry II would be made king of England and Normandy.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux dies. His feast Day becomes the 20th of August. [$2]
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| Anastasius IV |
1153 – 1154 CE – Italy – Anastasius IV, alias Corrado, a Roman, is elected pope. This pope established Peter’s Pence through the efforts of the next Pope Hadrian IV in Norway and Sweden.
Anastasius IV confirmed the Order of the Knights of Malta allowing them to accept donations from the faithful.
1153 – 1170 CE – France – Bertrand de Blanchefort becomes Fourth Grand Master of the Knights Templars. [p.91+]
1153 CE – Turkey – Neophytus I becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
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| Coat of Arms of Henry II |
1154 CE – England – Henry II becomes king of England. The first proven arms for an English monarch became the gules, or a lion rampant, which was later changed during his reign to three lions.
1154 CE – France – Sovereign authority of the Grand Master is recognised by Louis VII of France.
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| Hadrian IV |
1154 – 1159 CE – Italy – Hadrian IV, alias Nicholas Breakspear, an Englishman, is unanimously elected pope. The community had complained of his excessive strictness. Western France with rebellious vassals split into small feudal enclaves Brittany, Maine, Anjou, and Poitou. The Greek and Russian Orthodox churches split from the Roman Catholic Church over the issue of original sin. Pope Gregory I, the Great, who emphatically stated that Christ alone is conceived without sin, the sex act always involved sin, Mary is therefore conceived in sin and committed actual sin; the New Testament said so. The Roman Catholic Church reversed Pope Gregory’s doctrine and insisted that Mary is without original sin, to state otherwise would be to make Christ appear all too human. As a result the Greek’s are considered heretics and traitors not to be trusted by true Christians. The hostility of the Greeks towards the Latin’s is great and continues into the twenty-first century.
The Knights of Templar and Hospitallier are the greatest landowners in the country. The Templars are also the bankers of Jerusalem including the issue of bills of exchange. The Templars conveyed 6,000 pilgrims each year to the Holy Land. They could be trusted not to sell the passengers into slavery, as did some Italian merchants. They exported spices, silk, dyes, porcelain and glass taking full advantage of their customs dues exemption. The local Bishops and clergy wrangled with the Orders over dues, tithes and jurisdictions. The Patriarch of Jerusalem traveled to Rome to ask the Pope to place the military orders under his authority. Pope Hadrian IV upheld their independence and any financial obligation from the local church. Jacques de Vitry said the Templars owned no individual property, but in common they seemed anxious to possess everything. Pope Hadrian IV called the Templars the new Mackabees. They had an extensive spy network and employed assassins using poisoned knife, flat cakes being their trademark, and terrorized Moslems and Christians alike.
1154 – 1156 CE – Turkey – Constantine IV Chliarenus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1155 CE – Italy – Pope Hadrian IV approached the German King Frederick I Barbarossa to conduct a Holy War against the Romans and William I of Sicily, who he said had attacked the papacy. The pope had Arnold of Brescia arrested and executed, but could never bring the Roman commune to heel.
Pope Hadrian IV committed treason and alienated himself from the majority of the cardinals by making William I of Sicily, King of southern Italy with special rights over the church.
1156 CE – Germany – Friedrich I Barbarossa rediscovers Justinian law, granting the emperor absolute powers.
1156 – 1169 CE – Turkey – Luke Chrysoberges becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1158 CE – Germany – Friedrich I Barbarossa issues a decree promoting universities independent of the political or clerical power, the Costitutio Habita.
Duke Heinrich the Lion of Saxony founds the cities of Munich and Luebeck.
German emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa elevates duke Vladislav II of Bohemia to king.
1158 CE – Spain – The Templar Order abandoned the fortress of Calatrava, Spain fearing their ability to defend their position. The Cistercian abbot, Ramon Sierra offered to defend Calatrava and is accepted. The Knights of Calatrava as an Order is created.
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| Calatrava Cross |
The Templars were originally a modest, nondescript bunch, which was formed in 1118, following the end of the First Crusade (1095 – 1099). Their role was to ensure the safety of pilgrims from bandits to and from Jerusalem. Initially there were only nine in the Order and they lived frugally, surviving on alms.
In 1128, the French knight Hugues de Payens (English: Hugh Pagan), recognised the potential scope of the Templars and took it upon himself to expand and diversify the group. He went to the Council of Troyes to seek additional members and official church sanction. It was then that the Templars adopted their distinctive habit: a white Cistercian robe with a red cross emblazoned on the front.
As their numbers and strength grew they were invited in 1147 by the King of Castile, Alfonso VII, to protect a castle he had taken from the Moors. The castle was called Calatrava (Arabic Qal’at Rabah: ‘fortress of Rabah’). The Templars established a garrison there and stayed for ten years. They were replaced by a militia of Cistercian laymen, under the supervision of Raymond, Abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Fitero. No doubt these local herdsmen and labourers would have had a personal grudge against the Moors, whom they fought with great enthusiasm.
In 1187, a general chapter at Cîteaux gave these Knights of Calatrava their definitive rule, which was approved in the same year by Pope Gregory VIII. This rule retained the Cistercian customs required of laymen, plus the obligation to wear their armour 24/7 and be ready to fight whenever the need arose.
Initially, these Knights of Calatrava were hugely successful and were rewarded by grants of land from the King of Castile. But by 1195, after a surge of new Muslim recruits from Africa, the Knights were overpowered and the Moors retook the castle which they kept for another 17 years. The Calatravas then recovered possession of the stronghold and from there spread to the far corners of Iberia.
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| Calatrava Cross |
As with their predecessors, their livery consisted of the Cistercian white mantle with a scarlet Greek Cross. Each arm of the cross was terminated with a Fleur-de-lis, shown here stylised into a letter ‘M’. This reflects the depth of devotion to the Virgin Mary among the peoples of the two kingdoms on the Iberian peninsula, as the Mother of Jesus. (2)
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| Alexander III |
1159 – 1181 CE – Italy – Alexander III, alias Orlando Bandinelli, a pro-Viking and anti-Roman is elected pope, but had to flee for his life. There are violent scenes because it had been agreed that the election must be unanimous and many cardinals did not agree with the decision.
Alexander III’s papacy was marred by the fact that a minority of cardinals at his election chose instead to go with Cardinal Octavian, who adopted the papal name Victor IV.
It was not until the Peace of Venice in 1177 CE that Frederick I finally accepted the papacy of Alexander III, allowing Alexander to return to Rome where, in 1179 CE, he convened the Third Lateran Council. Alexander III wanted to use this Council to enact a number of important reforms and among its decisions was that no pope could be elected without receiving at least two-thirds of the cardinals’ ballots
1159 CE – France – French theologian John of Salisbury publishes Policraticus (3), the first doctrine of the separation of church and state but with the state subordinate to the church.
1159 – 1164 CE – Italy – Antipope Victor IV, the former Cardinal Octavianus (Ottaviano Crescenzi Ottaviani di Montecelio), was known as the Ghibelline antipope. He was elected in 1159 CE, and countenanced by the emperor Barbarossa. He died at Lucca on April 20, 1164 CE.
This resulted in a new line of antipopes, with Paschal III and Callistus III succeeding him. These antipopes had the direct support of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, a ruler whom Alexander had actively opposed while he was still a cardinal.
1160 CE – Japan – A civil war began between the southern Japan Taira peoples and the northern Japan Minamoto clan. The Minamoto are nearly destroyed and the survivors become the Samurai. The Samurai only comprised about 6% of the population.
1160 CE – Turkey – This era marks the greatest recovery of the Eastern Roman Empire before its final demise.
1160 CE – Italy – Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa called a synod of fifty German and northern Italian bishops at Pavia, they excommunicated Pope Alexander III and endorsed Pope Victor. Henry II of England and Louis VII of France sided with Pope Alexander III.
1162 CE – Italy – Friedrich I Barbarossa raids Rome and Milan. Pope Alexander III had to move to France with his curia.
1162 – 1196 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Alfonso II becomes the king of Aragon.
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| Genghis Khan |
1162 – 1227 CE – Mongolia – Temuchin the Mongol, 1162 – 1227 CE, son of Yesugei the Khan (Lord), is born this year by the Onon River and will become Jenghis (Genghis) Khan (Lord) in 1206 CE. Chinggis or Genghis means “limitless strength.” He would unite an enormous army of nomads. It is noteworthy that half the Mongolian people at this time are a Turkic-speaking people who predate the Mongols. The Xiongnu People who raided China for centuries preceded the Turkic people and could be the ancestors of the Hun. He would become the conquerer of China and Russia, invader of Europe and the Islamic Empire, and destroyer of Assassin power.
1163 CE – France – The cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is founded, with Paris bishop Maurice de Sully beginning the work.
1164 CE – Scotland – King Somerled the Gaelic-Viking, who married the daughter of Olaf the Black, Viking King of the Isles, King of Man died this year in the battle of Renfrew. St. Kentigern on behalf of Glasgow is credited with his death. Somerled is Norse for summer sailor. Somerled established a powerful clan with his eldest son Dougal which is Gaelic for dark foreigner, a suggestive epithet for one of Olaf the Black’s grandsons. Dougall became King of the Isle, Lord of Argyll and Lorne, and Progenitor of clan MacDougall. From Somerled’s second son, Angus Og, came the MacDonald, MacAlister and MacRuaris clans.
1164 – 1168 CE – Italy – Paschal III, alias Guido, is elected pope by the pro-Imperial Party and Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. The ambassador of Henry II of England supported Pope Paschal III.
Paschal III was the second of the antipopes to challenge the reign of Pope Alexander III. Alexander III’s papacy was marred by the fact that a minority of cardinals at his election chose instead to go with Cardinal Octavian, who adopted the papal name Victor IV. In 1164 CE, after the death of Octavian, the same faction met again and elected Paschal III to succeed him. In order to gain more support from Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, Paschal III canonized Charlemagne in 1165 CE – an act which the church has never ratified.
1165 CE – Palestine – The Knights Templar built a string of castles along the route to the Holy Land. The Templars are ferocious and do not retreat unless outnumbered by more than three to one. It is estimated that 20,000 Templars died in battle during the Crusades. The Templars however eventually became very close with their Muslim and Judah brothers, learning their philosophies and ritual secrets.
1166 CE – Syria – The Assassins are shattered. [(]
1166 CE – England – Prior to the Norman Conquest, the Saxons had a crude form of local justice administered by the witan or wise men. King Henry II convoked the Assize of Clarendon, which was followed in 1176 CE by the Assize of Northampton. Out of these sessions came far-reaching reforms, designed to suppress the haphazard justice of the local courts and to subordinate the ecclesiastical courts to a court of the King’s own making. Thus was established the King’s Bench, to administer King’s Law, or Common Law, or unwritten law, as a supreme and common standard of law for the kingdom.
Unwritten law embraces four subdivisions:
common law;
equity;
international law; and
the law merchant.
To these may be added two other branches of law in which precedent plays a dominant part:
- admiralty law, and
- business or commercial law.
The law merchant is that branch of the unwritten law which was originally founded on the customs of merchants, mariners and business men generally in their dealings with one another throughout the civilized countries of the world. The expansion of international trade following the Renaissance gave new impetus to the need of mercantile paper in place of hazardous gold shipments across pirate-infested waters and over robber-infested lands. Also, mercantile disputes called for legal remedies more suited to the needs of merchants and mariners than those prevailing in the ordinary courts. Mercantile courts – often presided over by arbiters chosen by the merchants and mariners themselves – dispensed quick justice based on the unique body of custom which had grow up outside the ordinary rules of the law. In the beginning, the decisions of these pie poudre or “dusty foot” courts, was they were called, had no legal sanction. Later they were recognized as a valid body of rules based on precedent, and were adopted as the law of the land.
This body of law based on mercantile precedent has come to be known as the law merchant. It embraces not only that branch of the law known as bills and notes, or negotiable instruments, but others as well, such as insurance and similar branches of mercantile law. (4)
King Henry II received permission from Pope Alexander III to conquer Ireland. Alexander III wanted to eradicate Irish customs and culture that conflicted with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Henry invaded Ireland using the pretext of a request for military assistance from the Irish King Dermot of Leinster. England however would not govern Ireland for another 300 years.
1167 CE – France – A Cathari council is held near Toulouse. [IllHis]
1168 CE – Mexico – The city of Tollan was deserted and left to decay. [p56LR]
1168 – 1181 CE – Italy – The Roman Imperial Party elected Callistus III, alias Giovanni as bishop of Rome. Only Rome, some districts of the papal state, Tuscany in Italy and parts of the Rhineland in Germany recognized this pope.
1169 CE – Ireland – Ireland is conquered by French Viking (Norman) Lords and Henry II forced the Irish Chiefs and Norman Lords to accept his Lordship. The Pope supported the King of England, hoping to bring the Irish Celtic Church under his own control. Much of western Ireland remained in the hands of the Irish Chiefs and the Norman Lords governed the west.
1170 CE – England – On December 29, Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who clashed with Henry II over church-state relations, is murdered at the altar of the Canterbury cathedral. [$2]
King Henry II had appointed his friend Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. However, there were bitter disagreements between the two. While King Henry II was at a feast in France, he shouted out angrily, “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?” Four of the king’s knights heard this and travelled to Canterbury, where they murdered Becket inside the cathedral. Shortly thereafter, the Pope made Becket a saint, and many people pilgrimaged to Canterbury to see Becket’s tomb. The arrival of many visitors helped Canterbury to become a wealthy town. However, King Henry VIII stopped pilgrimages after he created the Church of England, and Thomas Becket’s tomb was destroyed. A candle is now lit at the place where the tomb used to be.
1170 CE – Spain – The Dominican order is founded in Spain.
1170 CE – North America – A Welsh Prince, Owain Gwynedd with 120 settlers fled to America. This account is first published in 1584 CE. Some contend Prince Madoc landed at Mobile Bay, Alabama this year. Others contend they are the Mandan people.
1170 CE – Ireland – The Viking-Norman again invaded Ireland taking over most of the more fertile locations.
1170 – 1177 CE – Turkey – Michael III of Anchialus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1171 CE – Italy – Pope Alexander III demanded his annual penny per household before he set his seal of approval on King Henry II’s occupation of Ireland.
1172 CE – Spain – The Almohads conquer Andalucia from the Almoravids and move the capital to Sevilla.
1174 CE – Syria – Saladin captures Damascus. [p99++]
1174 CE – Palestine – All the buildings within the area of the Dome of the Rock are still in Templar possession. [p100@]
1175 – 1185 CE – France – Guillaume de Tyre wrote down the first historical information on the Templars. [p60+]
1175 CE – Mongolia – Jenghis Khan, the Mongol Emperor, succeeded his father Yesugei as chieftain at age thirteen. Other records suggest his father Yesugei died 1180 CE and Genghis became Khan (Lord) in 1206 CE. Tartar tribesmen poisoned Yesugei because he once robbed them. Genghis would later kill all but the youngest males and enslave the women and children. The Tartar tribe ceases to be. The Mongol armies created a Great Empire that stretched from the Yellow Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. He is reported by European sources to have said, “I will carry slaughter and cause devastation to my enemy, so my name will live”. He is alleged to have said “Man’s greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding and use the bodies of his women as a nightshirt.” Other records suggest he had a great respect for women and his only fears in life are concern for his mother and wife.
1176 CE – France – Peter Waldo founds the Poor Men of Lyons. [IllHis]
1176 CE – Egypt – Sultan Saladin invades Assassin territory and gains a truce. Saladin, a Kurdish adventurer who hacked his way to the throne, is proclaimed King of Egypt and Syria. His ambition is to restore the unity of Sunni Islam including a Jihad against the Franks.
1176 CE – Italy – The Italian communes defeat Friedrich Barbarossa at the battle of Legnano.
1177 CE – Germany – Frederick I Barbarossa recognizes Alexander III as Pope and is forgiven.
1177 CE – Palestine – King Saladin of Egypt and Syria mobilized an army of 26,000 Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Sudanese and Mamelukes to march on Jerusalem. Three hundred Knights, including eighty Templars, slaughtered Saladin’s army driving them into the Sinai desert where they all perished of thirst.
1177 – 1178 CE – Turkey – Chariton becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1178 CE – Italy – Pope Alexander III wrote a charter confirming the possessions of the Prieuré de Sion in France, Spain, Palestine, Sicily, Naples, Calabria and Lombardy. [p360+-]
Pope Alexander III issued a Papal Bull that the Knights of the Cross (Templars, Hospitalliers) can only carry arms when they display the standard of the cross to defend the kingdom or attacking a pagan city.
1179 CE – Spain – The Knights of Calatrava founded a commandery in Aragon at Alcaniz (Spain) to fight the Moors of Valencia. Alexander III recognized them as the Order of St. James of the Sword. They took vows of chastity, but most married as it is better to marry than to be burnt in the flames.
1179 CE – Italy – The Third Lateran Council through canon law denied usurers, those who loaned money for profit or sold goods for profit are denied access to communion. To prevent future schism it established that a two-thirds majority of cardinals is required at papal elections. They also established for the persecution of heretics. Shortly after the council Pope Alexander is forced by the Roman popular commune to flee Rome. Innocent III is elected pope by a small group of schismatic cardinals in Rome.
1179 – 1183 CE – Turkey – Theodosius I Borradiotes becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1180 CE – Germany – Barbarossa invades Luebeck and deposes duke Heinrich the Lion.
1180 – 1183 CE – Turkey – Alexius II becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1180 CE – Italy – Pope Alexander III issued a Papal Bull recognizing the Knights of Our Lady of Montjoie (Order of Trufac) as an Order with an oath to fight Saracens. The founder is a Spaniard, Count Rodrigo a Knight of Santiago, who is considered an unstable character. During this period, the forgers in the papal chancery reached their most prolific peak. The notorious Gospel according to Mark of Silver and the legend of the blessed martyrs Albinus and Rufinus are created.
An early product of that disturbance was the Tractatus Garsiae ‘on the relics of the precious martyrs Albinus and Rufinus’, composed just after 1099 (Thomson 1973). Albinus and Rufinus are transparent – indeed, conventional – code-names for silver and gold; and the treatise is a farcical tale of how the Archbishop of Toledo, ambitious for a legate’s appointment, brings the relics of this blessed pair to Rome, as a well-calculated way of securing the Pope’s goodwill.
The Medieval Mind, Hispanic Studies in Honour of Alan Deyermond, Ian Richard Macpherson, Ralph John Penny, p. 383, Tamesis, London, 1997, ISBN 1 85566 051 2.
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| Lucius III |
1181 – 1185 CE – Italy – Lucius III, alias Ubaldo Allucingoli, is elected as pope in Rome, but infuriated the citizens so he resided at Velletri and Anagni.
1182 – 1226 CE – Italy – Franciscus of Assisi born. [$6]
1182 CE – France – Conte du Graal left unfinished by Crétien de Troyes, medieval poet. [p56@] The extant poems of Chretien de Troyes, in their chronological order are, Erec it Enide, Cliges, Le Chevalier de la Charrette (or Lancelot), Le Chevalier au Lion (or Yvain), and Le Conte del Graal (Perceval), all dealing with Arthurian legend.
The Jews are banned from France.
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| Andronicus I |
1183 – 1185 CE – Turkey – Andronicus I becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1183 – 1186 CE – Turkey – Basil II Carnaterus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1184 CE – France – Pope Lucius III issued a bull against heretics, which would establish many of the principals of jurisprudence later adopted by the Inquisition. Among those principals was the idea that anyone that shielded or succored heretics would be liable to the same punishment as the heretic themselves, that unrepentant heretics should be turned over to secular arm for punishment, and that “relapsed” heretics should receive steeper sentences (including confiscation of property). Also of interest is the fact that two main targets of the Inquisition forty years later were identified by name – “Catharists,” and the “Poor of Lyons” (a.k.a. Waldensians).
Many of the ideas in the aforementioned bull were further codified by the largest Church Council in history (400 bishops, 800 abbots) – the Fourth Lateran Council (1215 CE). The council in Rome declared that unrepentant heretics should be excommunicated, and turned over to secular authorities for punishment. Punishment was unspecified, but confiscation of property was explicitly allowed. Thus, one of the areas of greatest abuse in the coming Inquisition – the confiscation of property by Church and secular authorities – was officially codified by canon law.
Waldenses and other heretics were excommunicated by Pope Lucius III. The founder of the Waldenses was Valdes, a wealthy 12th century merchant of Lyons, France. Inspired by the passage in the Gospel of Matthew in which Christ instructed a rich young man to sell all that he had for the good of the poor, Valdes gave away all of his possessions in order to adopt the life of a mendicant preacher. As a layman Valdes was not authorised to preach by the church. His refusal to discontinue his preaching led him and his followers to be condemned as heretics and excommunicated at the Council of Verona in 1184 CE.
During the 13th century, the Waldenses were continuously persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church. A remnant survived in the Alpine valleys south west of Turin. During the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, many accepted the doctrines of John Calvin and joined the Reformed Church. Those that remained as a distinctive church continued to suffer discrimination. It was only in 1848 CE that the Waldenses were ascribed civil rights. This led to a flourishing of the movement expressed in the planting of churches in Italy and the establishment of new colonies in Uruguay, Argentina and America.
1184 – 1190 CE – Italy – F. Gérard de Riderfort becomes Grand Master of the Templars. [p490+]
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| Isaac II |
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| Urban III |
1185 – 1195 CE – Cyprus – Isaac II becomes emperor of Cyprus, part of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1185 – 1187 CE – Italy – Urban III an avowed opponent of the Emperor, is elected pope in Verona on the same day as Pope Lucius‘ death. His vindictiveness against the Emperor made him ineffective.
Urban III fought harsh battles with Barbarossa, particularly after the marriage between Barbarossa’s son and the daughter of Roger of Sicily. He died suddenly at Ferrara on receiving the news that Saladin had entered Jerusalem.
1185 CE – Palestine – King Baudouin IV of Jerusalem is dead. [p68+]
1185 CE – Japan – The first Samurai Warrior to become a Shogun in Japan is a descendant of the aboriginal Ainu race held in low esteem by many Japanese.
1185 CE – England – In the mid-12th century, the Knights Templar or Red Knights (so called after the red crosses they wore) had their London headquarters at a site in High Holborn. But by the 1160s, the order outgrew the original site and purchased property near Fleet Street for establishment of a larger monastic compound.
The Temple Church was consecrated on February 10, 1185 in a ceremony conducted by Heraclius, the Crusader Patriarch of Jerusalem. King Henry II may have been present at the consecration. The Knights Templar held worship services and their secret initiation rites in “the Round,” the oldest part of the Temple Church.
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| The Temple Church was built by the Knights Templar |
The church was originally part of a large monastic compound that included residences, military training facilities, and recreational grounds for the military brethren and novices, who were not permitted to go into the city without the permission of the Master of the Temple.
The order of the Knights Templar was very powerful in England in this early period. The Master of the Temple sat in parliament as primus baro (the first baron of the realm). The Temple compound was regularly used as a residence by kings and by legates of the Pope.
The temple also served as an early depository bank, sometimes in defiance of the Crown’s wishes to seize the funds of nobles who had entrusted their wealth there. The Temple was the scene of important negotiations leading to the signing of Magna Carta in 1215. Instrumental in these negotiations was William Marshal, whose effigy is in the Round.
In the Round Church you will find the life-size stone effigies of nine knights. Most famous of these knights was William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, the most important mediator between King John and the Barons in 1215. John was at the Temple in January 1215 when the barons demanded that he confirm the rights enshrined in the Coronation Charter of his predecessor; it was William who swore on the King’s behalf that the barons’ grievances would be satisfied in the summer. William became Regent in the minority of Henry III.
William’s own eldest son, also William, was among those chosen by the barons to force John’s compliance with Magna Carta; and on John’s death he joined the rebels against Henry’s rule. His father eventually won him over to Henry’s cause. The effigy of this younger William lies next to his father’s.
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| Knights effigies in the round nave |
The original church had a small choir, but this was greatly enlarged in the early 1200s when King Henry III expressed a wish to be buried there. The new chancel was consecrated on Ascension Day 1240. However, when Henry’s will was read upon his death in 1272, it was discovered he had changed his mind and wanted to be buried in Westminster Abbey instead.
Having started out poor, holy, and dedicated to the protection of pilgrims, the Knights Templar grew rich from showers of royal gifts. Their popularity waned until, in the 14th century, they were charged with heresy, blasphemy, and sodomy, thrown into the Tower of London, and stripped of their wealth. With the suppression of the Templars, the Knights of Malta obtained control of the property.
In Part I of the 16th century play Henry VI, by William Shakespeare, the Temple Church is the scene of the start of the 15th century Wars of the Roses. In the play, the war was sparked by the plucking of two roses in the Temple garden. In 2002, the Shakespearian tradition was commemorated with the planting of new white and red roses in the modern gardens.
Later, law professors who worked in the area began to rent a portion of the space; in the early 1600s King James I granted control of the complex to their societies. Each section of The Temple — Inner Temple and Middle Temple — has its own halls, gardens, courts, and library collections, but the Temple Church is held in common by both.
The Temple Church survived the Great Fire of London (1666) unscathed, but received restorations anyway by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723). In 1841, the walls and ceiling of the church were renovated in the Victorian Gothic style.
On May 10, 1941, during the height of the Battle of Britain in World War II, a German air raid of incendiary bombs severely damaged the Temple Church. The roof of the Round Church caught fire, which quickly spread to the nave and chancel. All the wooden parts of the church, including the Victorian renovations, were destroyed. After the war, the Temple Church was fully restored; it was rededicated on November 1958. (5)
There are two Crowns operant in England, one being Queen Elizabeth II. Although extremely wealthy, the Queen functions largely in a ceremonial capacity and serves to deflect attention away from the other Crown, who issues her marching orders through their control of the English Parliament. This other Crown is comprised of a committee of 12 banks headed by the Bank of England (House of Rothschild). They rule the world from the 677-acre, independent sovereign state know as The City of London, or simply ‘The City.’
The City is not a part of England, just as Washington, D.C. is not a part of the United States of America. The City is referred to as the wealthiest square mile on earth and is presided over by a Lord Mayor who is appointed annually. When the Queen wishes to conduct business within the City, she is met by the Lord Mayor at Temple (Templar) Bar where she requests permission to enter this private, sovereign state. She then proceeds into the City walking several paces behind the Mayor. Her entourage may not be clothed in anything other than service uniforms.
The Temple Church serves both the Inner and Middle Temples and is located between Fleet Street and Victoria Embankment at the Thames River. Its grounds also house the Crown Offices at Crown Office Row. This Temple “Church” is outside any canonical jurisdiction. The Master of the Temple is appointed and takes his place by sealed (non-public) patent, without induction or institution.
All licensed Bar Attorneys – Attorners – in the U.S. owe their allegiance and give their solemn oath in pledge to the Crown Temple, realizing this or not. This is simply due to the fact that all Bar Associations throughout the world are signatories and franchises to the International Bar Association located at the Inns of Court at Crown Temple, which are physically located at Chancery Lane behind Fleet Street in London. Although they vehemently deny it, all Bar Associations in the U.S., such as the American Bar Association, the Florida Bar, or California Bar Association, are franchises to the Crown.
The Inns of Court to the Crown Temple use the Banking and Judicial system of the City of London to defraud, coerce, and manipulate the American people. These Fleet Street bankers and lawyers are committing crimes in America under the guise and color of law. They are known collectively as the “Crown.” Their lawyers are actually Templar Bar Attorneys, not lawyers.
The aforementioned Temple Bar is the juristic arm of the Crown and holds an exclusive monopoly on global legal fraud through their Bar Association franchises. The Temple Bar is comprised of four Inns of Court. They are: the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn. The entry point to these closed secret societies is only to be found when one is called to their Bar.
1186 – 1189 CE – Turkey – Nicetas II Muntanes becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1187 CE – Palestine – Syria – Saladin, King of Egypt and Syria, led his army of 60,000 against Jerusalem. Most prisoners are spared in contrast to the Christian sacking of 1099 CE. All Templars and Hospitalliers, however, are beheaded. The Frankish-Syria male population is driven off to the slave-markets of Damascus. A large portion of Jerusalem is allowed to ransom a large portion of their population and the penniless are allowed to go free.
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| Gregory VIII |
1187 – 1187 CE – Italy – Gregory VIII is elected pope. As Pope, he proclaimed it is not for the clergy to take up arms but to devote themselves to alms-giving and praising God. When news of the Christian crusader disaster at Hattin in Galilee and the capture of Jerusalem by King Saladin reached Rome, he soon dispatched legates to Germany, France, Denmark and Poland for a Crusade. He considered the catastrophes in the Holy Land as God’s punishment for the sins of Christians. He forbade their indulgence in extravagant clothes and gaming. He tried to curb the power of the curia by referring appeals back to Bishops. He ordered the tomb of Pope Victor IV broken open and the remains thrown out of the church. He died while trying to secure seaports at Pisa in support of his Holy War.
His pontificate was entirely occupied with organizing the Third Crusade. Gregory VIII tried to bring Barbarossa into the holy war, but the emperor persisted in his hostile attitude towards the Church.
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| Clement III |
1187 – 1191 CE – Italy – Clement III, alias Paolo Scolari, a wealthy Roman, is elected Pope by the Cardinals at Piza. The Church permitted enslavement of Christians who helped the Saracens during the Crusades.
Clement III was able to return to Rome and made peace with Barbarossa. He organized the Third Crusade in which participated Venice, Pisa and Genoa and the principal rulers of Europe. During this crusade, Barbarossa died.
1188 CE – France – In 1188 CE, King Phillip II of France and King Henry II of England (with his heir Richard the Lion Hearted at his side) met on the sacred field at Gisors. This site in France was where kings had come for centuries to debate, forge alliances, and sometimes do battle. A huge elm tree in the middle of the sacred field was the central symbol – an ancient elm thought to be almost 800 years old at that time, so huge that nine men joined hand to hand could not encircle it.
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| Prieure du Notre Dame du Sion |
Phillip and Henry were not on good terms; war between England and France was in the air, and Henry was making a claim on France. Phillip informed Henry that the elm would be cut down; Henry and Richard planned to defend it. A battle ensued, Richard was slightly wounded, the French army stormed the field with superior manpower while the English fled and took refuge in the nearby chateaux of Gisors. Phillip chopped down the elm, and retained France for himself. Henry thus did not conquer France but went home and ruled England, passing it on to Richard the Lion Heart followed by his other son, John.
In 1188 the Ordre de Sion is … said to have modified its name, adopting the one which has allegedly obtained to the present – the Prieuré de Sion. As a kind of subtitle it is said to have adopted the curious name ‘Ormus.’ This subtitle was supposedly used until 1306 – a year before the arrest of the French Templars. The device for ‘Ormus’ … involves a kind of acrostic or anagram which combines a number of key words and symbols. Ours means ‘bear’ in French – Ursus in Latin, an echo, as subsequently became apparent, of Dagobert II and the Merovingian dynasty. Orme is French for ‘elm.’ Or, of course, is ‘gold.’ And the M that forms the frame enclosing the other letters is not only an M but also the astrological sign for Virgo-connoting, in the language of medieval iconography, Notre Dame …
” … mysterious Abbey of Orval … [is] where our research suggested the Prieuré de Sion may have had its inception.” [pp113, 122 HBHG]
The signature of the Prieuré de Sion incorporated the sign of Virgo 
with the four letters ORUS, which stood for Horus, in the form of a cross –
” … consider the device of the Priory of SION, namely, the name Ormus, and its glyph. The glyph is as follows: ORUS. “What is this? Ormus, that is, Virgo and ORUS. What is ORUS? ORUS is a corrupted form of Horus, and is used in Crowley’s 5th Degree Ritual for the OTO. His Rose-Croix ritual includes an analysis of the Keyword, much like in the Golden Dawn Adeptus Minor Ceremony, only IAO stands not for ISIS, APOPHIS, and OSIRIS, but IACCHUS, ASI, and ORUS.” [MS]
Ormus evolved into the Order of the Prieuré de Sion of the Rosy Cross: “One is intended to see in Ormus the origins of the so-called Rose-Croix, or Rosicrucians. And in 1188 the Prieuré de Sion is said to have adopted a second subtitle in addition to Ormus. It is said to have called itself L’Ordre de la Rose-Croix Veritas … Ormus … [was] the name allegedly adopted by the Prieuré de Sion between 1188 and 1307.” [pp123, 185 HBHG]
1188 CE – Spain – Portico de la Gloria on the west side of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was completed. Its style was influenced by the Chartres cathedral. [Enc]
1188 – 1220 CE – France – Jean de Gisors becomes Grand Master of Prieuré de Sion. [p133+]
1188 CE – Italy – Pope Clement III finally brought the papacy back to Rome. The Roman senate recognized the popes’ sovereignty, restored papal revenues and the right to coinage. Administration is left to the Roman Senate. Clement III also devoted all his efforts towards the pending Holy War. He made the papacy a center of unification and co-ordination for war.
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Coat of Arms
Richard I |
1189 CE – England – Richard I, who is called the Lion Hearted, became king. During his coronation, the Jews were massacred.
In 1189 CE, his great seal bore a single rampant lion, but his shield was “Gules three lions passant guardant,” the three lions reportedly representing England, Normandy, and Aquitaine. The same arms continued for John, Henry III, Edward I, and Edward II.
Until the time of Richard I. the chief magistrate of the City of London was the portreeve, but the Liber Antiquis Legibus states that in 1189 the first mayor, Henry FitzAylwin, was appointed, and reigned till his death in 1212. Richard as much attached to the City. Indeed he owed his freedom from captivity mainly to the liberality of the citizens who subscribed nobly to his ransom. By his charter he gave them complete jurisdiction over the Thames river. King John tried to concilate them and gain the support of the Londoners by granting to them charters, but they espoused the cause of the barons, and a special claim was inserted in Magna Charta granting to the City its ancient privileges. [see p. 52]
At this period there arose some bodies of men who exercised great power over the affairs of the City through the crafts-gilds. These gilds were associations of men engaged in the same craft or trade, fraternities, the objects of which were to benefit their trade and their brethren, support them in sickness, aid them in distress, exercise government of the members, prevent bad work, of the infraction of their rules, such as regards labouring on Sundays or Saints’ days. Moreover, they regulated their craft, created a monopoly, so that no one who did not belong to their gild could live or work in the City or its suburbs. He was a “foreigner,” and was treated as modern workmen often treat a “black-lag.” Later on, in Tudor times, when owing to the landlords and farmers turning their estates into sheep-farms, country labourers were dispossessed, and crowds flocked to London, these craftsmen became alarmed; the apprentices rose in the City and cried: “Clubs! Clubs!” on that fatal May-day morning, and the great riot took place, and the “foreigners” were expelled. The gilds were of a religious nature. Each had its own patron saint, its chaplain, and the members attended Mass on regular days at stated intervals. They had their own palls for use at the funerals of the members. Nor were their feasts forgotten which tended to promote good fellowship and good-will.
To found a gild it was necessary to have a charter: some sprang into being and did not apply for a charter. So they were termed “adulterine gilds,” and had to pay a fine. Their power increased; charters were granted to them, and in 1319 they succeeded in acquiring the right to elect the Common Council of the City. Such was the origin of the City Companies of London which exist to this day, and carry on their beneficent charitable work. [see p. 53]
1189 – 1192 CE – Palestine – The third Holy War is conducted to the Holy Land. The Crusaders use the Trebuchet (catapult). The third Crusade is led by King Richard the Lion-Hearted of England, King Philippe Auguste II of France, and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. They marched to the Holy Land with 100,000 men and by 1190 CE, not more than 1,000 reached Acre, being a Christian stronghold under siege. Richard I is killed in 1199 CE in France.
1189 – 1190 CE – Turkey – Leon Theotokites becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1190 CE – Sweden – The Order of St. John founded a monastery in Eskilstuna. [10$]
1190 – 1199 CE – Italy – Roman de I’estoire dou Saint Graal by Robert de Boron. [p301+]
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Insignia of the Teutonic Order
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1190 CE – Germany – The Teutonic Knights, (The Order of the Hospital of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the German House of Jerusalem), are founded by German lords to fight in the crusade, establish their capital at Acre, and adopt the Templars’ white mantle and the Hospitallers’ rule.
Friedrich I Barbarossa dies and is succeeded by Heinrich VI as German emperor.
1190 – 1191 CE – Turkey – Dositheus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
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| Celestine III |
1191 – 1198 CE – Italy – Celestine III is elected pope only reluctantly to avoid schism. English King Richard I during the third Crusade following the conquest of the Palestinian city of Acre, issued terms of surrender to the Muslims. When the Muslims refused to make full payments until the three thousand prisoners were released, the Christian King Richard I on August 20 marched the three thousand prisoners, bound with ropes, out onto a plain. In full view of the Muslim army, he ordered the Christian Crusaders to slaughter the defenseless prisoners men, women and children with swords and lances, creating many martyrs that day.
Celestine III crowned Henry VI, Barbarossa’s son, as emperor. Henry, who was very arrogant, invaded all of Italy and ripped Apulia and Sicily from the Normans. He died suddenly at 32 years of age and the empire passed into the hands of his son Frederick II. Celestine died at 92 years of age.
1191 – 1198 CE – Turkey – George II Xiphilinus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1192 CE – Egypt – King Richard I, having failed to reach Jerusalem, sued for peace on September 2 with King Saladin for a narrow coastal strip of land, ninety miles long and never more than ten miles wide, from Tyre to Jaffa.
1193 CE – Egypt – Saladin, King of Egypt and Syria dies, and his brother, Malik Adil, becomes sultan of Egypt and Syria.
1193 – 1280 CE – Italy – Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus), is born. Albert was a Dominican scholar who wrote occult treatises.
1194 CE – Iran – The last Persian Seljuq ruler dies and Seljuq power collapses in Iran.
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Chartres Cathedral
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The Royal Portal
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1194 – 1225 CE – France – During the Renaissance, that medieval period when the occult traditions flooded Europe from the Mideast, Chartres Cathedral was built on a sacred site in France where ancient Druids worshipped the Mother Goddess. A World Heritage Site famous for its Gothic architecture – and, to the initiated, its thoroughly pagan symbolism – Chartres Cathedral is known to occultists as the ‘Golden Book’ that reinstated the philosophy of classical Greece in the mainstream of Christian Europe. The cathedral expresses through ‘sacred geometry’ and astrological symbolism the Gnostic belief that “Man can compass his salvation by means of knowledge”, referring to gnosis. Within its massive structure was housed a mystery school which operated as a theological academy for over two centuries. In the underground crypt of the cathedral, initiates worshipped a replica of a Druidic statue known as the ‘Virgini Pariturae’ or ‘the virgin about to give birth’. The Templar Chronicles calls the Virgini Pariturae “the Virgo who must give birth”.
The statue in the underground chapel was also called Our Lady Under the Earth because the crypt, where initiations took place, was believed to be connected to telluric powers, i.e. the underworld. On the west front of Chartres Cathedral is featured in the tympanum of the right portal – the Gate of Birth – a statue identical to the Virgini Pariturae in the underground chamber. The exterior icon was and still is venerated by the profane masses of Catholics as Mary, the ‘Mother of God’. Exoterically the white virgin on the west facade is the Blessed Virgin Mary who gave birth two thousand years ago; but esoterically, she is the black virgin who was still pregnant with child.
“The Druid’s love of inner journeys and their visions inspired their prophesies about the woman that would bring a saviour into the world. This pregnant woman is the black madonna we often find in medieval shrines throughout Europe. If the white virgin is the one who has already given birth, the black virgin is the pregnant woman of the druid’s vision.” [MW]
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West Facade, Royal Portal, Incarnation of Christ, 1145 – 1155. God before Time. Virgin and Christ Child Enthroned. Throne of Wisdom.
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Stained glass window of Virgin and Christ Child Enthroned, Chartres Cathedral.
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Partly built starting in 1145 CE, and then reconstructed over a 26-year period after the fire of 1194 CE, Chartres Cathedral marks the high point of French Gothic art. The vast nave, in pure ogival style, the porches adorned with fine sculptures from the middle of the 12th century, and the magnificent 12th- and 13th-century stained-glass windows, all in remarkable condition, combine to make it a masterpiece. Chartres also boasted the first stone image of Mary. Like its famous counterpart in Paris, it is also called “Notre-Dame” (Our Lady).
Inside this cathedral, St. Bernhard of Clairvaux preached for the Second Crusade in 1146 CE.
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Saint-Clement Chapel – located on the south gallery of the crypt
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There have been at least five cathedrals on this site, each replacing an earlier smaller building that had been destroyed by war or fire. It was called the ‘Church of Saint Mary’ in the eighth century, and in 876 CE, Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles the Bald, gifted the Virgin’s great relic, the Sancta Camisia, to the cathedral. It is believed to be the one that Mary wore when she gave birth to Christ.
This veil is now housed in the cathedral treasury. The present dedication to ‘Beata Maria Assumpta’ probably dates from this gift.
During the 6th Century, there was a building of a Merovingian church, and some remains are still under the choir. The church had been destroyed by the Danes in 858 CE. There was another fire in 962 CE, and a more devastating conflagration in 1020 CE, after which Bishop Fulbert reconstructed the whole building. Most of the present crypt, which is the largest in France, remains from that period.
The modern-day Cathedral’s guide-book has this to say about the object of the pilgrimages –
“The crypt is the origin and heart of the pilgrimage. For many centuries Our Lady of Chartres has accepted the homage of her votaries. Our Lady of the “Belle Verrière” was once an object of veneration, and particularly invoked by women before childbirth, and formerly, there was the gilt statue on the main altar, where people knelt in prayer as today before Our Lady of the Pillar.”
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Our Lady of the Pillar
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Our Lady of the Pillar is a classic example of the Black Virgin and was carved for a ground-level shrine in the Cathedral that would draw the worshippers away from the busy main altar in the crypt. Black Virgin statues are the subject of passionate followings by local worshippers, but are generally frowned upon by the orthodoxy within the Catholic Church.
Many pilgrimages were made to Chartres, the object of this yet very popular pilgrimage is threefold: to venerate
- the statue of Notre-Dame-sous-Terre, inaugurated in 1857 CE, and modelled after the old statue burned in 1793 CE, being therefore a reproduction of the figure honoured by the Druids. (6) Devotions are held in the crypt which is the largest in France;
- the “Vierge Noire de Notre-Dame-du Pilier” (Black Virgin) in the upper church;
- the “Voile de la Vierge” (Veil of the Blessed Virgin), given to Charlemagne by Constantine Porphyrogenitus and Irene, transferred about 876 CE by Charles the Bald from Aachen to Chartres, and raised as a standard in 911 CE by Gantelme, the bishop, to put to flight the Norman Rollo. In 1360 CE, Edward III of England, and in 1591 CE, Henry IV of France, passed reverently beneath the reliquary containing this veil, which, until the end of the eithteenth century, was considered a chemise, and “chemisettes”, emblematic of this veil, were worn on the breast. [CAD]
1194 CE – Italy – Sicily – The German emperor Heinrich VI conquers southern Italy and Sicily from the Normans, despite the pope’s opposition. In 1194 CE that of the house of Hohenstaufen, whose most illustrious member was the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, succeeded the Norman rule. As Frederick I of Sicily, he presided over a brilliant court and, in 1231 CE, issued the anti-feudal Constitutions of Melfi, which centralized authority in Sicily. Hohenstaufen rule did not long survive his death in 1250 CE.
1194 CE – Spain – King Alfonso VIII of Castile, Spain challenged Caliph Yakubibn-Yusuf to come to Spain and fight.
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| Alexius III |
1195 – 1203 CE – Turkey – Alexius III becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire by deposing and blinding his brother, Isaac II.
1195 CE – Spain – Alfonso VIII of Castilla is defeated by Almohad at Alarcos. Almohad marched out of Marrakesh with his army and a host of slave-dealers to deal with the insolent King Alfonso VIII. The Kings of Leon and Navarre failed to join King Alfonso VIII, insulted by his boast that the Castilian Knights could do the job alone. The Moor and Negro army annihilated the Castilian Knights, with some 25,000 being killed or taken prisoner. King Alfonso and the Master of Calatrava just managed to escape. Almohad captured Guadalajara, Madrid, Ucles and Calatrava where the Knights of Calatrava are put to the sword. He however failed to take Toledo.
The Almohads were a Berber Muslim dynasty that ruled Morocco and Spain in the 12th and 13th century. Their origins were in the puritanical sect founded by Ibn Tumart, who stirred up (c. 1120 CE) the tribes of the Atlas mountain area to purify Islam and oust the Almoravids. His successors, Abd al-Mumin, Yusuf II, and Yakub I, succeeded in conquering Morocco and Muslim Spain, and by 1174 CE the Almohads had completely displaced the Almoravids. With time, the Almohads lost some of their fierce purifying zeal; Yakub had a rich court and was the patron of Averroës. Yakub defeated (1195 CE) Alfonso VIII of Castile in the battle of Alarcos, but in 1212 CE, the Almohad army was defeated, and Almohad power in Spain was destroyed by the victory of the Spanish and Portuguese at Navas de Tolosa. In Morocco, they lost power to the Merinid dynasty, which took Marrakesh in 1269 CE.
1195 – 1220 CE – Germany – Parzival is written by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a medieval poet. [p76+]
1196 – 1213 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Pedro II becomes the king of Aragon.
1197 CE – Germany – German emperor Heinrich VI dies and the electors prefer Otto IV over Heinrich’s son Friedrich II.
The abortive German Crusade this year resulted in the creation of a third major military Order, the Teutonic Knights. Heinrich Walpot von Bassenheim, a Rhinelander, is appointed Master. The Teutonic Knights of St. Mary’s Hospital of Jerusalem are installed in the St. Nicholas Gate at Acre, Palestine but developed in the Baltic rather than Palestine. Others suggest the Order was founded in 1127 CE at Jerusalem called the Hospital of St. Mary of the Germans. The Teutonic Knights could not compete with the Templars or Hospitallers in Syria, so they devoted their energy to Armenia.
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| Innocent III |
1198 – 1216 CE – Italy – Cardinal Lothaire (or Lotario de Conti) was unanimously elected Pope in January 1198, taking the name Innocent III . Like the boy-Pope Benedict IX, Innocent was from the Alberics family of Tusculum which in time was to boast 13 popes, 3 anti-popes and 40 cardinals. At his consecration at St Peter’s, the Cardinal Archdeacon placed a jewelled tiara on his head and intoned: “Know that thou are Father of princes and kings, Ruler of the World, the Vicar on earth of our Saviour Jesus Christ … “
Innocent believed his job is to rule the whole world. The Vatican had truly replaced the Roman Empire and is not prepared to give anything to Caesar. Thomas Hobbes said the Papacy is none other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, still sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. The Roman culture would become the Roman Catholic culture. Benito Mussolini would use this as his rallying cry in the twentieth century to justify the second great world war of that century. The Pope immediately began replacing officials of the Roman Empire. He justified intrusion in government affairs of other countries on the grounds they are all subject to his judgment on sin. The pope had to root out the ring of forgers operating in the chancery who are responsible for creating pungent satires on the corruption and avarice of the curia.
Pope Innocent III instituted the approved method of interrogation of suspected sodomites. In order to make them confess, suspects were lowered naked onto a red-hot spike. This method was kept until the year 1816 CE.
1198 – 1206 CE – Turkey – John X Camaterus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
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King John
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1199 CE – England – John Lackland became King of England upon the death of Richard the Lionheart.
1200 CE – England – Within a year of becoming king, John Lackland discarded his wife, Isabel of Gloucester, and married the young and beautiful Isabel of Angouleme. Pope Innocent was not pleased but seemed placated when King John sent 1,000 men to the Crusades and built an abbey. John began taxing the clergy to help fund his wars and appointed his own man to the See of Canterbury. The Pope appointed another but John refused to recognise him. The Pope responded by placing the whole of England under an interdict in 1208 CE. A year later, he excommunicated John.
1200 CE – Italy – Between 1200 and 1500 CE, the Roman Catholic Papacy would do away with every thing Catholic and the Church would enter the dark ages where the Devil reigned supreme in the name of Christ. Belief and values would reach the lowest levels of perversion in the history of man. Any Papal proclamation issued during this period or used as a basis for future Papal Bull’s should be reviewed with the greatest of caution especially those that speak to matters of faith and morals. Some believe the Inquisition as an institution was originated by Pope Innocent III in Rome.
1200 CE – France – The evil within the Roman Church fueled a massive revival of the Christian Gnostic movement called the Cathars. The French believed that the Rome Catholic Church is evil. In southern France the Christian Cathars outnumbered the Christian Romans. They called themselves the Friends of God and offered religion with small material demands by the church. The Roman Church offered little religion with maximum demand for material goods. Women are treated as equals and are ordained to the priesthood. They called their members the Goodman and Goodwomen. The Cathars live very peaceful lives rejecting material wealth.
France under King Philip II Augustus, 1180 – 1223 CE, is composed of twelve peers of France, six secular lords, the dukes of Normandy, Aquitaine and Burgundy, and the counts of Flanders, Champagne and Toulouise; and six ecclesiastical lords, the archbishop of Reims, the bishop of Beauvais, Noyon, Laon, Chalons and Langres. The dukes of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony and the Count of Maine and Anjou is none other than King John of England, who is also overlord to the duke of Brittany.
Joseph d’Arimathie, a poem written by Robert de Boron, describes Joseph as the first keeper of the Holy Grail. [p381)]
1200 – 1400 CE – India – The Pal empire declines and foreign invasions begin.
13th Century CE – Palestine – The eleventh Sephirah, Daath (Knowledge), began to appear in the texts on the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah resides theologically not “in the Law” taught to all the children of Israel, not in “the soul of the Law (Mishna)” revealed to the rabbis and teachers, but “in the soul of the soul of the Law”. Only the highest initiates among the Jews were instructed in the Kabbalah’s secret principles which take a lifetime to learn, beginning after one’s 40th year.
1200 – 1300 CE – Egypt – The House of Wisdom in Cairo commences in this century, along with the roots of the Afghan Roshaniya and the origin of the Mafia in Sicily. [IllHis]
1201 CE – Italy – The Knights of Templars and Hospitalliers began a war against each other that lasted for the next twenty years. Pope Innocent III reprimanded the Templars, saying the Order is to fight Moslems, not the Hospitallers.
1202 – 1204 CE – Turkey – The worst dynasty in Roman history begins. Alexius IV brings in the Fourth Crusade, with impossible promises, to restore his incompetent father, and only succeeds in losing Constantinople to a foreign enemy for the first time ever. This may qualify as the true “Fall of Rome.” The damage was bad enough, with many treasures and archives destroyed or carted off to Venice. Unlike the Goths at Rome in 410 CE, the Crusaders stuck around for 60 years, with steadily decreasing success.
The Fourth Crusade was launched and got bogged down in the more profitable venture of sacking the Eastern Roman capital of Constantinople. The tombs of old emperors at St. Sophia cathedral were desecrated, relics stolen and women, including nuns, were raped. (Edward said in his Culture & Imperialism that the Crusader chronicles openly refer to the cannibalism practised by the Frankish knights – incidents that 19th century historians suppressed as they re-constructed the roots of European civilization).
The Pope could do little as a Roman uprising had forced him to flee to Palestrina. He did not return to Rome until 1205 CE, a year after the Crusade ended.
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| Isaac II |
1203 CE – Turkey – Isaac II (restored) with Alexius IV become emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire. The French armies of the Fourth Crusade, urged on by the Venetians, who had supplied them with ships, diverted their attention to restore a deposed Byzantine Emperor in exchange for the riches of Constantinople. In July, without resistance, the army restored the deposed Emperor Isaac II. When the people of Constantinople realized that their Emperor had agreed they would submit to the Roman Pope (they are Eastern Orthodoxy) and give the Crusaders their riches, they rebelled and re-imprisoned him. Resentment between the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Church remain into the twenty-first century.
The Shroud of Jesus was exhibited in the Blachernae church, Constantinople. [p106&]
1203 CE – France – Philippe Auguste II of France conquers Normandy and expels the English.
1204 CE – Turkey – The French knights of the Fourth Crusade under Pope Innocent III in March again attacked Constantinople, this time with a vengeance, desecrated Christian Orthodox Churches, stealing tombs and relics, while women, including catholic nuns, are raped and murdered by people who thought schismatics had no rights in this world. The plunder and murder of fellow Christians continued for three days. Even the priests joined in the sacking of Constantinople. They desecrated Hagia Sophia, the Orthodox equivalent of St. Peters. They trampled underfoot the sacred vessels of the altar and seated a drunken prostitute on the patriarchal throne. The French Crusaders created their own government, the so-called Latin Empire of Constantinople, that they ruled. A horrified Pope Innocent III cried out that Greeks could not be blamed for hating Latin’s whom they knew only as treacherous dogs, but refused to reinstate the rightful patriarch. The Greek Orthodox Church as a result would never again submit to Roman Church rule.
1204 CE – France – Eleanor of Aquitaine dies. [$]
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| Alexius V Ducas Murtzuphlus |
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| Theodore I Lascaris |
1204 CE – Turkey – Alexius V Ducas Murtzuphlus becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire until the fall of Constantinople. Theodore I Lascaris later becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, ruling until 1222 CE.
1205 CE – Holland – The lord of Amstel founds a castle in Amsterdam.
1205 CE – China – The Mongols began their invasion of China and completed their conquest by 1279 CE.
1206 CE – Mongolia – Certain Mongol tribes of Nomadic horsemen living south of Lake Baikal united to begin the Mongol Empire that lasted until 1368 CE. They established the first draft of the New Imperial Law (Yasa). The Mongol army is organized on the decimal principle of ten units, example; ten, one hundred, one thousand and ten thousand soldier units. Leadership is based upon the best men, not appointed or hereditary as is the practice in Europe. At its peak power in 1294 CE, it is the largest in history reaching from the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean. They even defeated the combined armies of Germany and Poland in 1241 CE. The First Universal Emperor of the Mongol Empire is Jenghis (Genghis) Khan (Lord) (1167 – 1227 CE) alias Temuchin son of Yesugei the Khan (Lord). Jenghis is elevated to the position of the Great Khan (Lord) taking the name Jenghis Khan (Lord of Lords) also meaning King of Kings. His first action is to replace all tribal commanders with his own loyal commanders. Commanders and lesser military men are selected by ability only. This contrasts sharply with the European system of heir apparent with little or no regard for ability.
1206 CE – Italy – The Dominican order is established to combat heretics. The heretics are not because of doctrinal differences, but as protest against a secularized church, especially in its political organization. The heretics preached a primitive religion, akin to that of the apostles, based on spiritual values, poverty, preaching, and salvation as opposed to the rigid, secularized hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.
1207 – 1213 CE – Turkey – Michael IV Autoreianus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1207 CE – China – Jenghis (Genghis) Khan (Lord) led his Mongol army against the Chinese province of Hsi-Hsia. China is divided into three territories, in the South Sung, to the East Hsi-Hsia and to the West Chin. The Mongol is unable to penetrate the walled cities.
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| Vera Cruz Templar Church |
1208 CE – Spain – On April 13, La Iglesia de la Vera Cruz, the Knights Templars church in Segovia, was consecrated.
1208 CE – Italy – Pope Innocent III recognizes Friedrich II as legitimate ruler of Germany over emperor Otto IV.
1208 CE – England – In the matter of the election and installation of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope appointed another bishop to the See of Canterbury, but King John refused to recognise him. King John, in the words of Pope Innocent III, had by “impious persecution,” tried to “enslave” the entire English Church. As a result, the pope laid an interdict on England, 1208 – 1214 CE, a sort of religious “strike,” wherein no religious service be performed for anyone, guilty or innocent. When this did not achieve the result desired by the pope, the king, himself, was excommunicated.
John promptly confiscated church property with the help of his greedy barons. Churches were bolted, all services banned, the bells were silenced. With 8,000 churches closed, thousands of priests and assistants were jobless. The dead were wrapped in shrouds and buried like dogs.
1208 CE – France – A Cathar (Gnostic) Christian sect that started in France about 1160 is spreading over southern France in an attempt to prevent encroachment from the King of France. Pope Innocent III supported the Northern Christians against the Southern Christians and waged a religious crusade that resulted in bloodshed and devastation, which cast a dark shadow over his reign.
1209 CE – France – Pope Innocent III proclaimed a crusade against the Cathars. Having dealt with King John (excommunication in 1208 CE), the pope authorised a special crusade in 1209 CE against the Albigensians, a group considered heretical as their beliefs and practices supposedly threatened the fabric of society in southern France and northern Italy. This crusade against fellow Christians turned out to be the bloodiest episode of the Middle Ages. When the King of France refused to lead this crusade; the pope appointed Arnald, Cistercian head of Citeaux instead. In response to the pope’s special offer of an indulgence (favor) for a 40-day service, a vast mob of knights, clergy, peasants, etc. joined in. The cavalry alone numbered some 20,000.
The Pope blamed the feudal lord Count Raymond VI for the death of the papal legate in Toulouse after he had excommunicated the Count. Count Raymond VI repented and joined the Holy Crusade and in June began slaughtering everyone in his path. A Crusader who asked how he should separate the heretics from the faithful is told, “kill them all; the Lord will know well who are his.”
The crusaders marched to Bezier, the Albigensian stronghold, looting and killing along the way. The Crusaders laid siege to Bezier on July 22, 1209 CE. The townsfolk had locked themselves into the churches of St. Jude and St. Mary Magdalene. 7,000 women, children and elderly were crammed into Mary Magdalene’s. Bells tolled and while priests in black chanted at the requiem mass, the doors were being hammered down by axes and soon gave way. The invaders singing Come Ye Holy Spirit, spared none at all, not even babies. The last to go were the two celebrants holding a crucifix and the chalice.
The mercenaries then set fire to the town and all that remained of Beziers were smouldering heaps of ashes. The monk in charge, Arnald, wrote to the pope: “Today, your holiness, 20,000 citizens were put to the sword, regardless of age or sex.”
The crusaders next marched to Carcassone and then Lavaur, led by the Norman knight, Simon de Montfort. Numbers were fewer as soldiers left after completing their 40 day tour of duty, happy in the knowledge that all their sins had been forgiven. ‘Heretics’ were captured in their hundreds, some had their eyes gouged out and noses lopped off but most were burnt on mass pyres. The pope was kept informed at every stage.
The atrocities only got worse as the Crusaders ravaged town after town, ripping out the tongues and eyes of the defeated, dragged them with horses, or hacked them to pieces. The atrocities against these Christian martyrs put the early Roman atrocities to shame. These Babylonian, Roman, Catholic, and alleged Christians are following a pagan religion. The evil within had not reached it peak.
“In the Cathar language of old Provence, a female elf was an albi (elbe or ylbi), and Albi was the name given to the main Cathar centre in Languedoc. This was in deference to the matrilinear heritage of the Grail dynasty, for the Cathars were supporters of the original Albi-gens – the Elven Bloodline which had descended through the Dragon Queens of yore, such as Lilith, Miriam, Bathsheba and Mary Magdalene. It was for this reason that, when Simon de Montfort and the armies of Pope Innocent III descended upon the region in 1209, it was called the Albigensian Crusade. Through some 35 years, tens of thousands of innocent people were slaughtered in this brutal campaign – all because the inhabitants of the region were champions of the original concept of Grail kingship, as against the pseudo-style of monarchy which had been implemented by the papal machine … [RRL]
1209 CE – Italy – Pope Innocent III met with 27-year old Francis of Assisi, 1182 – 1226 CE, who had become known for his preaching. He had earlier thrown him out of the Lateran palace.
1210 CE – Italy – The Catholic order of Franciscan is established. The Crusaders into southern France being led by a Papal Commander under Pope Innocent III noted that when he led 140 Christian Cathars (Gnostic) to be burned, so strong is their faith, they flung themselves into the fire and didn’t have to be pushed.
1210 CE – Germany – Most of the Knights of the Teutonic Order under the third Hochmeister, Hermann Bart, began as an obscure Cilician campaign. Hermann von Salza, 1170 – 1239 CE, became his successor and is considered the real founder of the Order’s greatness.
1211 – 1294 CE – France – In Lavaur, France, the Crusaders tried to hang eighty heretic knights from one rope that broke, so they slit their throats instead. The Crusaders tried to force the heretics to recant their beliefs and pledge allegiance to the church of Rome, those who refused are burned to death in massive bonfires, and the Christian martyrs cried to heaven for vengeance against the Roman Church.
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| Notre-Dame de Reims |
The construction of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Reims, northeast France, is begun, lasting 100 years until completion. [$15]
1211 CE – China – Jenghis Khan led his Mongol army against the Chinese province of Chin. The Chin army of 70,000 men is destroyed and 100,000 of the citizens are executed. The Mongol’s extracted tribute and a promise to provide future military support.
1211 CE – Hungary – King Andrew II of Hungary to prevent raiding by the Kumans or Comans (Cumani) gave the mountainous Barcasag district of Transylvania to the Teutonic Order of Knights under Hermann von Salza, 1170 – 1239 CE. Salza River is located Styria, Austria.
1211 CE – Palestine – The Teutonic Knights are headquartered at Acre from 1191 until 1291 CE, then Venice and after 1309 CE, at Marienburg.
1211 CE – Italy – Pope Innocent III proclaimed a crusade against the Moors while Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo, preached a Holy War.
1212 CE – Iberian Peninsula (Spain) – The Almohades were finally defeated by an alliance of the Christian kings Peter II of Aragon and Alfonso VIII of Castile, in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, which was followed by their expulsion from Spain. Thereafter only local Muslim dynasties remained, of which the Nasrids of Granada, 1232 – 1492 CE, alone offered much resistance to the Christians.
The height of Muslim learning was reached by Averroës (c. 1126 – 1198 CE), philosopher, physician, and commentator on Plato and Aristotle, master of the Christian schoolmen.
In the 10th through the 15th century, Christian kingdoms in the north, propelled by demographic pressure, land hunger, nobles’ demands for estates, advances in military technology, and the appetites of transhuman sheep, pushed southward. In the 14th century, clerical propagandists labeled this movement the Reconquista (Reconquest): a sacred crusading struggle to wrest the country from alien Muslim hands and to restore Christian control. This religious myth subsequently became part of Spanish political history and the Spanish “national” psychology.
1212 CE – France – Thousands of French boys and girls, inspired by a shepherd boy, Stephen, defied their parents and left home without guides or food for Marseilles, saying they were heading for Jerusalem. Many were invited on boats to make the trip but ended up as slaves of the Saracens. In Germany, another 20,000 children were enlisted by a boy called Nicholas. They started for the Holy Land via the Alps. Many dropped dead on the way while a few returned to tell the tale, becoming one of the many legends of the origin of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Another French boy named Stephen assembled thirty thousand children for a holy crusade. They reached Marseille, the southern Holy Roman Empire where they are offered free passage to Syria. The merchants, Hugh Ferreus and William Porcus, sold the children into slavery in Algeria and Egypt. Two shiploads of children are reported lost at sea.
The pope asked Philip of France to invade England in 1212 CE, because of King John’s improprieties in 1208. As Philip made preparations, King John gave in. He not only promised to return church funds and lands but give away England itself ‘to God and Our Lord Pope Innocent and his successors’.
Henceforth English rulers would have to pay 1,000 marks as annual rent to the pope in addition to Peter’s Pence.
1212 CE – England – King John Lackland of England hanged twenty eight boys, sons of Welsh chieftains, in Nottingham Castle as a result of an uprising. He is also known to sleep at whim with any man’s wife. The people began to turn against King John while King Philip II Augustus of France is assembling his forces at the mouth of the Seine, forcing John to make peace with the Pope. The fire of London killed approximately three thousand people, having started in the church of Saint Mary Southwark.
1213 – 1276 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Jaime I becomes the king of Aragon.
1213 CE – England – Relinquishing under the pressure of being excommunicated in 1208 CE, John wrote a letter of concession in May 1213 CE to the pope, hoping to have the interdict and the excommunication removed. John’s concession, in effect, made England a fiefdom of Rome. Only after John had paid all dues in June 1214 CE, was the interdict revoked and the church doors were re-opened. The satisfied Pope Innocent III lifted the yoke he had hung on the people of England and their king.
The concession given by King John was a conveyance which granted the entire British kingdom in perpetuity, to the Pope, in order to maintain some form of protection against the people and nobility of his realm because of the high taxes and other injustices John had committed against them.
1213 – 1215 CE – Turkey – Theodore II Eirenicus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1214 CE – Germany – Pope Innocent III, the claimant Friedrich II and French king Philippe Auguste defeat German emperor Otto IV and English king John at the battle of Bouvines, and Friedrich II ascends to the throne of Germany the following year.
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| Roger Bacon |
1214 – 1294 CE – England – Roger Bacon was born in Ilchester in Somerset in the year 1214 CE. He was a friar living in 13th century England, who, hundreds of years after his death became popularly known as a powerful sorcerer. He is most widely known among scholars as being one of the first people to use experimental methods in alchemy – the root of modern chemistry – and is also known for his application of geometry to the science of lenses, and early experiments in gunpowder. From his writing, and the events in his life, it is possible to see two sides to the man: a remarkably driven experimental scientist compared with his contemporaries, but also a man heavily influenced by the spiritual side of life reflected in his early leanings towards philosophy and his attachment to the Franciscan order. He was also remarkably outspoken for his day and was often on thin ice with his superiors.
1214 CE – China – The Chin Dynasty capital city is moved from Huining, north of Korea, south to K’aifeng on the Huang River. Jenghis (Genghis) Khan (Lord) led his Mongol army again against the Chinese province of Hsi-Hsia. This time he returned with siege machines and the capital fell in 1251 CE and many citizens are put to the sword.
1215 CE – England – The barons and earls of England became very unsettled with the King’s concessions to Pope Innocent III, and on August 25, 1213 CE, organized a movement which now, after so many centuries, still feel the effects in the English constitutions and equitable codes of law. On that date, the prelates and barons, tiring of the tyranny and vacillations of King John, founded a Council and passed measures to secure their rights. After two years of contest, with many vicissitudes, the barons entered London and King John fled into Hampshire. The king then sent word that he would comply with their demands, and the barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta, guaranteeing people’s rights and making the king himself subject to the law. By agreement, all parties met at Runnymede on the 9th of June, 1215 CE. The Conference lasted till the 19th, on which day the royal seal was affixed and the Magna Carta (A) (B) was born. It was a comprehensive bill of rights, and though crude in form and with many clauses of merely local value, its spirit and force is still live today. The Magna Charta guaranteed foreign merchants the right to trade freely in England.
The barons, who demanded King John grant concessions to them, wanted the pope’s blessing for the 1215 Magna Charta. This is the same pope that was given England and Ireland in the 1213 concession. The pope could not give back his land because of other parties not yet born. The pope allowed the barons to presume they were free, and gave his blessing to the 1215 Magna Carta, knowing to do so would in no way lawfully overturn the grant made to him in 1213 CE. It is recognized as law that a charter could not be created whereby a previous grant or charter was declared null or void unless the relevant parties agreed. A charter could never be void if parties to the charter will never cease to be born, as an heir can always be found. Even though the previous monarchy had come to an end, its contractual obligations still existed.
John, now a good Catholic, complained to Rome. In a Bull, Innocent annulled the charter ‘from the plenitude of his unlimited power which God has given him to bind and destroy kingdoms’. Anyone who subscribed to the charter stood excommunicated. Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, thought the pope went too far and refused to carry out the order. He was suspended from office.
England is practicing trial by ordeal, that is, to put a hot iron on the tongue of the person accused. If after three days a burn mark remained, they are found to have guilt.
1215 CE – Italy – Pope Innocent III passed more laws than the preceding 50 popes. 6,000 of his letters have been published – deposing abbots and bishops, imposing penances, etc. At the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 CE, all his decrees were passed by the assembly of 1,500 prelates without debate. One of the rules (still in force) enjoined Catholics to confess and receive communion at least once a year. Innocent III died in 1216 CE.
Pope Innocent III forbade the church to have anything to do with trial by ordeal for he knew it could be applied equally to the clergy. This tyrannical self-proclaimed Ruler of the World said those who take literally Jesus’ word and limit their speech to a simple ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are heretics and worthy of death. He ordered that Jews and Muslims should wear distinctive dress. He requested that all Christian rulers should observe a four-year truce so that the crusade could be launched.
1215 CE – China – The Mongol conquest of Northern China added unlimited resources to the Khan’s (Lord’s) Empire. The Chinese also provided efficient administration especially in the personage of Ye-liu Chu-tsai, a statesman, astrologer, poet and scholar. The Mongols also acquired the world best engineers and technicians who developed the Mongolian siege machines.
1215 CE – Turkey – Maximus II becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1216 – 1222 CE – Turkey – Manuel I Charitopoulos becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1216 CE – Spain – The Dominicans are created by a Spanish fanatic. [p50+]
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| Honorius III |
1216 – 1227 CE – Italy – Honorius III, alias Cencio Savelli, is elected pope. The Albigensian Crusade continued with Honorius III until 1226 CE. To achieve political union for the crusades the pope arbitrated between Philip II of France and James I of Aragon to put pressure on France to abandon its invasion of England. Frederick II, first the king, then Emperor of Germany, did not support the crusades, which failed. Even so, hundreds of thousands of people perished. Pope Honorius III continued to martyr the Cathar (Gnostic) Christians of southern France. He also approved the Dominicans (1216 CE), Franciscans (1223 CE) and the Carmelites (1226 CE).
1217 CE – Sicily – Emperor Friederich II grants lands to the Teutonic Knights in Sicily.
1218 CE – Egypt – The French of Acre, Palestine sailed on Damietta, Egypt for the Fifth crusade.
1218 CE – Palestine – Wolfram von Eschenbach visited the Holy Land. [p178++] The Knights Templar Castle of ‘Atlit in Palestine was built. [p99@]
1218 CE – Spain – France – Pope Honorius III conducted a crusade against the Moors in Spain and intensified the crusade against the Christian Albigenses (Gnostic Cathars) in southern France.
1218 CE – Persia (Iran) – Khorezm-shah, Emperor of Central Asia and Persia, executed the Mongol envoys that accompanied a Mongol trade caravan. This insult to the Mongolian Emperor Jenghis Khan resulted in an immediate violent reprisal. Jenghis Khan, the Mongol with an army of 150,000 men, conquered Bokhara and Samarquand and 160,000 of Shah Mohammed’s troops are killed. The Great Khan is reported to have said that he is the punishment of God. This is more likely a statement issued by the Christians. The Great Khan worshiped Tengri the ruler of heaven. It is noteworthy that he practiced tolerance for other religions and some of his own clans are Buddhist, Muslim and Christian. Mongolian policy did not punish people for their faith. Jenghis stripped the cities of their wealth and shipped the women and children back to Mongolia. The Great Khan (Lord) then marched on Afghanistan and India as far as the Indus River. It is reported that Jenghis Khan suppressed a rebellion in Hert, Afghanistan, by killing a reported 1.6 million people. The Mongol encouraged exaggeration as a form of psychological warfare and many enemies submitted without a fight. It is reported that 100,000 slaves that are highly skilled tradesmen are shipped back to Mongolia.
1219 CE – Egypt – During the siege of Damietta, the Franks were offered all of Moslem Palestine if they would abandon the siege. King John and the Teutonic Orders wished to accept, but other brethren refused. Damiette fell and the Franks ruled for two years. Egypt again offered peace and all three Masters agreed with the King, but the greedy, overbearing cardinal refused. The cardinal wanted Cairo. The march on Cairo failed and four years of crusade are wasted because of the arrogant folly of the cardinal.
King Jean de Brienne is awarded the Hochmeister, and Hermann von Salza, 1170 – 1239 CE, of the Teutonic Order of Knights is awarded the Gold Cross of Jerusalem to commemorate the knights bravery at the siege of Damietta, Egypt. Pope Honorius III awarded Hermann von Salza a magnificent ring.
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| Notre Dame, Amiens, France |
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| Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury, England |
1220 – 1288 CE – France – The cathedral Notre Dame in Amiens, southern France, built. It is the largest cathedral in France and regarded as a gothic masterpiece. [&1]
1220 – 1258 CE – England – The Cathedral in Salisbury is built. [#]
1220 CE – Italy – Pope Honorius III is driven out of Rome and Emperor Frederick II of Germany sent troops to restore the pope. The Emperor wanted to ensure the union of his Sicilian Kingdom and restore Imperial power to Italy. The pope and his curia are not pleased. The pope called upon Emperor Frederick in 1220 CE and Louis VIII in 1226 CE to publish ordinances against the Christian Albigenses (Gnostic Cathars) of southern France to impose severe penalties on these heretics who speak out against the immorality of the Roman Catholic Church. This became a common basis for the inquisition.
1220 CE – Uzbekistan – Jenghis Khan captured Samarkand (Samarqand, a city of southern Uzbekistan southwest of Tashkent) of Shah Muhammad of the Khwarizm Empire. Samarkand is defended by 110,000 troops but only held out for one day. The Mongol army killed some 100,000 people during and after their siege. The Mongol women would tend to the wounded and collect the arrows from the battleground and dispatch the enemy wounded.
1221 CE – Persia (Iran) – Aloeddin (Ala al-Din Muhammad) became leader of the Assassin sect at Alamut. Sultan Ala ad-Din Muhammad, the Kwarezm-shah is finally captured by the Mongols on the shore of the Caspian Sea.
1221 CE – Spain – The Knights of Santiago and the Knights of Calatrava agreed to help each other if either is attacked by Moslems regardless of any treaty made by the Christian Kings, swearing to act as one in both war and peace. Both Orders continued to clean up the country returning with severed Moslem heads, while women and children were not spared.
1222 CE – Hungary – There may have been small numbers of “real Jews” living in Hungary from Roman days, but there can be little doubt that the majority of this important portion of modern Jewry originated in the migratory waves of Kabar-Khazars who play such a dominant part in early Hungarian history. Not only was the country, as Constantine writes, bilingual at its beginning, but it also had a form of double kingship, a variation of the Khazar system: the king sharing power with his general in command, who bore the title of Jula or Gyula (still a popular Hungarian first name). The system lasted to the end of the tenth century, when St. Stephen embraced the Roman Catholic faith and defeated a rebellious Gyula – who, as one might expect, was a Khazar, “vain in the faith and refusing to become a Christian.”
This episode put an end to the double kingship, but not to the influence of the Khazar-Jewish community in Hungary. A reflection of that influence can be found in the “Golden Bull” – the Hungarian equivalent of Magna Carta – issued 1222 CE by King Endre (Andrew) II, in which Jews were forbidden to act as mint-masters, tax collectors, and controllers of the royal salt monopoly – indicating that before the edict numerous Jews must have held these important posts.
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| John III Ducas Vatatzes |
1222 – 1254 CE – Turkey – John III Ducas Vatatzes becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1223 – 1240 CE – Turkey – Germanius II becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1223 CE – Uzbekistsan – The Mongol Generals Jebe and Subudey are sent to capture the Shah who had fled south to an island in the Caspian Sea, where he died. The Mongol Generals, unable to find the Shah, are given permission to reconnoiter the Western Lands (Europe). They traveled through northern Persia and Transcausia, then turned north into Southern Russia. They defeated the Russians and Cumans at the Kalka River. The Prince of Kiev is crushed to death under planks. The Russians had no idea who the Mongols are and call them the Tartars of the East. The Roman Church praised the Mongol conquest of the Islamic armies and said God sends these unknown people from the East.
1225 CE – Hungary – The Burzenland of Transylvania is pacified by the Teutonic Order and the Kumans are integrated and settled among the Magyars. King Andrew II of Hungary grew alarmed and descended on the Burzenland with a large army and evicted the Teutonic Knights.
1225 CE – Castile (Spain) – King Fernando III of Castile, Spain sent an army to Morocco that gained Marrakesh for his ally, Mamoun.
1226 CE – Prussia – Emperor Friederich II grants the Teutonic Knights authority to restore order name in Prussia. Hermann of Salza with his Teutonic Knights are ordered to convert Prussia to Christianity.
1226 CE – France – Louis IX becomes king of France. Louis IX led a massive new army into Southern France to wipe out the last vestiges of the heresy and the long crusade finally ended with almost total defeat of the Albigensians.
1226 CE – Italy – After St. Francis’s death in 1226 CE, his followers who attempted to continue to embrace a life of poverty were burned at the stake as heretics. The Church has no desire to encourage poverty because it was committed to the financial power structure of Europe.
1227 CE – Turkestan – The Mongol army conquered the Kara Khitai Kingdom in Turkestan. They also crushed the Persian sultanate of Khwarezam, the kingdoms of Azerbaijan and Georgia and Kievan Russia. Karakorum is the capital of the Mongol Empire and the Chinese would destroy this city in 1388 CE. Emperor Genghis Khan died this year after a fall from his horse and his successor Ogadai (Ogodei, Ugedey) Khan subjected Korea and Tebet. The Great Khan had said that God has given the whole earth to the Mongols to rule. He would not be able to achieve this in his lifetime but commanded his sons to carry out God’s plan. Legend says that his spirit will reappear in a boy.
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| Gregory IX |
1227 – 1241 CE – Italy – Gregory IX, alias Ugo or Ugolino, a nephew of Pope Innocent III is elected pope. Gregory IX canonized Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua and Dominick di Guzman.
1228 CE – Palestine – The fifth Holy War is conducted to the Holy Land. Pope Gregory IX excommunicated Emperor Frederick for his failure to promptly join the crusades. The Emperor had fallen seriously ill but the pope didn’t believe him. Hermann of Salza, head of the Teutonic Knights, remained faithful to Emperor Frederick against the pope.
1229 CE – Palestine – Emperor Frederick recovered, and despite obstacles imposed by the pope, successfully negotiated the surrender of Jerusalem. He married its heiress Yolande, John de Brenne’s daughter, who he relegated to the harem. On March 17, Frederick crowned himself King of Jerusalem. Pope Gregory IX is outraged that an excommunicate should lead a crusade and attempted to establish an anti-king in Germany. The Pope released the Sicilian subjects from their allegiance to the Emperor. Pope Gregory IX raised an army to attack the Imperial Italy forces and to invade Sicily.
1229 CE – Italy – Honorius III’s successor, Gregory IX, began to hound heretics in earnest. In 1229 CE, he declared at the Council of Toulouse – “It is the duty of every Catholic to persecute heretics”.
1229 CE – France – The Catholic Church forbid Bibles to be read or owned by the common people.
“Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should not be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.”
- The Church Council of Toulouse [Heresy]
1229 CE – Palestine – To seal a military alliance, the Muslims cede Jerusalem to the Crusaders, with the Muslim access to the Temple Mount guaranteed. After ten years, the city will revert back to the Muslims. The Teutonic Order of Knights established a second headquarters at Montfort, northeast of Acre, Palestine.
1230 CE – Spain – Castilla and Leon are united under Ferdinand III of Castilla.
1230 CE – Scotland – The Norwegian Viking took Dunstaffnage castle (Connel), the stronghold of clan MacDougall. Dugall Scray the Gaelic-Viking is taken prisoner, leaving his brother Duncan (MacDougal) as the only remaining family member in power.
1230 CE – Mongolia – From about 1230 to 1257 CE, Karakorum on the Onon River, Mongolia is the capital city that controlled the largest Empire in the history of man. Ogodei the Mongol Lord of Lords re-conquered Central Asia then swept on to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Turkey. The rulers became vassals paying tribute and supplying troops. While these campaigns are underway the Great Khan led his cavalry against the Jin Dynasty of Northern China.
1230 CE – Italy – Emperor Frederick returned from the Middle East and quickly subdued Pope Gregory’s army and forced the removal of the excommunication order.
1230 CE – Germany – Conrad, son of Emperor Frederick, gave the Teutonic Knights under Hermann Von of Salza, Kulmerland and promised them all lands conquered from Prussia.
1231 CE – Mongolia – Ogadai who (d. 1241 CE) became Khan (Lord of Lords), the son of Jenghis Khan, began to build the Mongol capital city Karaquarm. Karaquarm, Mongolia has total religious freedom and all religions are represented in the city. This belief contrasts very sharply with the Middle East belief of religious monopoly.
1231 CE – Italy – Pope Gregory IX recognized Emperor Frederick and his son Conrad as King of Jerusalem.
Pope Gregory IX established the death penalty of burning for heretics and entrusted the Inquisition to the Dominican Order. The burning of the Christian Cathars (Gnostics) in southern France continued under his reign.
1231 CE – Poland – Hermann von Salza sent his Teutonic Order Knights on a crusade across the Vistula River (Poland) and stormed a fortress-temple, hanging the Prussian chief from his own sacred oak tree. The Knights systematically secured the territory between the Vistila and Niemen Rivers as Teutonic Lands. Colonists, including noblemen as well as peasants, are brought in and given land.
1231 CE – Spain – After the defeat of Ibn Hud, King of Murcia, at Jerez, Spain the Order of Knights began to conquer southwestern Spain in earnest.
1232 CE – Italy – Pope Gregory IX authorized establishment of the Papal Inquisition for dealing with heretics. It was a creature of its time, when crimes against faith and heretical doctrines of extremists like the Cathari and Albigenses threatened the good of the Christian community, the welfare of the state and the very fabric of society. The institution, which was responsible for excesses in punishment, was most active in the second half of the century in southern France, Italy and Germany.
Gregory IX published a Bull setting up the Inquisition, whereby heretics were to handed over to civil authorities for punishment. He approved Emperor Frederick’s law that decreed death by fire for unrepentant heretics. In 1233 CE, two full-time inquisitors were appointed – Peter Siela and William Arnald, the first in a long line of persecutors.
It is noteworthy that Christians who did not bow to Roman demands have been burnt in southern France for over twenty years. Pope Gregory IX is driven from Rome by the Roman citizens only to be reinstated by Emperor Frederick.
As early as 384 CE, a synod in Rome under Pope Siricius denounced the use of torture and Pope Gregory I the Great, had ordered in the sixth century that judges ignore testimony given under duress. Pope Nicholas I condemned torture as a violation of divine right. This systematic persecution of Christians by Christians has no precedence in history or scripture and can only be the work of the devil within the Holy Roman Empire. All those things the early church preached against are now incorporated within the Roman Catholic Church.
1232 CE – Castile (Spain) – King Fernando III of Castile, Spain attacked Ibn Hud, Emir of Murcia at Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain. Only ten Christians died, but the Moors are slain by the thousands.
1233 CE – Spain – Pope Gregory IX established the Inquisition to combat the heresy of the Abilgenses, a religious sect in France, allowing the Dominicans the control.
1233 CE – China – Ogadai Khan captured the Jin dynasty capital city, Kaifeng. Some Mongols wanted to slaughter all the people and turn their lands into pasture for horses. Ogodei heeded a Chinese scholar who argued that if the people lived, and prospered, they could be taxed. The going rate of tax on newly conquered people is about ten percent of possessions.
1234 CE – Italy – Pope Gregory IX is again driven from Rome by irate Roman citizens, only to again to be restored by the German Emperor Frederick.
1234 CE – Navarra (Spain) – The last Sanchez dies and Navarra is inherited by the French noble Thibault de Champagne.
1234 CE – Castile (Spain) – King Fernando III of Castile, Spain drove the infidels out of Ubeda, Spain. The Knights of Alcantara Order had contributed 600 horses and 2,000 footmen.
1235 CE – Mongolia – The Mongol roads between Asia, Europe and the Middle East are considered the safest in known history due to the Mongol maintenance and control. A Mongolian kuriltay at Karakorum resolved to start the conquest of the Southern Song Empire and the Western Lands. The undefined western territory had been granted to Batu’s father, Jochi, Genghis’s Khan eldest son. The Mongol Batu, son of Jochi, with chief advisor Subudey and a 120,000 man army, is commissioned to the conquest of Europe. His army included newly recruited central Asian Turks.
1236 CE – Mongolia – The Universal Emperor Jenghis Khan is succeeded by Ogadai (d. 1241 CE) the Lord of Lords, who had subjugated Koryo (Korea), the remaining Chin territory in north China. Sixty thousand cavalrymen, along with their support facilities, marched west to the Volga River near Kazan, Russia. Novgorod wrote that the godless invaders slew all, both wives and children. News that the Mongol army is heading west reached King Bela IV of Hungary. Soon thousands of refugees poured into his kingdom.
1237 CE – Germany – Emperor Frederick invaded the Papal States and pope Gregory IX excommunicated him a second time, the first for not launching a crusade in 1227 CE.
1237 CE – Mongolia – The Mongol Empire’s primary goal is to establish a world empire for international peace. A principle objective is to maintain their great commercial trade routes from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. As a culture they practiced religious tolerance. The Mongol Khan Batu, 1205 – 1255 CE, the Splendid son Juji (Jochi) Khan and grandson of Genghis Khan, is elected to assemble an army to subject and colonize Europe. The Mongol army included all necessary trade-people, their houses, wives, children, sheep and cattle. The Bulgar on the Volga River is the first to be subjected. Georgia (Russia), Azerbaijan (east Turkey and West Iran) fell to the Mongol Empire virtually placing Persia (Iran), and Afghanistan under Mongol control and is now called IL Khan (Lord) Empire of Hulagu.
The Mongol reduced the capital city of the Bulgar Kingdom into rubble. The Mongol next marched on Ryazan some 400 miles west. They demanded a tenth of everything as tribute including a tenth of the women and children. The nobles answered only when none of us remains and the Mongols made it so. Moscow is abandoned as the Tartars (Mongol) advance and they burn the city. The Tartars then take Kiyev and because of their defiance, the city is destroyed. The Grand Duke George II and his army are destroyed. The Grand Duke is killed. About 40,000 Cumans flee to Hungary rather than submit to General Batu. The Tartar (Mongol) retained control of West Russia for a century and East Russia for two centuries. Russian slaves are employed in the Mongol army as far east as China. The Mongols are known to have sold European slaves to China and Egypt.
1238 CE – Iberian Peninsula (Spain) – Muhammad Ibn-Yusuf Ibn-Ahmed Ibn-Nasr, called al-Ahmar (d. 1273 CE) realized that since Sierra Morena and the Guadalquivir had been lost, Spanish Islam must find new frontiers. He entrenched himself in Granada, Spain. The Christians had an urgent problem of administration and resettlement of southern Spain. Large estates are granted to the nobles and the religious Orders. Jewish stewards ran many of the estates very profitably indeed. The Orders spent much time in estate management.
The Nasrid rulers began reconstructing an old fortress, the Alhambra in Granada, a monumental and magnificent complex of buildings combining fortress, palace, and small city. Completed in the 14th century, these buildings and gardens survive as the finest example of Muslim culture in Europe.
Valencia is conquered from the Moors by King Jaime of Aragon.
1239 CE – France – Dominican Robert le Bougre at Champagne, France sent 180 people, including the Bishop, to the stake for heresy.
1239 CE – Ukraine – The Mongol (Tartar) army is settled into the Ukraine to plan their next actions.
1240 CE – Russia – Kiev, Russia fell to the Mongol Batu Khan the Splendid, virtually placing all of Russia under Mongol control, later referred to as the Batu (Kipchak) Empire, or Golden Horde, meaning Imperial power and wealth. Russia would remain under Mongol domination until Ivan III repelled them in 1480 CE. Poland and Hungary send urgent messages to the Pope Gregory IX, the German Emperor and the King of France for help. The Swedes see an opportunity and attack the Mongolian Russia Empire on the Neva River, but are repulsed by Prince Alexander Yaroslavovitch (Nevsky) of Novgorod, a nephew of George II. There is little love between Orthodox Christians of Russ and the Catholic Teutons.
Pope Gregory IX renewed his excommunication of Emperor Frederick, calling him a blasphemer and the forerunner of the Anti-Christ. The Emperor had no choice but to march on Rome demanding a General Council to judge the pope.
1240 CE – Turkey – Methodius II becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1240 – 1244 CE – Turkey – The office of the Patriarch of Constantinople becomes vacant.
1241 CE – Europe – Eastern Europe considered this year a year of misery. To escape the Mongol army, 40,000 refugees from the steppe of the Mongolian Russia Empire straggled into Hungary. A division of the Mongol army under Baibars Khan destroyed a combined army of Polish, French and Germans at Liegnitz in Silesia. The Mongol army annihilated the Hungarian Army of 40,000 men including the Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights. The Europeans are devastated, as the European knights are no match for the superior Mongol army. About 30,000 well-armed knights are destroyed almost to a man. Those who survived believed they had been defeated by witchcraft. Near the town of Muhi, Hungary 60,000 are killed this spring.
The Mongol (Tartars) advanced on Vienna, Austria and Europe for all intent has no remaining army to resist the Mongol Empire. Krakow, Poland fell to the Mongol on Palm Sunday. The Great Mongol Empire is the largest land empire history has known. Only the death of Emperor Ogadai (Ugedey) in December this year saved Europe from total conquest. General Batu and other Mongolian leaders wanted to take part in the elections on the next great khan. This election process would take four years. The Mongol objective, however, is to advance West to the furthest known territory and this short-term objective is attained. Bulgaria and Moldavia became a permanent part of the Mongolian Empire for the next century. Remnants of the Hungarian army reported that the Tartars are using gunpowder in the war. This led the Church to the conclusion that the Tartars are using fire-breathing dragons against the Christians. They are considered the horde from hell itself. Tartars from Tartarus, that part of Hades where the wicked were punished. They had the heads of dogs, and they devoured the bodies of their victims.
1241 CE – Germany – Hamburg and Luebeck sign a treaty of mutual defense (Hanseatic League). It consisted of the main mercantile cities of Germany.
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| Celestine IV |
1241 – 1241 CE – Italy – Celestine IV, alias Goffredo da Castiglione, a nephew of Pope Urban III, is elected pope. The ten cardinals had been shut up for sixty days in cruel and squalid conditions to force a 2/3-consensus vote. Brutal threats are employed and one cardinal died during the process. Already old and ill, Celestine IV died after only seventeen days.
1242 CE – Russia – The Mongol withdrew from Poland and Hungary settling in southern Mongolian Russia Empire. The Russian is in total submission and forced to pay tribute. The Russian Princes literally had to kiss the feet of the Mongol Commanders during the collection of tribute. The Mongol in the Russian Ukrainian (Little Russia) area settles in by building forts and planting crops.
1242 CE – Italy – Prior to this time the Roman Catholic Inquisition focused on Christian heretics but this year they changed their focus to target Jews.
1242 CE – Europe – Gunpowder is imported to Europe from the Far East. [^]
1242 CE – Hungary – The Shroud of Jesus is sold to the Templars by King Bela IV of Hungary due to lack of money. [p187&]
1243 CE – France – Jaques de Molay was born in Besançon, France, in 1243 CE, in a noble but poor family (b. 1243, Molay, Fr. – d. March 19, 1314, Paris). He was the last grand master of the Knights Templars, an order of knighthood founded during the Crusades that had attained extensive power and wealth. He failed to exercise effective leadership at the time of the suppression of the order by King Philip IV the Fair of France and Pope Clement V.
In 1265 CE, in Beaune, France, he joined the Knights Templar, an order founded in 1128 CE to keep the Holy Land of Palestine and settled in Paris in 1140 CE, and then fought in Syria. In 1291 CE, after the loss of Palestine, the Knights were driven from the Holy Land by the Saracens, and de Molay took his few remaining knights to the Island of Cyprus. In 1298 CE, he was made Grand Master of his Order.
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| Jaques de Molay |
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| Burned as a Heretic |
In 1307 CE, he was summoned in France by Pope Clement V and King Philip IV to discuss new crusades and effect a union between the rival Templars and Hospitallers. de Molay asked the pope to investigate certain spurious accusations of blasphemy and sodomy that had recently been made against his order.
On October 13, 1307 CE, King Philip IV suddenly arrested and interrogated every Knight Templar in France, de Molay and his sixty friends among them. Under horrible tortures, de Molay confessed that some of the charges brought against the order (for instance, to deny Christ and to spit upon the crucifix) were true, but de Molay rejected a charge of sodomy. In 1309 CE and 1310 CE, de Molay appealed for a personal judgment by the pope, but Clement decided to suppress the order in 1312 CE.
On March 18, 1314 CE, de Molay was led out before the people to publicly confess his and the order’s sins. After he heard the sentence of the judges, which were a perpetual imprisonment, he recanted his earlier confessions and said the only crime he was guilty of was lying about his brethren to relieve his own tortures, and so, as a final punishment, he was burned as a relapsed heretic.
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| de Molay Coat of Arms |
His last words were said to have been “Pope Clement! King Philip! Within one year, I summon you to a tribunal before the Judgment seat of God, where you will get the retribution you deserve! Damned! Damned! All damned until the thirteenth generation of your races!”
The malediction worked – Clement V died on April 20, 1314 CE from suffocation, and Philip IV died on November 27, 1314 CE, from a cerebral ictus, and his three sons died within twelve years, without letting any male descendant, and so ending the Capetian dinasty.
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| Innocent IV |
1243 – 1254 CE – Italy – Innocent IV, alias Sinibaldo Fieschi, is elected pope after an 18-month squabble. The pope would flee Rome in 1244 CE, first to Genoa and then to Lyons, due to his stand against Frederick. The emperor died in 1250 CE and Innocent IV could finally return to Rome. During his pontificate the Seventh Crusade started, which ended with a further defeat.
1243 CE – Palestine – The Christian Knights captured Nablus in 1242 CE and Jerusalem this year, massacring its inhabitants, including Christian Arabs. In July, 10,000 tribesman stormed Jerusalem, which was lost to the Franks forever.
1243 CE – Italy – As early as 384 CE, a synod in Rome had condemned the use of torture. Pope Nicholas I had ruled that torture was a violation of divine law. But Pope Innocent IV thought otherwise. In his Bull Ad Extirpanda, he allowed the Inquisition to use torture. He further decreed that any disobedience even in thought was punishable.
The Dominican Inquisitors, being the pope’s appointees, were subject to no one but His Holiness. They were a law unto themselves, acting both as prosecutors and judges. They operated in total secrecy and they could not err. By papal command, they were explicitly forbidden to show mercy to their victims. There was a manual called Libro Negro (Black Book) for the guidance of inquisitors –
“If a prisoner confesses the whole of what he is accused of, he is unquestionably guilty of the whole; but if he confesses only a part, he ought still be regarded as guilty of the whole … Bodily torture has ever been found the most salutary and efficient means of leading to spiritual repentance … If, notwithstanding all the means employed, the unfortunate wretch still denies his guilt, he is to be considered as a victim of the devil … Let him perish among the damned, and let his place be no longer found among the living.”
The Dutch Reformation, W. Carlos Martyn, pp. 256 – 257, 1868.
Inquisitors were forbidden to maim or kill, but of course accidents occurred. A victim who did not confess was left in solitary confinement, manacled, cold and dark in his own filth. Entire families were tortured when a member informed on them. Sentences were also passed on the dead and their property confiscated.
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| Cathar Castle of Montségur |
1244 CE – France – Early in the thirteenth century, Ramon de Pereille the co-siegneur and Chatelain, was asked to make Montségur defensible, anticipating the problems to come. From 1232 CE it became the headquarters of the Cathar community in the Languedoc, and a refugee centre for “faidits” – outlaws who had been stripped of their lands and goods by the Roman Church. These faidits, exact counterparts of the more recent maquis, continued to wage a guerilla war against the invaders.
After the failure of the uprising against the French invaders, the defeat of Henry III of England by Louis IX of France, the events at Avignonet, and the capitulation of Ramon VII, all in 1243 CE, the Council of Beziers decided to destroy the last vestiges of Catharism. The Cathar sympathisers responsible for killing the Inquisitors at Avignonet were known to have come from Montsegùr. The Council therefore decided to “cut off the head of the dragon” by which they meant to taking of the château there, the last remaining major centre of Cathar belief. The château, perched on top of a majestic hill (called a pog), had already been reinforced.
On March 2, the Cathar Castle of Montségur in the Languedoc fell to the northern French crusaders. The Cathars requested a two-week truce.
The story of the siege of Montsegùr is one of the most moving of all the tragedies associated with the war against the Cathars. Even the most hostile writers were struck by the significance of events at Montsegùr, when against expectation the ranks of the doomed Parfaits increased during the two weeks’ truce.
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| Monument at Montségur |
It was during this period that the genealogy found in 1891 CE in Rennes-le-Château was written. It had the seal of Queen Blanche de Castille, mother of King Louis IX, and confirmed the survival of the Merovingian bloodline. [p300+-]
On March 15, the Cathars held a festival in the captured castle. In the early morning of March 16th, they were herded into a specially made pen, where later the 225 Parfaits were burned alive. They included three generations of one family – grandmother, mother and daughter. At the bottom of the pog on which the Castle sat is a monument which commemorates this event. People still leave flowers there.
At the end of the extermination of the Cathars, the Roman Church had proof that a sustained campaign of genocide can work. It also had the precedent of an internal Crusade within Christendom, and the machinery of the first modern police state that could be wheeled out for the Spanish Inquisition, and again for later Inquisitions and genocides. [midi] This crusade was one of the greatest disasters ever to befall Europe. Catharism is often said to have been completely eradicated by the end of the fourteenth century.
1244 CE – Scotland – The nobles of Scotland in the treaty of Ponteland signed a letter and oath to Pope Innocent IV. Duncan de Ergalita (MacDougal) signed the treaty for the MacDougal clan.
1244 CE – Palestine – At La Forbie near Gaza the allied army attacked the Egyptian forces. The Kwarismians carrying lances cut the allied forces to ribbons. The Kwarismian and Egyptian Turks surrounded the Franks and cut them to pieces. Five thousand Christians fell in this battle. Only twenty six Hospitallers, thirty three Templars and three Teutonic Knights escaped.
1244 – 1255 CE – Turkey – Manuel II becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
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| The Khazar Empire |
1245 CE – Germany – Khazaria (Southern Russia) – Pope Innocent IV no longer believes the Mongols are sent by God and says they are from the Devil. The Pope wants to discover who these people are and to convert them into Christians. The Pope is well aware that the armies of Europe are no match to the superior forces of the Tartars (Mongols) and wants to establish an alliance.
Pope Innocent IV, as a result of this inferior position, proclaimed that non-Christians enjoy the same rights and authority as Christian States. This year the Mongols conducted a census of the Mongolian Russia Empire. The council of Lyons condemned Emperor Frederick with perjury, breach of peace, sacrilege and heresy. The pope conspired to murder the Emperor and ordered a crusade against the Germans.
Pope Innocent IV sent a mission to Batu Khan, grandson of Jinghiz Khan, ruler of the western part of the Mongol Empire, to explore the possibilities of an understanding with this new world power – and also no doubt to obtain information about its military strength. Head of this mission was the sixty-year-old Franciscan friar, Joannes de Plano Carpini. He was a contemporary and disciple of St. Francis of Assisi, but also an experienced traveller and Church diplomat who had held high offices in the hierarchy. Francis of Assisi had created the Franciscan Order in 1209 CE. The mission set out on Easter day, 1245 CE, from Cologne, traversed Germany, crossed the Dnieper and the Don, and arrived one year later at the capital of Batu Khan and his Golden Horde in the Volga estuary: the town of Sarai Batu, alias Saksin, alias Itil (Khazaria – Southern Russia).
After his return to the west, Carpini wrote his celebrated Historica Mongolorum. It contains, amidst a wealth of historical, ethnographical and military data, also a list of the people living in the regions visited by him. In this list, enumerating the people of the northern Caucasus, he mentions, along with the Alans and Circassians, the “Khazars observing the Jewish religion.” It is, as already said, the last known mention of the Khazars before they vanish into obscurity.
The Curse of the Corporation
Part XIII – 1246 CE to 1364 CE
1246 CE – Mongolia – Guyuk is elected the new Great Khan of the Mongolian Empire. He claimed that all empires from sunrise to sunset have been given to us, and we own them. General Batu retained command of Kazakhstan, Khorezm, Western Siberia and his recent conquests of the Volga basin, north Caucasus, the Cuman steppes and Russia. This vast territory is called Juchi’s Ulus region. The Franciscan Priest, John Karpini wrote the Tartars share their food. This Christian belief is no longer being practiced in the Roman Church. The men hardly ever grow beards. It is noteworthy that the American Indians also do not grow beards. They always carry their dwellings with them, even into war. They have more horses than all the rest of the world. They consider it a great sin to waste food in any way. The Tartars practice Shamanism and they believe in heaven. The Tartars, however, encourage the practice of other religions. Religious tolerance is considered a heresy in the Middle East and Europe. John Karpini, upon reaching the city of Karaquarm, Mongolia is shocked to discover Eastern Christians among the Mongol peoples. He is astonished to find Islam and Buddhism being practiced in the city. The Great Khan says he controls the lands from the rising sun to the setting sun, and asks what right has the Pope to say he speaks for God. He says the Great Khan speaks for God and the Pope is ordered to come before the Khan and pay tribute. The Franciscan Priest John Karpini refused to allow a delegation on Tartars to return to Rome because he feared the Mongol would discover that Europe is in disarray and could be easily conquered.
1248 CE – Castille (Spain) – Ferdinand III of Castilla conquers Sevilla, capital of the Almohads (Arabs), and the Almohads are left with the state of Granada.
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| Cathedral of Köln |
1248 – 1280 CE – Germany – The Cathedral of Köln (Cologne) is built. [$12]
1248 – 1314 CE – France – Geoffroy de Charney born in Anjou. [p212&]
1248 – 1254 CE – Palestine – In 1244 CE, the Khwarezmians retook Jerusalem, after the end of a 10-year truce following the Sixth Crusade. The fall of Jerusalem, no longer an earth-shattering event to European Christians who had seen the city pass from Christian to Muslim control numerous times in the past two centuries, did not prompt an immediate call for a new crusade. Pope Innocent IV and Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor were more concerned with the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and Henry III of England was still struggling with Simon de Montfort and other problems in England. The only man interested in beginning another crusade was Louis IX, who declared his intent to go the East in 1245 CE.
France was perhaps the strongest state in Europe at the time, as Provence had mostly fallen under Parisian control after the Albigensian Crusade, and Toulouse was led by Louis IX’s brother Alphonse, who joined him on his crusade in 1245 CE. Another brother, Charles I of Anjou, also joined Louis. For the next three years Louis collected money (mostly from church tithes), and in 1248 CE he and his approximately 20 000-strong army sailed from the ports of Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles.
They sailed first to Cyprus and spent the winter on the island, negotiating with various other powers in the east; the Latin Empire set up after the Fourth Crusade asked for his help against the Byzantine Empire of Nicaea, and the Principality of Antioch and the Knights Templar wanted his help in Syria, where the Muslims had recently captured Sidon. However, Egypt was the object of his crusade, and he landed in 1249 CE, at Damietta on the Nile. Egypt was the object of the crusade, as it would, Louis thought, provide a base from which to attack Jerusalem, and its wealth and supply of grain would keep the crusaders fed and equipped.
On June 6, Damietta was taken with little resistance from the Egyptians, who withdrew further up the Nile. Louis ignored the agreement made during the Fifth Crusade that Damietta should be given to the nominal King of Jerusalem (at the time John of Brienne; in 1249 CE, Conrad IV of Germany), but he did set up an archbishopric there (under the authority of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem) and used the city as a base to direct military operations against the Muslims of Syria.
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| Louis attacks Damietta |
In November, Louis marched towards Cairo, and almost at the same time, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, as-Salih Ayyub, died. A force led by Robert of Artois and the Templars attacked the Egyptian camp at al-Mansourah, but they were defeated and Robert was killed. Meanwhile, Louis’ main force was attacked by the Mameluk Baibars, the commander of the army and a future sultan himself. Louis was defeated as well, but he did not withdraw to Damietta for months, preferring to besiege Mansourah, which ended in starvation and death for the crusaders rather than the Muslims. In March 1250 CE, Louis finally returned to Damietta, but he was taken captive on the way there. In May he was ransomed in return for Damietta and 400,000 livres, and he immediately left Egypt for Acre, one of the few remaining possessions of the crusaders in Syria. Meanwhile, the Mameluk soldiers of Egypt revolted. Turanshah, as-Salih’s successor, and took control of Cairo, creating a Mameluk dynasty that would eventually conquer the last of the crusader territories.
Louis made an alliance with the Mameluks, and from his new base in Acre began to rebuild the other crusader cities. Although the Kingdom of Cyprus claimed authority there, Louis was the de facto ruler. Louis also negotiated with the Mongols, who had began to appear in the east and whom the Christians, encouraged by legends of a Nestorian kingdom among them (c. f. Prester John), hoped would help them fight the Muslims and restore the Crusader States. They, like the Muslims who were similarly negotiating with the Mongols against the Christians, were unaware that the Mongols were not interested in helping either side and would eventually be disastrous for both. Louis’ embassy to the Mongol ruler Möngke Khan, headed by William of Rubruck, was a failure. The Khan rejected Louis’ invitation to convert to Christianity, and instead suggested Louis submit to him.
In 1254 CE, Louis’ money ran out, and his presence was needed in France where his mother and regent Blanche of Castile had recently died. His crusade was a failure, but he was considered a saint by many, and his fame gave him an even greater authority in Europe than the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1270 CE, he attempted another crusade, though it too would end in failure.
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| Dunstaffnage Castle |
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| Dunollie Castle |
1249 CE – Ireland – Ewen MacDougall, the Viking, retained the clan’s allegiance to his motherland and the King of Norway despite threats from the King of Ireland. The MacDougall strongholds included the castles Dunstaffnage and Dunollie on the Firth of Lorne.
1250 CE – Russia – The Lithuanians moved eastward into the Novgorodok region of the upper Nieman River, currently Mongolian Russia Empire lands. They entered into association with the Mongolian Russians but retained loyalty to the Grand Duke of Lithuania.
1250 CE – Palestine – Mamiuk begins an extensive building program and most Muslim buildings in the Old City of Jerusalem are built between 1250 – 1450 CE.
1250 – 1300 CE – Spain – The Alhambra Palace of Granada is built. [$]
1251 CE – Germany – German emperor Friederich II dies and is succeeded by his son Konrad IV. Pope Innocent IV returned triumphantly to Italy from Germany. This pope significantly lowered the prestige of the papacy by scandalously using spiritual powers to raise money, buy friends and injure foes.
1251 CE – Europe – The Great Khan again mobilized an army to secure his Western Empire. Huligo is the Commander who led his 150,000 man army into the Middle East. They destroyed Baghdad, Iraq because they did not submit and resisted the Mongol warnings. Persia (Iran) and the balance of Iraq immediately submitted and sent tribute to Huligo. The Tartar army entered Dimasticas (Damascus), Syria without a fight. The Eastern Christians pressed for treaty with the Tartars. The Roman Christians (Western Christians) were sure that Jerusalem was next to fall. The Tartars however placed no significance on Jerusalem and begin planning the conquest of Egypt that they consider as the last unconquered Empire of the West. It is noteworthy to remember that Egypt was recently conquered by the Turkish slaves called the Manalooks in 1250 CE. The Tartar (Mongol) sent notice to Egypt of their intent, but plans of invasion are put on hold when the Great Khan died. The bulk of the Tartar army is withdrawn to Iran leaving 10,000 men to hold Syria.
1252 CE – Egypt – The Turkish-Egyptians began to mobilize against the Tartar. They entered into alliance with the Christians. The Christians would supply provisions but would not join into the fight against their common foe. The Christians would later regret this decision, as it would cost them their Middle East holdings.
1252 CE – Italy – Pope Innocent IV established the Inquisition as a permanent institution in Italy and a papal bull sanctioned the use of torture to extract confessions.
1252 CE – Castile (Spain) – Alfonso X (23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death in 1275. He also was elected King of the Germans (formally King of the Romans) in 1257, though the Papacy prevented his confirmation. Alfonso X moves the capital to Sevilla and turns the Alcazar into the Reales Alcazares.
1252 CE – France – Bruges joins the Hanseatic League.
1253 CE – Russia – Daniel Galicia, a Russian Prince who has a Khan patent to hold the position, seeks Papal support for a rebellion against the Mongolian Russian Empire. Pope Innocent IV agrees, provided the Mongolian Russian clergy recognizes his authority. Rome doesn’t send troops because there is a delay in recognition of his authority by the Mongol Russian clergy. Daniel doesn’t press the clergy because the Pope didn’t sent troops.
1253 CE – Iraq – Hulagu, son of Tolui, a grandson of Genghis Khan, is ordered to capture Baghdad, Islam’s greatest city. He assembled an army of 150,000 men that included Chinese, Armenians, Georgians, Persians and Turks. This is believed to be one of the largest Mongol armies ever put into the field.
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| Theodore II Lascaris |
1254 – 1258 CE – Turkey – Theodore II Lascaris becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1254 CE – Italy – Emperor Friedrich’s illegitimate son Manfred seizes southern Italy.
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| Alexander IV |
1254 – 1261 CE – Italy – Alexander IV, alias Rinaldo, count of Segni, a nephew of Pope Gregory IX, is elected pope at Naples because the mayor had bolted the gates to Rome. Rome is racked by power struggles and the pope generally resided at Viterbo. He reversed many of the papal provisions imposed by Pope Innocent IV that had divided the Roman populous and sought to establish a crusade against the Mongols.
Alexander IV excommunicated Manfred, the new king of Apulia and Sicily. He canonized St. Clair and decreed the stigmata of St. Francis to be genuine. In particular, he fought against the “Flagellants,” who had become widspread in Perugia.
1254 CE – Germany – The Teutonic Order launched a full-scale crusade to rescue their beleaguered brethren in Prussia. Rudolf of Habsburg and Ottokar II of Bohemia led an army of 60,000 German and Czech soldiers. The Sambians, the foremost Prussian tribe, is conquered and by 1260 CE had overcome all the western tribes as well. The Teutonic Order believed that he who fights the Order, fights Jesus Christ. They gave no quarter and tribes disappeared without a trace, their villages obliterated.
The German emperor Konrad IV dies.
1254 CE – Afghanistan – Hulagu, the Mongol, veered into the Elburz Mountains to destroy the Assassins, a violent Islamic sect. The Assassins, dagger-wielding fanatics, had murdered many Islamic rulers who rejected their extremist tenets. They are said to strike while under the influence of hashish, hence the word assassin, from the Arabic hashshashin, or hashish eaters. The Assassins’ eagle nest fortress fell and the sect’s Grand Master Rukn ad Din is taken prisoner. Later he is kicked to a pulp and then put to the sword.
1255 – 1259 CE – Turkey – Arsenius Autoreianus becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1256 – 1265 CE – Persia (Iran) – The Mongol (Il-Khanid) dynasty rules Persia, with Hulagu as its leader.
1256 CE – Persia (Iran) – The Assassins library and castles at Alamut are destroyed. All books of their doctrine and ritual where burned by the Mongols, led by Hulagu Khan. [p22G]
1257 CE – China – Russia – The Mongol Empire relocated their capital city from Karakorum, Mongolia to Shangtu, China until 1260 CE. The Great Khan Guyuk orders a general population census of the Mongol Empire. Guyuk appoints Alexander Nevsky to the throne of Kiev. He put down a rebellion in Novgorod gaining independence for collection of taxes in the future and a promise that Mongolian officials would withdraw after the census.
1258 CE – Iraq – Iran – Caliph Mustasim, the ruler of Baghdad, sent his troops out to meet the Mongol Hulagu. The Mongols broke a dike behind them, trapping them with floodwaters, and killed at least 12,000 of the Caliph’s army. When Baghdad fell, some historians said that the Christian Georgians and Armenians in Hulagu’s army vented their hatred of Islam by slaughtering the civilians. The Abbassid Dynasty, 750 – 1258 CE, ended when Baghdad and Iraq fell to the Mongol Empire this year. Some historians put the death toll of the Hulagu campaign as high as two million people. A Chinese envoy in 1260 CE said of Baghdad that many tens of thousands were killed. Caliph Mustasim, the ruler of Baghdad, and his sons were sewn in carpets and trampled to death by horses. Hulagu’s Empire included Iraq, Iran and Syria. Hulagu learned that Khagan Mongke is dead and anticipated a succession struggle, he withdrew, leaving only 10,000 troops to hold the region.
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| John IV Lascaris |
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| Michael VIII Paleologus |
1258 – 1261 CE – Turkey – John IV Lascaris becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, marking the last ruler of the Lascarid Dynasty in Nicaea.
1259 – 1282 CE – Turkey – Michael VIII Paleologus becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, marking the beginning of the Palaeologi dynasty.
1260 CE – Russia – Daniel Galicia, a Russian Prince, starts a rebellion against the Mongolian Russia Empire that is quickly put down. He fled to Poland, then to Hungary and died in 1264 CE, thoroughly disillusioned. The Mongol army devastates Galicia and Volynia.
1260 CE – Syria – The Mamluks stop the Mongols in Syria and annex Syria.
1260 CE – China – A civil war broke out between two of the Mongol brothers and Kubli (Kubilay), 1260 – 1294 CE, won the war. The Mongol Empire capital city moved for the third and final time to Khanbaligh (Tatu), (Peking), China.
1260 CE – Syria – The Turkish-Egyptian army defeated the 10,000 man Tarter army in Syria.
1260 CE – Persia (Iran) – The 110,000 man Tarter (Mongol) army in Iran is never driven out or conquered, they are simply absorbed into the local culture.
1260 – 1261 CE – Turkey – Nicephorus II becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1260 CE – Denmark – Hammerhus, at the time one of northern Europes biggest fortresses, built at Bornholm. [$3]
1260 – 1327 CE – Germany – Meister Johannes Eckhart, a German philosopher, the first of the great speculative mystics is born. Extremely little is known of his life; the date and place of his birth are equally uncertain. According to some accounts, he was a native of Strassburg, with which he was afterwards closely connected; according to others, he was born in Saxony, or at Hochheim near Gotha. Trithemius, one of the best authorities, speaks of him merely as Teutonicus. 1260 CE has frequently been given as the date of his birth; it was in all probability some years earlier, for we know that he was advanced in age at the time of his death, about 1327 CE. He appears to have entered the Dominican order, and to have acted for some time as professor at one of the colleges in Paris. His reputation for learning was very high, and in 1302 CE he was summoned to Rome by Boniface VIII, to assist in the controversy then being carried on with Philip of France. From Boniface he received the degree of doctor. In 1304 CE, he became provincial of his order for Saxony, and in 1307 CE was vicar-general for Bohemia. In both provinces he was distinguished for his practical reforms and for his power in preaching. Towards 1325 CE he is preaching with great effect at Cologne, where he gathered round him a numerous band of followers. Before this time, and in all probability at Strassburg, where he appears to have been for some years, he had come in contact with the Beghards and Brethren of the Free Spirit, whose fundamental notions he may, indeed, be said to have systematized and expounded, in the highest form to which they could attain. In 1327 CE the opponents of the Beghards laid hold of certain propositions contained in Eckharts works, and he was summoned before the Inquisition at Cologne. The history of this accusation is by no means clear. Eckhart appears, however, to have made a conditional recantation, that is, he professed to disavow whatever in his writings could be shown to be erroneous. Further appeal, perhaps at his own request, was made to Pope John XXII, and in 1329 CE a bull was published condemning certain propositions extracted from Eckhart’s works. But before its publication, Eckhart had died. The exact date of his death is unknown. Of his writings, several of which are enumerated by Trithemius, there remain only the sermons and a few tractates. Until the middle of the 16th century, the majority of these were attributed to Johann Tauler, and it is only from Pfeiffer’s careful edition (Deutsche Mystiker d. XIV. Jahrhunderts, vol. ii., 1857) that one has been able to gather a true idea of Eckhart’s activity. From his works it is evident that he was deeply learned in all the philosophy of the time. He was a thorough Aristotelian, but by preference appears to have been drawn towards the mystical writings of the Neoplatonists and the pseudo-Dionysius. His style is unsystematic, brief and abounding in symbolical expression. His manner of thinking is clear, calm and logical, and he has certainly given the most complete exposition of what may be called Christian pantheism.
Eckhart has been called the first of the speculative mystics. In his theories the element of mystical speculation for the first time comes to the front as all-important. By its means the church doctrines are made intelligible to the many, and from it the church dogmas receive their true significance. It was but natural that he should diverge more and more widely from the traditional doctrine, so that at length the relation between his teaching and that of the church appeared to be one of opposition rather than of reconciliation. Eckhart is in truth the first who attempted with perfect freedom and logical consistency to give a speculative basis to religious doctrines. The two most important points in his, as in all mystical theories, are first, his doctrine of the divine nature, and second, his explanation of the relation between God and human thought.
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| Urban IV |
1261 – 1264 CE – France – Urban IV, alias Jacques Pantaleon, a Frenchman and patriarch of Jerusalem, is elected pope by eight cardinals at Viterbo after three months of debate. He named fourteen new cardinals, six being Frenchmen. He never resided in Rome due to political instability.
Urban IV refused to recognize Manfred as king of Sicily which caused Manfred to invade the Pontifical State. Urban IV asked the king of France for help, offering him the Sicilian crown, who in turn suggested giving it to his brother, Charles d’Anjou. Urban IV established the holy day of Corpus Domini, and also modified the rules of the Inquisition.
1261 – 1267 CE – Turkey – Arsenius Autoreianus, restored, once again becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1262 CE – Spain – The construction of the Cathedral of Valencia begins.
1263 CE – Spain – The Kabbalist Moses Ben Nachman is in dispute with the Catholic Pablo Christiani, trying to decide once and for all which religion is the true one.
It was during one of these efforts to get the Jews to convert to Christianity that the great Kabbalist and Torah-Talmud scholar known as Nachmanides came to prominence.
Nachmanides, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, better known as Ramban (not to be confused with Rambam or Maimonides) was born in Christian Barcelona in 1194 CE. He became the defender of the Jews in the great Disputation of 1263 CE – the most famous of the debates in which the Christians attempted to prove to Jews their religion was wrong in order to get them to convert.
In 1263 CE, a debate was staged in front of the Spanish King James of Aragon, and Nachmanides was given the royal permission to speak without fear of retribution. Nachmanides took full of advantage of this and didn’t mince any words.
His opponent was a Jew who had converted to Christianity named Pablo Christiani (a name he adopted after his conversion). It was Pablo’s idea to challenge the great scholar to this debate. Realizing that Pablo might need some help, the Church sent the generals of the Dominican and Franciscan orders as his advisors.
The debate revolved around three questions –
Has the Messiah come, as the Christians say, or has he yet to come as the Jews say?
Is the Messiah divine, as the Christians say, or human as the Jews say?
Do the Jews practice the true law or do the Christians?
Nachmanides answered that had the Messiah come the Biblical prophecies of his coming would have been fulfilled. Since the lion wasn’t lying down with the lamb and peace did not rule the planet, clearly the Messiah had not come. Indeed, noted Nachmanides, “from the time of Jesus until the present the world has been filled with violence and injustice, and the Christians have shed more blood than other peoples.”
As for the divinity of Jesus, Nachmanides said that it was just impossible for any Jew to believe that “the Creator of heaven and earth resorted to the womb of a certain Jewish woman … and was born an infant … and then was betrayed into the hands of his enemies and sentenced to death … The mind of a Jew, or any other person, cannot tolerate this.”
At the end of the debate, which was interrupted as the Church scrambled to minimize the damage, the king said, “I have never seen a man support a wrong cause so well,” and gave Nachmanides 300 solidos (pieces of gold) and the promise of continued immunity.
Unfortunately, the promise did not hold. The Church ordered Nachmanides to be tried on the charge of blasphemy, and he was forced to leave Spain. In 1267 CE, he arrived in Jerusalem, where there were so few Jews at the time that he could not find ten men for a minyan in order to pray.
Determined to set up a synagogue, he sent to Hebron and imported a couple of Jews. His original synagogue was outside the city walls on Mount Zion, though after his death in 1270 CE it was moved inside. (After the 1967 CE Six-Day War, the synagogue – which in the meantime had been turned into a dumpsite – was restored and is a vibrant place of worship today. Incidentally, the Ramban Synagogue is a subterranean synagogue because at the time Muslim law forbid any Jewish place of worship to be taller than any Muslim place of worship).
In Europe, the Church was still trying to undo the damage of Nachmanides’ tour de force. The consequences unfortunately were not good for the Jews. The Church ordered a censorship of all Jewish books containing any anti-Christian references. If any such books were found – without the pages ripped out or otherwise obliterated – they were burned. Pope Clement IV issued a papal bull entitled Turbato Corde, which would later become the basis for the Inquisition policy for persecuting “Judaizers.”
1264 CE – China – Kubli (Kubilay), 1260 – 1294 CE, the Mongolian, is the fifth Great Khan to rule the largest Empire in the history of the world. All major appointments in Europe must be approved by the Great Khan until the Ming dynasty begins in 1368 CE. Kubli Khan (Lord) began to march on the Sung Empire that is the last hold out to the Mongolian Empire.
1265 CE – Italy – In May, the author Dante Alighieri is born, 1265 – 1321 CE.
1265 CE – France – Jacques de Molay joined the Knights Templar at Beaune. [p135++]
The Temple (Knights Templar) sets the gold and silver standards for coin weight, throughout the whole of Europe, the Templar cross can still be seen on British coinage today used as a proof mark.
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| Clement IV |
1265 – 1268 CE – France – Clement IV, alias Guy Foulques, a Frenchmen, is elected pope at Perugia after four months of debate by the cardinals. He had two daughters and took his papal orders after his wife’s death. He also resided at Perugia and Viterbo due to instability in Rome.
Before beginning his clerical career, he was a soldier and then secretary of King Louis IX. Clement IV crowned Charles d’Anjou who defeated Manfred in battle and inspired the 8th and last crusade, which ended in defeat. Clement IV died in Viterbo.
1266 CE – Russia – Berke the Mongol died, being replaced by Mangu Temir who exempted the Mongol Russian church from both taxes and conscription. He also guaranteed the constitutional autonomy of Novgord and its rights to free trade. These actions made the Russian princes quite loyal to the Tsar as the Mongol Russians called the Khan.
1266 CE – Sicily – Scotland and Norway entered into an honorable treaty that formally ended the Viking occupation of Scotland. Norse inhabitants of Northern territories are given the option to stay or depart with all their goods.
1266 – 1307 CE – England – Guillaume de Gisors becomes Grand Master of the Prieuré de Sion. [p133+]
1266 CE – Sicily – With papal support, Charles I, count of Anjou and brother of Louis IX of France, seized control of the kingdom of Due Sicilie, defeating Manfred. Charles is crowned king of Sicily, thus ending German rule, causing the decline of the German empire and asserting French supremacy over Europe. Charles subjected the Sicilian people to cruel and tyrannical treatment at the hands of the French bureaucrats and soldiers. In 1282 CE, Sicilians revolted against his oppressive rule. The revolt, known as the Sicilian Vespers, began with a massacre of French soldiers.
Soon thereafter, the Kingdom of the Due Sicilie was divided. Naples remained under the control of the house of Anjou, but the island of Sicily became independent and chose as King Pedro III, king of Aragón, who was connected by marriage with the house of Hohenstaufen. In 1296 CE, the island was separated from Aragón, Spain and for more than a century it was ruled by a branch of the Aragonese dynasty.
1267 CE – China – Kublai Khan during the Yuan dynasty, meaning “origin or primal,” founded Beijing, China as his new capital city, naming it Daidu which meant “great capital.” A wall encloses the city eighteen miles around.
1267 CE – Turkey – Germanus III becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1267 – 1275 CE – Turkey – Joseph I Galesiotes becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1268 – 1271 CE – Italy – The Papacy remains vacant until 1271 CE.
1270 – 1272 CE – Palestine – The seventh Holy War is conducted to the Holy land. Henry of Susa, cardinal of Ostia, (d. 1271 CE) preached that infidel nations are not legitimate, their rulers lacked recognized jurisdiction and lands of such nations could be appropriated without composition. He argued in favor of universal papal domination over pagans, whom he alleged had lost their sovereignty to Christ. Sovereignty is an invention by Kings and Popes to justify conquests of other people using divine law that evolved out of classical Roman, Medieval Christianity and Feudal concepts.
1270 CE – France – Louis IX dies and is succeeded by Philippe III. King Louis IX of France is canonized as St. Louis in 1297 CE. Louis was noted for his insistence of the most barbarous treatment of Jews and Heretics. The Cathari hierarchy fades. [IllHis]
1271 CE – China – Marco Polo, encouraged by reports from Turkish traders who traded with the Mongols, decided to eliminate the Persian (Mongol) middlemen and establish direct trading along the ancient trade route to China. Kubla, the Great Khan, had established 1,000 way stations along his great road between China and Europe.
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| Blessed Gregory X |
1271 – 1276 CE – Italy – Gregory X, alias Tedaldo Visconti, a war monger, is elected by a committee of six after being locked in the papal palace at Viterbo with the roof removed and threatened with a starvation diet. In order to counterbalance the excessive power that Charles d’Anjou had won, Gregory X offered the imperial crown to Rudolf of Hapsburg.
1272 CE – France – The alleged bones of Mary Magdalene are found in the southern France town of Saint-Maximin after excavations in a 4th-century crypt. A cathedral was later erected on the site. [p77&]
1272 CE – England – King Edward I became King of England with a burning desire to bring the rest of Britain under his control. He allowed his lords to extend their control up the Welsh River Valley. As a result, a new class of people developed, a mixture of Norman, Welsh and French, but not English. Edward I ordered that all those who made twenty pounds a year or greater must be made knights and many esquires are made into knights.
1272 CE – Austria – Rudolf, 1273 – 1291 CE, of the Hapsburg family began the long rule of the Archduchy of Austria, 1273 – 1806 CE. The Hapsburg is from a Swiss-Alsatian tribe. Other dynasties occurred during the fourteenth century.
1273 CE – Persia (Iran) – Marco Polo passed through Persia and described in his Travels the fortress of Alamut. [p117ES]
1274 CE – France – The Capetian kings promote French as the national language
The Comtat Venaissin, a papal possession in southern France until 1791 CE (though not a part of the Papal States), was acquired in 1274 CE.
1274 CE – Russia – The Mongols ordered another general census of the Mongolian Russia Empire. One army recruit is required out of every ten males. The standing army is therefore composed of about 5 percent of the total population.
1274 CE – Italy – An Ecumenical Council established that cardinals must assemble within ten days of a pope’s death at the place where he died. They must stay together without contact to the outside world and be subjected to progressive austere conditions the longer the election process took. Various abuses of unduly long vacancies of benefices, pluralism and absenteeism are condemned. Severe restrictions are imposed on religious orders except the Franciscans and Dominicans.
1274 CE – Japan – The Kublai Khan attempted to conquer Japan from South Korea, but the attempt failed when a storm forced his fleet to retreat.
1275 CE – France – The writings of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225 – 1274 CE, came under severe censure at the University of Paris by Roman Catholics. Theologians made attempts to prune Aristotle’s writings to suit their purposes. St. Thomas Aquinas, the Italian Dominican, believed women are defective by nature and not created in God’s image. He believed women had to be punished for bringing sin into the world. The theology of Thomas Aquinas only became acceptable in 1879 CE. He also attempted to resolve the theological differences between the Eastern and Western Churches.
1275 CE – Spain – Yakub arrived in Spain with his Moroccan army and swept up to Jerez, killing and burning. He retired only to return in 1279 CE to again terrify the Spanish.
1275 CE – Germany – Rudolf I von Habsburg is elected German emperor after a long interregnum from the death of Friedrich II.
1275 – 1282 CE – Turkey – John XI Bekkos becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1276 CE – Spain – Felipe the Fair gains Navarra by marriage.
1276 – 1285 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Pedro III becomes king of Aragon (Aragonia).
1276 CE – China – The Sung Empire fell to the Mongol Kubli Khan who didn’t plunder their cities. The city of Hangzhou is the juiciest plum, being the largest city in the world, numbering at least one million people. On the advice of his wife, he proclaimed himself as the Emperor of China so as to start a new dynasty (Yuon Dynasty?). Emperor Kubli Khan created a caste system in China with the Mongolian people being the ruling class. The Sung people are the lowest class, with the Chin and Hsi-Hsia being the middle class. He nationalized all gold and silver mines and personal ownership of precious metals is not allowed. He created a paper currency, a banking system and a central Government for the Greater Chinese Empire stretching from Europe to the Pacific Ocean. Emperor Kubli built a great navy for exploration and trade. Trade routes are established as far as the Mongolian-Persian Gulf. The Chinese Emperor encouraged foreign traders to visit China. Russian, Turkish and Persian traders established trading houses and brought their religions.
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| Blessed Innocent V |
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| Hadrian V |
1276 – 1276 CE – Italy – Innocent V, alias Pierre of Tarentaise, a Dominican, is elected pope at Arezzo. He protected the religious orders and urged them to observe their rules strictly.
1276 – 1276 CE – Italy – Hadrian V, alias Ottonono Fieschi, is subsequently elected pope. His papacy was so brief that he had not even arrived at his coronation, which was postponed, in order to allow him to go to Viterbo for a cure.
1276 – 1277 CE – Italy – John XXI alias Pedro Juliao, a Portuguese from Lisbon, became the third pope to be elected this year. He delegated most decision making to Cardinal Orsini (future Pope Nicholas III) who had desired the papacy, but stood no chance to be elected to the papacy at that time. John XXI is charged with moral instability and a dislike of religious orders.
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| John XXI |
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| Nicholas III |
Being not very well versed in political and church matteres, John left the care of the Church to the cardinal Orsini while he continued to occupy himself with his studies. Old and ill, he retired to Viterbo, but he was a victim of the collapse of the palace where he resided.
1277 – 1280 CE – Italy – Nicholas III is elected pope after seven cardinals took six months to decide the election. He swore to restore papal supremacy in Italy and established his residence as the Vatican palace. Dante consigned this pope to hell because of his nepotism and avariciousness.
The foundations of the Vatican Palace were laid this year. [#] Nicholas III also built the gardens and the famous “Passetto do Borgo”. He was considered nepotistic and miserly.
1278 CE – England – Two hundred and seventy eight Jews are hanged in London for clipping coins. Christians guilty of the same offense are fined.
1280 – 1368 CE – Yuan Dynasty of China – The Mongol Empire completed its conquest of China. It eliminated the Sung Dynasty in central and south China, creating the Empire of the Great Khan. The Batu (Kipchak) Empire, IL Khan Empire of Hulagu, a grandson of Jenghis, and the Empire of Jagatai, the second son of Jenghis, paying tribute. This extraordinary achievement of a few small tribes implies an organizational genius in the Jenghis Khan ruling family.
1280 CE – England – Roger Bacon, deviser of early eyeglasses, independently invents gunpowder. [IllHis]
1280 – 1286 CE – Spain – The Zohar is written by the Jew Moses de Leon. [p22Q]
1280 – 1435 CE – Sweden – The Cathedral of Uppsala is built.
1281 CE – Korea – China – Kublai Khan, grandson of Jenghis the first Mongol Emperor, is determined to invade Japan, having failed in 1274 CE, and sent nine hundred warships with some forty thousand warriors to invade. The invasion is launched from Korea and Hangzhou, China. An epidemic killed three thousand warriors slowing their progress, when in June three thousand five hundred ships arrived with more than one hundred thousand men. On August 14, a deadly typhoon ravaged Japan for two days, destroying Kublai Khan’s armada. Only two hundred ships returned to China and it is estimated that one hundred thousand men died or are later killed by the Japanese.
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| Martin IV |
1281 – 1285 CE – Italy – Turkey – Martin IV, alias Simon de Brie or Brion, a Frenchman, is elected pope at Viterbo. His election was practically forced by Charles d’Anjou, a friend of his. The Romans refused him entry to the Vatican due to his unconcealed pro-French stance, so he resided at Orvieto.
During his pontificate, a fierce and bloody rebellion against the French in Sicily erupted which is known as “the Sicilian Vespers.” Martin excommunicated all those who were against Charles, but when Charles died, Martin had to flee Rome. He settled in Perugia where he died.
The excommunication of Michael Palaeologus by Pope Martin IV ruptured the union which had been effected with the Eastern Church in 1274 CE.
1282 CE – Southern Russia – The new Shaybanid khan Uzbek converts the Shaybanid horde to Islam and his horde becomes known as the Uzbeks.
1282 CE – Sicily – After twenty years of brutal French rule, Sicily rebelled killing more than two thousand the first day, including Sicilian women married to Frenchmen, butchering their children and even ripped out the wombs of women suspected of having been made pregnant by Frenchmen. This revolt was known as the “Sicilian Vespers.” The Anjou were removed and Aragonian (Spain) king Pedro III was installed as king of Sicily, who moved the capital to Napoli. Sicily offered to become a papal vassalage, but Pope Martin IV refused the offer, demanding they submit to King Charles, 1266 – 1285 CE.
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| Andronicus II |
1282 – 1328 CE – Turkey – Andronicus II becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1283 – 1289 CE – Turkey – Gregory II Cyprius becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1283 CE – England – The Statute of Acton Bumel, 11 Edw. I., is enacted. It is the first law to enable foreign merchants to collect debts by summary process and arbitrary seizure of property and imprisonment. Jews are specifically excluded from the benefits of this law.
1284 CE – England – King Edward I united West Wales and England, driving many Welsh into the hills, giving their land to Anglo farmers. Others are being forced into the army to fight the Scotch and French, teaching the Anglo’s their longbow skills.
1284 CE – Wales – The English kill Liewelyn, the last Prince of Wales.
1284 CE – Spain – King Sancho IV, 1284 – 1294 CE, made little progress against the Moors, but did secure Tarifa.
1285 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Alfonso III becomes king of Aragon (Aragonia), 1285 – 1291 CE.
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| Honorius IV |
1285 – 1287 CE – Italy – Honorius IV, alias Giacomo Savelli, a Roman, is unanimously elected pope at Perugia. In Rome, his election is enthusiastically received.
Born of the Savelli family, Honorius IV tried immediately to bring order back to Rome. He was on the side of the Angevins and would not recognized Peter of Aragon as king of Sicily. He introduced the study of oriental languages at the University of Paris.
1285 CE – France – Philippe IV of France reforms the government.
1287 CE – China – Marco Polo, with his father and uncle, came from Venice as merchants to work for China, being employed as an official in the salt trade. Marco is greatly impressed with the advanced technology of China as compared to the backwater culture of Europe.
1287 CE – Portugal – The Alcantara Order of Knights aided King Dinis of Portugal against his brother Dom Afonso. Lack of strong authority and being employed on purely secular campaigns weakened the religious order.
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| Nicholas IV |
1288 – 1292 CE – Italy – Nicholas IV, a Roman Franciscan, is elected pope. The election took eleven months, six cardinals died from heat exhaustion and most others fell sick, causing suspension of the conclave because the cardinals were so divided.
Nicholas IV was the first pope of the Franciscan order elected after the papacy had been vacant for one year because a pestilence had struck Rome. He promoted missionary work among the Mongols and Tartars. Nicholas IV established that half of the income of the Church is to go to the cardinals. He had the mosaics in the basilicas of St. John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore created.
1288 CE – China – The Chinese invented the gun about this time. They also made bombs, grenades, rockets, land mines and other arms using gunpowder.
1289 CE – China – Pope Nicholas IV sent Giovanni di Monte Corvino (d. 1330 CE), a Franciscan friar, to the court of the Great Kubla Khan, establishing the first Roman Catholic Church in China.
1289 – 1293 CE – Turkey – Athanasius I becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1290 CE – Scotland – King Edward I invaded Scotland and put John de Balliol, 1292 – 1296 CE, on the Scottish throne.
1290 CE – England – The Exchequer of the Jews, a small Jewish Community in England, earned its living by lending money and lived under Royal protection. A large number of Knights were in debt to the Jews. The Jews foreclosed on the Knights land for failure to pay, and sold it to recover their money. The King feared land would thereby accumulate in too few hands and challenge the Kings power base. Using this pretext, the Jews in London and York are massacred and the Jewish ghettos sacked during the Baron wars. The remaining Jews are forced to France, after being relieved of their possessions.
1290 CE – Turkey – The Ottoman Turks began to organize into a religious military clan about this time in northwestern Anatolia (Turkey). The Christians are routed out of the Middle East by the Islamic army.
1290 CE – Prussia – The Teutonic Knights conquer all of Prussia.
1291 CE – Syria – Cyprus – Italy – On July 12, Acre, the last Christian fortress in Syria is lost to the Moslems. [p114++] Theobald Gaudin, Grand Master of the Knights Templar managed to escape from Acre to Cyprus with the treasure and relics the Knights Templars. [p135++] The Teutonic Knights move their headquarters from Acre to Venice. With the fall of Acre, the Templars found themselves distanced from the Holy Land and lacking support from some European kings.
1291 CE – Switzerland – The Swiss cantons form a confederation under a republican form of government called the “League Of Upper Germany”.
1291 – 1327 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Aragonian king Alfonso III dies and his brother Jaime II becomes king of Aragonia.
1291 CE – Spain – On August 3, the Templar Castle of Tortosa surrendered. [p135++]
1291 CE – Germany – On August 14, the Templar Castle of Atlit surrendered. [p135++]
1291 – 1309 CE – Cyprus – The Order of St. John is sited at Cyprus. [10$]
1292 – 1298 CE – Germany – Adolf (or Adolph) (c. 1255 – 2 July 1298) was the King of Germany from 1292 until 1298. Though his title in his lifetime was Rex Romanorum (King of the Romans), he is usually known as Adolf of Nassau. He was never crowned by the Pope, which would have secured him the title of Holy Roman Emperor. He was the only sane king of the Holy Roman Empire deposed by the prince-electors without being excommunicated by the Pope.
1292 CE – Sumatra – Java – The Mongol Chinese Empire by orders of the Emperor Kublai Khan invaded Sumatra and Java with 1,000 ships during 1292 – 1293 CE. They returned to China in defeat.
1293 CE – Turkey – In Asia Minor, Osman I established the beginning of the Ottoman dynasty in 1293 CE. Osman’s successor Ohkran conquered most of western Asia Minor. By 1354 CE, the Turks had a base at Gallipoli, a peninsula on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
While the Mamlukes were taking power in the southern part of the Middle East, the Ottoman Turks were gathering strength in Asia Minor and spilling over into Europe. Their success was due to good organization and early exploitation of the power of firearms, which was not realized by other Muslim antagonists. The Mamlukes had been Turkish slaves of the Arabs; the Ottomans in turn created a soldier caste of Janissaries (Yeni Ceri, meaning New Troops), who were Christians conscripted or captured at any early age and raised as fanatic Muslims. They originally served as the personal guard of the Sultan. After the 1380s, Sultan Selim I recruited them by taxation in human form called devshirmeh. The sultan’s men would conscript a number of non-Muslim, usually Christian, boys – at first at random, later by strict selection – and take them to be trained.
1294 CE – China – The Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan died this year, leaving the worlds largest Empire from the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean.
1294 CE – Scotland – Scotland is again invaded by the English who captured all the main Scottish castles.
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| Celestine IV |
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| Boniface VIII |
1294 – 1294 CE – Italy – Celestine V, alias Pietro del Morrone, a hermit, is elected pope after twelve cardinals argued for twenty-seven months before coming to a 2/3 vote. Pietro del Morrone is alleged to have prophesied that divine retribution would follow if a pope is not soon selected. Pope Celestine is reputed to be a puppet manipulated by King Charles II of Sicily and Naples. He appointed twelve cardinals (seven Frenchmen) nominated by King Charles and appointed more of his creatures to key positions of the curia and the papal state. He abdicated the papacy and begged the cardinals to swiftly elect a new pope for the good of the church. To avoid a schism, the Pope is arrested and imprisoned.
1294 – 1303 CE – Italy – Benedict Gaetani (Caetani) became Pope Boniface VIII by effectively deposing, some say by killing, Pope Celestine V. He immediately annulled most of Pope Celestine’s appointments and revoked the privileges Celestine had granted. He demanded blind submission to his authority, the universal authority of the papacy. He is a believer in amulets, magic and a skeptic in religion. He is rude beyond belief, domineering and well hated, his primary objective is to increase the power of the Caetani family.
1294 CE – Spain – King Ferdinand IV, 1294 – 1312 CE, of Spain made little progress against the Moors, but did capture Gibraltar, attacking from the seaward side. The rock is too exposed to attract settlers, so he made it a safe haven for all criminals, robbers, murderers and women who ran away from their husbands.
1294 CE – England – Roger Bacon dies.
1294 – 1303 CE – Turkey – John XII becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1295 – 1304 CE – Iran – The Mongol dynasty rules Iran, with Ghazan Khan as its leader.
1295 CE – Scotland – France – Scotland entered into a secret alliance with France against the English, with an agreement that if England attacked one, the other would make trouble behind England’s back. France saw her biggest problem being the Duke of Burgundy and the English King Edward I, who is also Duke of Aquitaine, as they refused to recognize the French King Philip IV’s (1285 – 1314 CE) over-lordship.
1296 CE – France – King Philip IV of France raised money for war by taxing the clergy. Pope Boniface issued a bull banning the practice and King Philip retaliated by prohibiting the export of money and valuables and expelled foreign merchants.
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William Wallace
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1297 CE – Scotland – William Wallace, a Norman-Scottish Knight rose against English rule, is defeated, executed and his head is put on a pole on London bridge by King Edward I.
1297 CE – Italy – The powerful Colonna family who had supported Pope Boniface VIII’s election, became disenchanted with his high-handed style, opposed his Sicilian policy and joined the Franciscan Spirituals in questioning the validity of Celestine V’s abdication and Boniface’s election. They called for a general council to adjudicate his legitimacy as pope and investigate his alleged murder of Pope Celestine. The Pope deposed and excommunicated two of the Colonna’s cardinals and organized a holy war against them, razed their fortresses, seized their lands and exploited them to enrich the Vatican.
1298 – 1308 CE – Germany – Albert I of Habsburg was King of the Romans, Duke of Austria, and eldest son of German King Rudolph I of Habsburg and Gertrude of Hohenburg.
1298 CE – England – Jaques de Molay becomes Grandmaster of Knights Templars.
1300 CE – Tibet – Bardo Thos Grol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, was probably compiled during the 14th century. However, according to Tibetan Scripts it was written down during the life of Padma Sambhava, during the 8th century. [$5] [p178TD]
1300 CE – France – King Philip IV began an attack on the Knights Templar Order, jealous of their power and privileges and envious of their wealth. The Inquisition accused them of blasphemy and idolatry. They are accused of denying Christian doctrines, giving homage to Satan and worshipping an idol called Baphomet (Mahomet).
The first part of the Gothic cathedral of Saint-Maximin was consecrated. [p77&]
1300 CE – China – The White Lotus Society is founded in China. [IllHis]
1300 CE – Italy – The papal theory … made the Pope alone God’s representative on earth and maintained that the Emperor received his right to rule from St. Peter’s successor … It was upheld by Nicholas I, Hildebrand, Alexander III, Innocent III, and culminated with Boniface VIII at the jubilee of 1300 when, seated on the throne of Constantine, girded with the imperial sword, wearing a crown, and waving a sceptre, he shouted to the throng of loyal pilgrims: “I am Caesar, I am Emperor.”
Boniface VIII commissioned or permitted the erection of so many statues of himself the some people accused him of encouraging idolatry. Pope Celestine V had said of him “You leaped on the throne like a fox, you will reign like a lion, you will die like a dog.” He proclaimed 1300 CE a year of jubilee (a holy year) with plenary indulgences for pilgrims to the Apostles shrines. Pope Boniface VIII made three of his nephews cardinals, bestowing vast lands and possessions on them. The Pope had a married woman and her daughter as his mistresses. Dante said he turned Peter’s burial-place into a sewer. Pope Boniface VIII, in a foul mood having leveled Palestrina, killing some 6,000 people, prepared a new Bull to the universal church ––
“There is but one holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church outside of which there is no salvation or remission of sins. I, the Pope, am the one head, with Christ and Peter, of the church. This church is the Ark of Salvation; anyone outside it is doomed to drown forever, especially Greek Christians who refuse to admit the pope is Shepherd of the whole flock. He who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter wrongly interprets the Lord’s words. Both swords, the spiritual and the material are in the power of the Church. The spiritual is wielded by the Church; the material for the Church. The one by the hand of the priest; the other by the hand of kings and knights at the will and sufferance of the priest. One sword has to be under the other; the material under the spiritual, as temporal authority in general is under the spiritual. We declare, announce and define that it is altogether necessary for salvation for every creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
An insane Pope speaks to the universal church on matters of faith and morals and all future Popes must take up the two swords against the laws of Jesus Christ and millions of innocent people will die. The Roman Church had become the beast. Now the whole Roman Church knew that God’s things are God’s and Caesar’s things are God’s too.
The Roman Church taught that women should obey their husbands, be pure and holy. Like Eve, they could not be trusted and are a moral danger to men. Such religious teaching led men both to worship and also to look down on women and led women to give in to men’s authority. A disobedient wife is usually beaten and the Church supports this practice until the Twentieth century.
1300 CE – Mongolia – China – Russia – The Mongolian Horde held to a principle of religious tolerance and practiced a form of Sky worship and Shamanism. The Golden Horde officially endorsed Islam and in China endorsed Buddhism. In Southern Mongolian Russia Empire they wavered between Christianity and Islam.
1300 CE – England – The Norman Lords loved hunting and drove the English peasants out of the forests, punishing them severely if they killed any forest animals.
1300 CE – Poland – King Wenceslas II ascends the throne in Poland.
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| Anatolia |
1301 CE – Anatolia (Turkey) – Osman founds the Ottoman dynasty in Anatolia (Ankara).
1302 CE – Rome – Pope Boniface VIII issued the bull Unam Sanctam, concerning the unity of the Church and the temporal power of princes, against the background of a struggle with Philip IV of France; it was the most famous medieval document on the subject.
In this bull, Obedience to the Pope was declared necessary for Salvation –
“We, moreover, proclaim, declare and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human being to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
1303 CE – Italy – King Philip IV of France sent a small force to Rome to sack the Vatican and imprison Boniface VIII over the right to tax the French clergy. Guillaume de Nogaret, emissary of Philip IV of France, kidnaps Pope Boniface VIII and beats him. His imprisonment unhinged him and he kept banging his head against a wall and nibbled his arm incessantly like a dog worrying a bone. The pope is rescued by Italians from Anagni, but dies shortly thereafter in Rome, probably as a result of his injuries. His death ends the struggle between Philip IV of France and the pope over papal powers in France.
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| Blessed Benedict XI |
1303 – 1304 CE – Italy – Benedict XI, alias Niccolo Boccasino, a Dominican, is unanimously elected pope. The Colonna cardinals being excommunicated are excluded from the election. He absolved the Colonna family from excommunication, but did not restore the cardinals nor return confiscated property. The other Roman families are outraged and the pope fled Rome.
1303 CE – Sweden – Birgitta (Bridget) is born. She died in Rome in 1373 CE. [$]
1303 – 1310 CE – Turkey – Athanasius I once again becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1304 – 1316 CE – Iran – The Mongol dynasty rules Iran, with Uljaitu as its leader.
1305 CE – Spain – Moses de Leon dies. [J]
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| Clement V |
1305 – 1314 CE – France – Clement V, alias Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, is elected pope after eleven months of bitter debate and intrigue. The pope created ten new cardinals, nine are French of which four are nephews; further creations in 1310 and 1312 CE ensuring French domination. He intended on returning to Rome but, on the King’s insistence, settled in Avignon in 1309 CE. Romans considered this the beginning of a seventy-year Babylonian captivity of the papacy.
1306 CE – France – Philippe IV expels the Jews from France.
1306 CE – Scotland – On March 27, Robert the Bruce is crowned King at Scone, using the real Stone of Destiny, not the Stone of Scone. King Robert Bruce I, 1306 – 1329 CE, an Anglo-Norman (Viking) of Scotland had not the sympathy of Scotland. The new king is struggling in the west and is all but cut off at Dalry near Tydrum by the Chief of the MacDougall, a Gaelic-Viking, whose descendants long possessed the Brooch of Lorn, said to have been torn from his shoulder in this action. Bruce defeated the English army in Scotland in 1307 CE. Edward I died on the way to battle and on his grave is written, Hammer of the Scots. Pope Clement V excommunicated Robert I and two bishops who supported this Scottish rebel.
1307 CE – France – On October 13, Philippe IV of France ordered arrest of all Knights Templars, including Jaques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Temple. [p70+] More than 600 of the 3,000 Templars in France were imprisoned, according to Inquisition records. [p36G]
1307 – 1321 CE – Italy – Divina Commedia is written by Dante Alighieri. [^]
1308 CE – Germany – The assassination of Holy Roman Emperor Albert I, 1250 – 1308 CE, Holy Roman Emperor, 1298 – 1308 CE, the son of Rudolf I, occurred. Albert was invested with Austria and Styria in 1282 CE by his father, who also hoped to secure the succession as king of the Germans for Albert. However, on Rudolf’s death in 1291 CE, the electors rejected Albert’s candidacy in order to check the growing power of the Hapsburgs and to prevent the crown from becoming hereditary within the Hapsburg dynasty. They chose Adolf of Nassau as king. Albert later engineered Adolf’s deposition and replaced him. As king, Albert attempted to strengthen Hapsburg claims for a hereditary dynasty by allying in 1299 CE with Philip IV of France, by supporting the Rhine towns against the Rhenish imperial electors, and by unsuccessfully attempting in 1300 CE to add Holland and Zeeland to the Hapsburg domains. These actions provoked a revolt, between 1300 until 1302 CE, by the Rhenish electors, backed by Pope Boniface VIII, which Albert suppressed. He later reached an agreement with Boniface, who recognized his title in 1303 CE. Albert attempted to expand his dominion to the east by preventing Wenceslaus II of Bohemia from acquiring Hungary, but his campaign was unsuccessful until Wenceslaus’s death in 1305 CE. Albert’s son, Rudolf, succeeded Wenceslaus III in 1306 CE. Albert was assassinated by a band of conspirators that included his nephew. Henry of Luxemburg (Henry VII) was elected to succeed him.
1308 CE – France – On June 24, the Knights Templar held an annual chapter in Poitiers for three days, displaying “The Mysterious Head” according to Etienne de Troyes.” [p203&]
1308 CE – Scotland – King Robert Bruce I overran the north, turned to the west and made himself master of the MacDougall stronghold of Dunstaffnage.
1308 CE – Italy – The Archbishop of Riga and his four bishops wanting to control the city asked Pope Clement V to suppress the Teutonic Order because of its luxury, cruelty and injustice. They would later accuse them of sodomy and witchcraft. The clergy also appealed to the heathen Lithuanians to oust the Order.
1309 CE – Prussia – In September, the Teutonic Knights moved their headquarters to Marienberg, Prussia. [p43G]
1309 CE – France – Avignon became the residence of the Pope in 1309 CE, at which time the town and the surrounding Comtat Venaissin was under the rule of the kings of Sicily (the house of Anjou). In 1348 CE, Pope Clement VI bought it from Queen Joanna I of Sicily for 80,000 gold gulden, and it remained a papal possession until 1791 CE, when, during the disorder of the French Revolution, it was incorporated with France.
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| The Pope’s Palace in Avignon, France |
Seven popes have resided there –
Pope Clement V
Pope John XXII
Pope Benedict XII
Pope Clement VI
Pope Innocent VI
Pope Urban V
Pope Gregory XI
From 1309 to 1417 CE, during the “Babylonian Captivity” at Avignon and the Great Schism, the Papal States were in chaotic condition, only temporarily relieved by the efforts of Cardinal Albornoz. It was called the Babylonian Captivity in reference to the Israelites’ enslavement in biblical times. The analogy fitted Avignon in another sense – the venality of the papal court caused the city to become infamously corrupt, much as Babylon had been accused of being. The poet Petrarch condemned the city’s corruption, contributing to the papacy’s return to Rome out of sheer embarrassment as much as anything else.
During the Renaissance the papal territory expanded greatly, notably under Pope Alexander VI and Pope Julius II. The Pope became one of Italy’s most important secular rulers as well as the head of the Church. Much of the territory was only nominally controlled by the Pope, and most of the papal states were ruled by minor princes. Control was always contested, indeed it took until the 16th Century for the Pope to have any genuine control over all his territories, at which point the Pope’s temporal power started to decline. Because of the weak control of the area the Papal States became one of the most lawless and poorest parts of Italy.
1309 CE – Greece – The Hospitallers conquer the island of Rhodes and move their capital there, establishing an ecclesiastical principality under the eastern Roman empire. [10$]
1309 CE – Scotland – On October 6, Edward II ordered the arrest of all Templars in Scotland. [p99+']
1310 CE – Scotland – The Hebridean Kingdom of MacDougall is lost to their related clan of MacDonald.
1310 – 1354 CE – France – The Knights Templar are burned to death in France. [(]
1312 CE – Europe – The Hospitallers are awarded the Templars’ possessions in western Europe, Cyprus, and Greece (kingdom of Achaia).
1310 – 1314 CE – Turkey – Nephon I becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1311 CE – China – The Mongol began the extermination of Chinese peasantry and 35,000,000 people are killed between 1311 – 1340 CE. Some suggest this is not true. Others say that Khubilai Khan, who ruled China until his death in 1294 CE, was reported by Chinese writers of having killed 18,480,000 Chinese to maintain his throne. Some place the overall murder of Chinese over the centuries in the range from 34 million to 90 million. The Yuan Dynasty (1279 – 1368 CE) was considered particularly brutal toward the Chinese. It is suggested more Chinese are killed maintaining the Dynasty than in the actual conquest. These likely inflated figures (35 million) likely include the deaths by flooding of the Yellow River because the Mongols failed to maintain the irrigation systems.
1312 CE – Scotland – Following false charges, the Order of the Knights Templar is dissolved by Papal decree and subjected to a cruel persecution, but not in Scotland where Templars fleeing France found refuge under an excommunicated King Robert the Bruce. Bruce welcomes the Templar Order to a divided and excommunicate Scotland.
1312 CE – France – The King of France abolishes the Order of Knights Templar, accusing them of witchcraft. Pope Clement V disbanded the Knights Templar Order for heresy involving magic.
1314 – 1347 CE – Germany – Louis IV (1 April 1282 – 11 October 1347), called the Bavarian, of the house of Wittelsbach, was the King of Germany (King of the Romans) from 1314, the King of Italy from 1327 and the Holy Roman Emperor from 1328.
1314 CE – France – On March 18, Jacques de Molay, the grand master of the Templars, and Geoffroi de Charney are roasted to death over a slow fire on the Ile de la Cité in the Seine. [p175++]
1314 CE – Scotland – The Battle of Bannockburn occurred on the 24th of June, Midsummer’s day, the Feast day of John the Baptist. Scotland fought under Robert the Bruce with Templar help for freedom. England under Edward II was, against all odds, defeated.
Bruce creates the Order of Heridom and the Brothers of the Rosy Cross, later to be Kilwinning. They hold lands in Argyllshire near Sadell Abbey. Part of the Templar Fleet becomes integrated into the Lords of the Isles and the Northern (Sinclair) Fleet.
Balentrodoch comes under the protection of the St. Clairs of Rosslyn, although it is administered by the Order of the Hospital, as well as the Cistercians from Newbattle Abbey, farming the land and continuing to mine coal.
1315 CE – Scotland – Robert the Bruce protects the Order of Heridom and the Temple keeps its land in Scotland.
1315 CE – India – Virvarman II, the last (?) of the Chandela kings, ruling over Khajuraho. [p4KH]
1315 – 1320 CE – Turkey – John XIII Glykys becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
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| John XXII |
1316 – 1334 CE – France – John XXII alias Jacques Duese, is elected pope after two years debate split along country lines. John XXII introduced the Most Holy Trinity holiday and canonized St. Thomas Aquinas. He established the court called Sacra Rota.
1316 CE – Scotland – Robert the Bruce established, according to old Masonic tradition, the Royal Order of Scotland and appointed the St. Clairs as hereditary Grand Masters. Many prominent Templars became members. [p49G]
1318 CE – Portugal – The Portugese Templars became the Order of Christ and received the approval of Pope John XXII. [p167@] King Dinis did not appreciate the power of the Order of Knights in Portugal and appealed to Pope John XXII to expropriate the Orders’ land holdings. The Pope refused, so King Dinis created his own Order of the Knights of Christ, installing them in all Templar locations.
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| Muslim Territory – 1300 CE |
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| Granada – 1300 CE |
1319 CE – Spain – Two regents of Castilian perished in the disaster of the Vega and the frontier towns are so horrified they formed a league to make peace with the Islamic Kingdom of Granada (southern Spain) at any cost.
1320 CE – Scotland – The Signing of the Declaration of Arbroath, possibly enshrining the first rights of man, his community and his culture.
Although the English armies under Edward II were routed at Bannockburn in 1314 CE, by 1319 CE, with the recapture of Berwick and effectively expelled from Scottish soil, they continued to mount attacks into Robert the Bruce’s Scotland over the succeeding years. The Pope had not accepted Scottish independence, perhaps partially because Robert the Bruce had been excommunicated for killing John Comyn in a church in Dumfries in 1306 CE (Comyn had formed an alliance with Edward II, but perhaps had more of a right to be King than Bruce).
Thus the Declaration of Arbroath was prepared as a formal Declaration of Independence. It was drawn up in Arbroath Abbey on the 6th April 1320 CE, most likely by the Abbot, Bernard de Linton, who was also the Chancellor of Scotland.
The Declaration urged the Pope to see things from a Scottish perspective and not to take the English claim on Scotland seriously. It used stong words, indicating that without acceptance of the Scottish case that the wars would continue and the resultant deaths would be the responsibility of the Pope.
1320 CE – France – King Philip V of France made skin disease a capital crime, accusing lepers of conspiring against the government and put many to death.
Witchcraft was added to the list of heresies against the Roman Catholic Church. The tortures imposed to obtain confessions to witchcraft were of the most depraved ever imagined by man. They were believed by many to be demonic in nature.
1320 – 1321 CE – Turkey – Gerasimus I becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1321 CE – France – Large numbers of Jews are massacred by Frenchmen based on a rumor that Jews had poisoned the wells in Paris.
1322 CE – Italy – The Franciscan order of Spirituals at Perugia pronounced, in defiance of a decision of the Inquisition, that Christ and the Apostles owned nothing as their own. Pope John XXII considered it heresy to believe that Christ wanted the clergy to give up money and property to follow him in his declaration of 1323 CE. The entire order of Franciscan Spirituals is outraged and some members branded Pope John XXII as a heretic and a large number went into schism.
1323 – 1334 CE – Turkey – Isaias I becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1324 CE – France – The French King Charles IV seized part of Gascony south of Aquitaine in France. The Duke of Burgundy then made an alliance with England against France. Louis IV, the Bavarian and future Emperor, is excommunicated for supporting the renegade Franciscans who held the doctrine of poverty. Louis IV branded Pope John XXII as a heretic and made plans to march on Rome.
A zealous Franciscan, the bishop of Ossory, accused Lady Alice Kyteler of witchcraft and sorcery. Lady Kyteler had four husbands and the children involved claimed she bewitched the men into making unjust wills. Lady Alice escaped to England, but her maid and some others implicated are burned. The children seized their rights and the bishop likely received his share.
Marsilius of Padua completed Defensor Pacis, a work condemned by Pope John XXII as heretical because of its denial of papal primacy and the hierarchical structure of the Church, and for other reasons. It was a charter for conciliarism (an ecumenical council is superior to the pope in authority).
1324 CE – Spain – The Christian Order of Knights continued to raid Islamic communities. An Islamic army from Granada took Baza and Matos, Spain.
1325 CE – Mexico – The Mexica or Tenochas established the city of Tenochtitlán (Mexico City). [p28LR]
1327 – 1336 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Alfonso IV becomes king of Aragonia.
1327 CE – France – Meister Johannes Eckart was born around 1260 CE in Hochheim, Franconia, and died in 1327 CE in Avignon. He studied in Cologne, entered the Dominican Order, studied for a while in Paris, where he received his master’s degree. Meister Eckhart wrote four treatises in German.
He preached that life on earth was vane, nil, that the man who overcame his personality would discover his similarity with god, that there was an identity between god and the human soul and that man should give up his personality and seek the identity with god without questioning.
Given a professorship in Cologne, Eckhart was accused of being a heretic; during the process, which was drawn to the papal court at Avignon, he died.
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| Edward II |
1327 CE – England – Edward II, king of England, son of Edward I, was born at Carnarvon (Caernarfon) in 1284 CE. He succeeded his father in 1307 CE, and was governed by his favourites, Gaveston and the Despensers, which occasioned the barons to rise against him. Edward II married Isabella, daughter of Philip of France in 1308 CE; the marriage was not a success – he later referred to her as the ‘she-wolf of France.’ His deposition took place in 1327 CE, and after resigning his crown, he was confined in Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire, and was there traitorously murdered by the contrivance of his queen, Isabella, and her favourite, Roger Mortimer, the Earl of March, in 1328 CE. His eleven year old son Edward III became king.
1327 CE – England – King Edward III of England and his advisors gave up their claim of Lordship over Scotland.
1328 CE – Italy – Louis IV, the Bavarian, entered Rome and is crowned Emperor and captain of the people. He published a decree declaring Jacques of Cahors, Pope John XXII, as deposed on grounds of heresy and had a straw effigy of him in pontifical robes solemnly burned at the stake. Nicholas V, alias Pietro Rainalducci, is elected pope by thirteen chosen from the Roman clergy. Pietro had abandoned his wife of five years and joined the Franciscans in 1310 CE. He created nine cardinals and a score of bishops. Louis IV departed Rome, taking his pope with him.
1328 – 1341 CE – Turkey – Andronicus III becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1328 CE – France – Charles IV, the last Capetian king of France dies, his daughter Jeanne is disqualified from occupying the French throne, and Edward III of England claims the French throne, whereas the French nobility choose Philippe of Valois, the first Valois king.
1328 CE – Spain – Navarra declares its independence from France.
1328 CE – Scotland – In February, the treaty of Edinburgh is signed by the Scots and English Kings, enshrining Scottish sovereignty. It was later ratified by the Treaty of Northampton in October 1328 CE, by which the Scots were offered the return of the Stone of Scone, but somehow the English never got around to fulfilling their end of the bargain. The Stone of Destiny remained in London until British Prime Minister John Major, with the approval of Her Majesty the Queen, arranged to right this persistent historical oversight in 1996 CE.
The origin of this famous Stone is shrouded in myth. According to legend, it came from the Holy Land, where Jacob supposedly used it as a pillow in Biblical times. Transported through Egypt, Sicily and Spain, it was taken to Ireland, where Saint Patrick himself blessed this rock for use in crowning the kings of the emerald isle. It is certainly possible that the Stone may have been used in the coronation ceremonies of the Irish Kingdom of Dalriada from roughly 400 CE until 850 CE, when Kenneth I, the 36th King of Dalriada, moved his capital of his expanding empire from Ireland to Scone (pronounced “scoon”) in what is now Perthshire, Scotland. The Stone was moved several times after that, and used on the remote, western island of Iona, then in Dunadd, in Dunstaffnage and finally in Scone again for the installation of Dalriadic monarchs.
The Stone was last used in a coronation in Scotland in 1292 CE, when John Balliol was proclaimed King. Four years later, in 1296 CE, the English monarch, Edward I (infamous as the “hammer of the Scots,” and nemesis of Scottish national hero William Wallace) invaded Scotland. Among the booty that Edward’s army removed was the legendary Stone, which the English king apparently regarded as an important symbol of Scottish sovereignty. The present Coronation Throne was made to house the stone in 1301 CE.
According to the treaty of Northampton of 1328 CE, peace was restored between the warring neighbors, and King Edward III of England promised to return the Stone to its rightful owners forthwith. The Scots were offered the return of the Stone of Scone, which they politely declined.
On November 15, 1996 CE, the Stone of Destiny, on which Scottish kings had been crowned since time immemorial, was brought back to Scotland 700 years after the army of King Edward I of England carted it off to Westminster Abbey in London. Now safely ensconced in Edinburgh Castle, the 152 kg rock popularly known outside Scotland as the “Stone of Scone” has joined the other Scottish royal regalia – crown, scepter, sword and jewels – in a closely-guarded museum.
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| Dunfermline Abbey |
1329 CE – Scotland – King Robert the Bruce died of leprosy at Cardross Castle on the Firth of Clyde. His body was buried at Dunfermline Abbey and his heart was interred at Melrose Abbey, Roxburghshire, after being carried to the Crusades. Templar Ritual is used. He was buried with his hand on his sword and his legs crossed, wrapped in a silk Lion rampart, the flag of the people, not the Saltire which was the flag of the country. His daughter Marjorie married Walter the High Steward, their son Robert II initiating the Stewart line of royalty.
1329 CE – Germany – The Tarot makes its first appearance in Germany. [IllHis]
1329 CE – France – All orthodox Fransciscan Spirituals are excommunicated for their belief about personal poverty. Pope John XXII issued an infalliblity bull stating that the right to hold property pre-dated the Fall of Man, and that scripture depicted the Apostles as owning personal possessions. The Roman Church hung its head in shame, for the Vatican has great wealth and is unable to follow Christ.
1330 CE – Palestine – A group of Scottish Knights and Templars under the commandership of the good Sir James Douglas take the heart of Robert of Bruce to the Holy Land. On the way they make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in Spain, and take part in the first great successful battle against the Moors at Teba, Calavatra. This is where the name Braveheart comes from when Douglas throws the heart of Bruce in a silver casket forward into the Moorish lines, and calls “Go Braveheart and we, your Knights will follow.”
The Scots lead by Sir James Douglas use a Templar Turcopolier tactic, they charge in a wedge shape with such ferocity that they divide the Moorish army, which wins the battle for the Christians. Only four out of twenty-two Scottish Knights survive and return to Scotland. Young Simon of Lee becomes the Lockhart.
The Order of St. James is created. King Alphonse XI is so impressed by the bravery of the Scottish knights that he appealed to the Pope to have the excommunication of Bruce and the people of Scotland lifted.
1330 CE – England – John Wycliff is born in Yorkshire.
1330 CE – Scotland – Sir Henry de St. Clair, who fought with Robert Bruce at Bannockburn, was buried in Templar fashion close to the Rosslyn Chapel in Roslin, Scotland. [p3] [p49G]
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| Rosslyn Chapel is located in a village called Roslin, which is only six miles south of the centre of Edinburgh, on the A703 road to Penicuik (see arrow) |
1331 CE – Turkey – The Ottomans conquer Nicaea.
1331 CE – France – Pope John XXII held the doctrine that the souls of the saints are not in paradise but are held until the final judgement. The majority of theologians he consulted considered this heresy contending the saints are already in heaven. It is alleged that Pope John XXII made a partial retraction on his deathbed. He personally accumulated a considerable fortune, showering money and material gifts on his relatives and compatriots.
1331 CE – Poland – King Wladyslaw, the Dwarf of Poland, called on the Teutonic Knights to repress a rebellion at Danzig. After completing the job the Teutonic Order kept the town for themselves. The Poles routed the Knights at Plowce the following year, but are unable to defeat them decisively.
1333 CE – Scotland – During the Battle of Halidon Hill, Adam De Vipont, Knight Templar, is captured by Edward III. The King says “Vipont thy cross shield and tunic shows ill, warring against a Christian king.” Adam de Vipont responded “Sire, I was a Scotsman ere I was a Templar, sworn to my Order, yet I knew my country.” It was in this battle that the Holy Rood of St. Margaret was lost to the Scots, to be kept in Durham Cathedral. Near the battlefield, Edward III dedicates a chapel and calls it the Holy Rood, to celebrate his victory.
Sir Archibald Douglas (guardian of David II) was routed by Edward Balliol and Edward III. Scots losses were nearly 600, English losses amounted to only 14.
1333 CE – Spain – The Christian Order of Knights continued to raid Islamic communities. An Islam army from Granada recaptured Gibraltar.
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| Benedict XII |
1334 – 1342 CE – France – Benedict XII , alias Jasques Fournier, a loud-voiced, indefatigable Inquisitor, skillful at extracting confessions from suspected heretics and with blood on his hands, is elected pope. Others were passed over because they refused to promise to restore the Holy See to Rome. He finished the work on the papal palace. With his policy of rigor and economy he managed to accumulate a veritable treasure.
Pope Benedict XII was such a hardened drinker that the expression “drunk as a pope” became popular in his lifetime. Pope Benedict XII started building the papal palace in Avignon. Though basically austere, he was smitten by the sister of Francesco Petrarch, 1304 – 1374 CE, the great poet and scholar of the time and offered to make him cardinal if he could have her. When Francesco refused, the pope turned to his brother, Gerardo, and won her.
1334 CE – Scotland – David II, King of Scots, in exile in the French court, creates The Guarde De Ecosse. Sons from all the best, most loyal, families in Scotland become the personal bodyguard to the French (Valios) Kings, in perpetuity, instead of David giving Fealty of Scotland to the French king. In many ways this bodyguard/Order became the vessel which contains all the best Templar traditions.
The Templar Ideals and philosophies are kept within the best of the Scottish Noble families. The Scottish nobles from the Bruce Line become the heritors of the Templar Order, and its knowledge; the head of the Jacobite line becomes the Unknown Superior and secret protectors of the Templar Order. The St. Clairs being the cupbearer, feature prominently.
1334 – 1347 CE – Turkey – John XIV Kalekas becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1336 CE – India – The sultans’ failure to hold securely the Deccan and South India resulted in the rise of competing southern dynasties: the Muslim Bahmani Sultanate (1347 – 1527 CE) and the Hindu Vijayanagar Empire (1336 – 1565 CE). Zafar Khan, a former provincial governor under the Tughluqs, revolted against his Turkic overlord and proclaimed himself sultan, taking the title Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah in 1347 CE. The Bahmani Sultanate, located in the northern Deccan, lasted for almost two centuries, until it fragmented into five smaller states in 1527 CE. The Bahmani Sultanate adopted the patterns established by the Delhi overlords in tax collection and administration, but its downfall was caused in large measure by the competition and hatred between deccani (domiciled Muslim immigrants and local converts) and paradesi (foreigners or officials in temporary service). The Bahmani Sultanate initiated a process of cultural synthesis visible in Hyderabad, where cultural flowering is still expressed in vigorous schools of deccani architecture and painting.
Southern Dynasties in India
Founded in 1336 CE, the empire of Vijayanagar (named for its capital Vijayanagar, “City of Victory,” in present-day Karnataka) expanded rapidly toward Madurai in the south and Goa in the west and exerted intermittent control over the east coast and the extreme southwest. Vijayanagar rulers closely followed Chola precedents, especially in collecting agricultural and trade revenues, in giving encouragement to commercial guilds, and in honoring temples with lavish endowments. Added revenue needed for waging war against the Bahmani sultans was raised by introducing a set of taxes on commercial enterprises, professions, and industries. Political rivalry between the Bahmani and the Vijayanagar rulers involved control over the Krishna-Tunghabadhra river basin, which shifted hands depending on whose military was superior at any given time. The Vijayanagar rulers’ capacity for gaining victory over their enemies was contingent on ensuring a constant supply of horses – initially through Arab traders but later through the Portuguese – and maintaining internal roads and communication networks. Merchant guilds enjoyed a wide sphere of operation and were able to offset the power of landlords and Brahmans in court politics. Commerce and shipping eventually passed largely into the hands of foreigners, and special facilities and tax concessions were provided for them by the ruler. Arabs and Portuguese competed for influence and control of west coast ports, and, in 1510 CE, Goa passed into Portuguese possession.
The city of Vijayanagar itself contained numerous temples with rich ornamentation, especially the gateways, and a cluster of shrines for the deities. Most prominent among the temples was the one dedicated to Virupaksha, a manifestation of Shiva, the patron-deity of the Vijayanagar rulers. Temples continued to be the nuclei of diverse cultural and intellectual activities, but these activities were based more on tradition than on contemporary political realities. (However, the first Vijayanagar ruler – Harihara I – was a Hindu who converted to Islam and then reconverted to Hinduism for political expediency.) The temples sponsored no intellectual exchange with Islamic theologians because Muslims were generally assigned to an “impure” status and were thus excluded from entering temples. When the five rulers of what was once the Bahmani Sultanate combined their forces and attacked Vijayanagar in 1565 CE, the empire crumbled at the Battle of Talikot.
1336 CE – Aragon (Spain) – Pedro IV becomes king of Aragonia from 1136 until 1387 CE.
1336 CE – Lithuania – Prussia – There is an unending war between the Teutonic Order and the subjects of Lithuanian Grand Dukes. As an example, between 1345 – 1377 CE, seventy Teutonic expeditions are launched from Prussia and thirty from Livland. The Lithuanians dreaded the Teutonic Order. This year the Knights besieged and stormed a fort at Pilenai on the Niemen, and, rather than be captured, the Lithuanians burnt all their goods, killed their women and children and then beheaded each other. An old priestess decapitated more than 100 warriors with an axe before splitting her own head as the Knights broke into the fort. Pope Benedict XII promised full spiritual privileges to crusaders who assisted the Teutonic Order. The princes and noblemen of Europe flocked to fight the Lithuanians. Henry of Derby, later King Henry IV of England joined in the hunt.
1337 CE – England – France – King Edward III declared war on King Philip VI of France claiming the right to the French Crown, in what has historically become known as “The Hundred Years’ War.” He forbids the speaking of French in his army to make them more aware of their Englishness. This would begin the one hundred-year war that would not end until 1453 CE, with England losing all its possessions in France except for the port of Calais in northern France. An English edict is passed stating only nobles and clerks earning more than 100 pounds annually could wear furs. The complaint is that it is becoming impossible to distinguish an innkeeper’s wife from a gentlewoman.
1338 CE – Germany – Four years after the death of Pope John XXII, who had opposed Louis IV of Bavaria in a years-long controversy, electoral princes declared at the Diet of Rhense that the emperor did not need papal confirmation of his title and right to rule. The Frankfurt manifesto, Fidem Catholicam, proclaimed the doctrine that Imperial authority derives from God, not from the Pope. Licet Iuris declared that the Imperial rank and power that depend on God alone, lawfully belong to him who had been duly chosen by the electors; confirmation or consent of the Holy See is not required. Charles IV later (1356 CE) said the same thing in a Golden Bull, eliminating papal rights in the election of emperors.
1338 CE – England – Edward III grants extensive privileges to the Hansa (Hanseatic League) in return for funds to redeem his Queen’s jewels pawned to money merchants in Cologne.
1340 CE – Spain – King Alfonso XI, the avenger of Spain, decisively defeated the Spanish and Moroccan Moslems, ending the African threat to Spain forever. He attempted to merge the brotherhood of the knights into a single Royal Military Order, but their resistance forced him to place them under firm control. His subjects feared him even more than the Moors, as he used treachery and murder to intimidate the nobles, killing rebels without trial.
1340 CE – England – Edward III first invaded France from the Low Countries between 1339 and 1340 CE, winning small success on land. In June of 1340, the English under Edward III decided to attack the French fleet at Sluys in order to pre-empt a French invasion. Guns are fired from ships for the first time at the battle of Sluys. After a nine hour battle, that featured both archer attacks and hand-to-hand combat, the English fleet of 200 ships destroyed the French forces; close to 16,000 men died, mostly French. The major outcome of the battle was that it permanently stopped all ideas of a French invasion of England and determined that the majority of the warfare would be conducted in France. The victory occurred after Philip VI of France had dismissed two squadrons of Levantine mercenary ships.
In 1346 CE, Edward III won the battle of Crécy and besieged Calais, which surrendered in 1347 CE. In 1356 CE, the English won the battle of Poitiers, capturing King John II of France. After prolonged negotiations, the Treaty of Brétigny was signed in 1360 CE; England received Calais and practically all of Aquitaine, as well as a large ransom for the captive king.
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Coat of Arms
Edward III |
Edward III claimed the French throne and the Royal Arms have reflected this claim by being quartered Arms of France, “Azure semy of fleurs-de-lis,” until 1801 CE when when the anachronistic title “King of France” was abandoned by English monarchs at the Peace of Amiens.
The statement that the King of England is also the the King of France is referred to in the 1620 CE Mayflower Compact, and also occurs in the North American charters granted by the British kings –
1341 CE – Turkey – John V becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, ruling until 1391 CE. He was deposed in 1376 CE by his son Andronicus IV, but was restored in 1379 CE.
1341 CE – France – France imposes the first Gabelle (salt tax) to help defray the cost of war against England’s Edward III.
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| Clement VI |
1342 – 1352 CE – France – Clement VI, alias Pierre Roger, is elected pope. A Roman delegation begged the new pope to return the papacy to Rome. The pope however took steps to entrench the church at Avignon. The pope built a luxurious court and gorgeous retinue equal to a secular prince, not a prince of the church. He delighted in banquets and colorful festivities declaring that his predecessors did not know how to live as a pope. He lavished gifts and offices on relatives. His sexual abuses cannot be explained away.
Within a short time he squandered the huge treasure accumulated by his predecessor. He bought the city of Avignon from Queen Joanna I of Naples. At the beginning of his papacy, he supported Cola di Rienzo in Rome, but when the latter converted to a regime of excesses, the people and patricians organized a rebellion. Cola do Rienzo was caught and sent to the pope in Avignon, who excommunicated him and kept him as a prisoner.
1343 CE – Germany – The Hanseatic League is formalized in Cologne, and is used for the first time to denote the confederation of Baltic traders now so prominent in fish export.
1343 CE – England – Dialogues by the English scholastic philosopher William of Ockham (or Occam) lays the foundation of modern theory of independence of church and state. Ockam, 43, had been imprisoned after defending evangelical poverty against Pope John XXII in his Opus Nonaginta Dierum of 1330 CE, but had escaped and was living in Munich, where he sided with the Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV in contesting the temporal power of the pope.
1343 CE – Italy – Florence’s Peruzzi banking house fails as England’s Edward III repudiates his debts and the bankers are unable to collect despite measures they have taken to protect themselves from default.
1344 CE – England – Edward III vowed to establish an order like Arthur’s at Windsor. The round table still exists and was decorated in 1486 CE with the figure of Arthur and the names of twenty-four knights. [p959FW]
1344 CE – Italy – Florentine banking prestige plummets with the failure of the Bardi banking house that comes on the heels of last year’s Peruzzi collapse as England’s Edward III repudiates his debts. Florence’s Bardi banking house fails in January, going the way of the Scali, Peruzzi, Acciauoli, and Frescobaldi houses. The Bardis have had to keep loaning funds to England in order to assure continued supplies of raw wool for their textile industry.
Civil war begins in Florence, the commune is restored under the sway of a businessmen’s oligarchy, the smaller guilds lose power, and workers who belong to no guild are further exploited as the Florentine oligarchy seeks access to the sea, expansion in Tuscany to dominate trade routes, and support of the popes in order to retain papal banking business.
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| Notre Dame |
1345 CE – France – The Cathedral of Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cité in the Seine at Paris is completed in Gothic style after 182 years of construction.
1346 CE – Bohemia (Czechoslovakia) – Charles IV (14 May 1316 – 29 November 1378), born Wenceslaus (Václav), was the second king of Bohemia from the House of Luxembourg, and Holy Roman Emperor.
1346 CE – Scotland – England – In compliance with their alliance with France, the King of Scotland attacked England and lost the battle. The English raided as far north as Edinburgh, destroying and looting. King Edward III and his eldest son, the Black Prince, created a code of chivalry to convince the Knights and people that war is a noble and glorious thing. War is also very profitable to some Nobles, Lords and Knights. Cruelty, death, destruction and theft are the reality of war.
1346 CE – Europe – Mariners returning to Europe from China and India reported a deadly plague is killing thousands. An Italian-Christian trading post called Caffa, on the northern shores of the Dead Sea, are the first to experience the Black Death in Europe. Their post is under siege when the attacking army contracted the Black Death. This army catapulted their dead into Caffa, so they also would suffer the Death. The survivors of Caffa fled in ships back to Italy, carrying the Black Death with them. Italian ships, swarming with infested rats, imported the Black Plague into Sicily. The “Black Death” spread throughout Europe and killed 25 million people, roughly one third of the European population. It killed 1.5 million people in Britain.
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| John VI Cantancuzenus |
1347 – 1354 CE – Turkey – John VI Cantancuzenus becomes emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1347 – 1350 CE – Turkey – Isidore I becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1348 CE – Europe – Christians blamed the Jews for causing the plague. In Basel, Switzerland, on the Rhine River, Jews are burned alive in wooden buildings. In Speyer, Germany, they are put into wine casks and rolled into the river. Thousands of Jews are sacrificed to rid the country of the plague. Other suggested that the Pope Clement VI and the whores of his New Babylon Church have caused the plague. By 1351 CE, an estimated twenty five million people had died in Europe, about one third of the world’s population. The people of Europe were terrified because if one died without the last rights of the Roman Church their soul is lost to hell or purgatory. The number of deaths precluded the possibility of last rights. To avoid a complete breakdown of religious authority, Pope Clement VI proclaimed that all those who died of the Black Death are forgiven of their sins. Despite this precaution, there is a rapid rise of a religious order called the Flagellants. The Flagellants attempted to avoid the Black Plague by harshly scourging themselves so that God would forgive their sins. The Flagellants blamed the Jews for the Black Death and burned down the Jewish communities, killing the people.
1348 CE – England – On April 23, the Order of the Garter is formally founded on St. George Day, by Edward III of England. “Honi soit qui mal y pense” – “Let him who thinks ill there be shamed,” became its motto. [EW]
1349 CE – Germany – Günther von Schwarzburg (1304 – 1349), German king, was a descendant of the counts of Schwarzburg and the younger son of Henry VII, count of Blankenburg, becoming a rival to Charles IV.
1350 CE – France – Pope Innocent VI ordered a grimoire called The Book of Solomon, probably The Key of Solomon, to be burned. [p158H] [EW] A grimoire is a magical workbook with information on rituals, magickal properties of natural objects, preparation of ritual equipment. Many include a ‘catalog of spirits’.
1350 – 1354 CE – Turkey – Callistus I becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1352 CE – Italy – On December 3, a thunderstorm hit Rome, with St. Peter’s basilica suffering a direct hit, melting the church bells. In the market, everyone started celebrating the death of Pope Clement VI. The people said he is dead and buried deep in hell.
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| Pope Innocent VI |
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| Innocent VI |
1352 – 1362 CE – France – Innocent VI, alias Etienne Aubert, is elected pope by twenty-five cardinals at Avignon. Pope Innocent VI personally ordered some of the Spiritual Franciscans to prison and the stake under the Inquisition law. The Saintly Bridget of Sweden publicly denounced the pope as a persecutor of Christ’s sheep.
Innocent VI was determined to reorganize the Papal State and assigned this task to Cardinal Albornoz. Cola di Rienzo was named governor, but he became more tyrannical than ever. The outraged populace killed di Rienzo at the foot of the Campidoglio and tore his body into pieces.
1352 CE – France – The Order of the Star, or The Order of Our Lady of the Noble Lineage, is founded by Geoffroy de Charny. [p217&]
1353 CE – Switzerland – The league of Switzerland is formed.
1353 CE – Germany – The German monk Berthold Schwarz (possibly a fictitious person) invents the cannon, and the catapult becomes rapidly obsolete.
1354 CE – Turkey – The Ottoman Turks acquired Gallipoli (Gelibolue, Turkey) from the Byzantines.
1354 – 1355 CE – Turkey – Philotheus Kokkinos becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1355 – 1363 CE – Turkey – Callistus I, restored, once again becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
1356 CE – France – England captures the French king and one third of France at the battle of Poitiers.
On September 19, Geoffroy de Charny, the first documented owner of the Shroud of Jesus, died at Poitiers. [p213&]
1356 CE – Germany – German emperor Karl IV (Charles IV) issues the “Golden Bull” to codify the election of German emperors by seven electors – the archbishops of Trier, Mainz and Cologne, the king of Bohemia, the count Palatine of the Rhine, the duke of Saxony and the margrave of Brandenburg. In 1648 CE, the Duke of Bavaria and in 1692 CE, the Elector of Hanover – Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg were added. The Emperor, however, has now become a figurehead, having no power or authority other than over his own hereditary lands. Charles IV, 1347 – 1378 CE, is the present Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
1357 CE – France – Janibeg, 1342 – 1357 CE, son of Uzbeg the Mongol, died, resulting in a protracted political crisis among the Golden Horde, especially his sons. Some mark this time as the beginning of the decline and fall of the European Mongol Empire and the true emergence of Russia. The southern Mongolian Russia Empire however continued until 1480 CE.
1358 CE – France – King John, 1350 – 1364 CE, is King of France. The peasants, as Jacques Bonhomme and the nobility of Northern France called them, revolted against the entire aristocracy, vowing to exterminate them. They committed horrible atrocities and the nobility responded with equally brutal atrocities. In the town of Meaux, France, near Paris, it is said that seven thousand peasants died in one clash alone. The revolt ended in June.
1360 CE – France – English King Edward III re-established control over all Aquitaine, Gascony, parts of Normandy, Brittany, and the port of Calais. This year marks the approximate date of the earliest known Satanic cults. Black masses were celebrated in France. [IllHis]
1361 CE – Spain – Pedro I rules Portugal from 1357 – 1367 CE. Peter the Cruel was king of Castille from 1350 – 1366 CE and 1367 – 1369 CE. Peter IV ruled Aragon from 1336 – 1387 CE. Charles II (The Bald) ruled Navarre from 1349 – 1387 CE.
1362 – 1460 CE – Germany – Abraham the Mage (Jew) is born. [EW]
1362 CE – Lithuania – The Grand Duke, Olgerd of Lithuania, son of Gedymin, occupied Kiev.
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| Blessed Urban V |
1362 – 1370 CE – France – Urban V, alias Guillaume de Grimoard, is elected pope. The popes’ desire to unite the east and west churches and to conduct a crusade influenced his moving the papacy to Rome. He later changed his mind, deserting the Imperial city.
Urban had a third crown added to the papal tiara symbolizing the temporal power.
1363 CE – Russia – Grand Duke Olgerd of Lithuania combined with the Russian army and marched south to the Black Sea. The Russian-Lithuania army defeated the Mongols at the mouth of the Bug River, giving them control of a large part of Ukraine. Olgerd the Mongol, in alliance with Tver, marched on Moscow against Grand Duke Dmitri, but failed on two attempts to storm the Kremlin.
1364 CE – France – King Charles V prepared for war with the English, driving them from France into their coastal enclave in Aquitaine.
1364 – 1376 CE – Turkey – Philotheus Kokkinos, restored, again becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
‘Google will know more about you than your partner’: Uproar as search giant reveals privacy policy that will allow them to track you on all their products
- Now users will be bombarded with ads related to their online searches
- Critics say company will amass ‘cauldron of data’ on users
- Company says products will be ‘beautifully simple and intuitive’
By Ted Thornhill
Last updated at 1:38 PM on 26th January 2012
Google has been savaged by critics after revealing plans to link user data across its email, video, social-networking and other services.
In a move denounced by some as a massive invasion of privacy, the changes will piece together information from Gmail to YouTube to the Google Plus social network.
For example, if you spend an hour signed in to a Google account searching the Web for skateboards, the next time you log into YouTube, you might get recommendations for videos featuring Tony Hawk, along with ads for his merchandise and the nearest place to buy them.
However, this could also apply to searches relating to sensitive topics such as meetings in your calendar.
Privacy problems are particularly pertinent to those who share a Google account with other members of their family.
Under fire: Google’s new privacy policy comes into effect on March 1
Google sees the changes as making its products easier to use by sharing a privacy policy – and information – across everything from Gmail accounts to YouTube while users are signed in
Cecilia Kang, of the Washington Post, described collation of vast tracts of information as a ‘massive cauldron of data.’
‘Privacy advocates say Google’s changes betray users who are not accustomed to having their information shared across different Web sites.’ she said.
‘A user of Gmail, for instance, may send messages about a private meeting with a colleague and may not want the location of that meeting to be thrown into Google’s massive cauldron of data or used for Google’s maps application.’
Technology site Gizmodo said that the change was the end of Google’s ‘don’t be evil motto.
The site’s Mat Honan wrote: ‘It means that things you could do in relative anonymity today, will be explicitly associated with your name, your face, your phone number.
‘If you use Google’s services, you have to agree to this new privacy policy. It is an explicit reversal of its previous policies.’
Larry Dignan, meanwhile, writing on ZDnet.com, described the new policy as ‘Big Brother-ish’.
He wrote: ‘Google will know more about you than your wife does. Everything across your screens will be integrated and tracked.
‘Google noted that it collects information you provide, data from your usage, device information and location. Unique applications are also noted.
Sites such as Gizmodo were quick to lampoon Google’s founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page and the site’s former slogan, ‘Don’t be evil’
Even Google’s own Plus network was filled with complaints about the new changes
‘Sure you can use Google’s dashboard and ad manager to cut things out, but this policy feels Big Brother-ish.’
The changes, due on March 1, are a massive overhaul of Google’s privacy policy which the company claims will create a ‘beautifully simple and intuitive’ user experience.
More than 70 different company policies are being streamlined into one main privacy policy and about a dozen others.
Commenters on Twitter were concerned by the changes – with some saying that the policies were similar to Facebook’s
Separate policies will continue to govern products including Google’s Chrome Web browser and its Wallet service for electronic payments.
Google’s last attempt to link information across its services triggered a wave of privacy complaint which helped kill the its Buzz social networking service.
The company hopes to avoid similar legal hurdles with its new policy.
“If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google (Plus), Gmail and YouTube,’ the company says on a new overview page for its privacy policies.
‘We’ll better understand (what) you’re searching for and get you those results faster.’
Currently, users of Google products have to agree to a new set of privacy policy and terms of services almost every time they sign up for a new service.
THE GOOGLE BACKLASH
‘It means that things you could do in relative anonymity today, will be explicitly associated with your name, your face, your phone number.
‘If you use Google’s services, you have to agree to this new privacy policy. It is an explicit reversal of its previous policies.’
‘Google will know more about you than your wife does. Everything across your screens will be integrated and tracked.
‘Google noted that it collects information you provide, data from your usage, device information and location. Unique applications are also noted.
‘Sure you can use Google’s dashboard and ad manager to cut things out, but this policy feels Big Brother-ish.’
Larry Dignan, ZDnet.com
‘A user of Gmail, for instance, may send messages about a private meeting with a colleague and may not want the location of that meeting to be thrown into Google’s massive cauldron of data or used for Google’s maps application.’
Cecilia Kang, of The Washington Post
After the new policy comes into effect, if you’re signed in, you’ll be treated as a single user across all of Google’s products.
‘If you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,’ Google’s director of privacy, product and engineering, Alma Whitten wrote in blog post.
‘In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.’
Google pointed out that cookies and ‘identifiers’ will not be tagged to sensitive categories, such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation or health.
It also emphasised that the new privacy policy will not force users to become Google Plus account holders and that it will still be possible to search Google without signing in, or to sign in and then elect to search anonymously.
The changes follow the shutdown of Buzz last month. After its introduction less than two years ago, the social networking tool was ridiculed for exposing users’ most-emailed contacts to other participants by default, inadvertently revealing some users’ ongoing contact with ex-spouses and competitors.
Google has since made Plus the focal point of its challenge to Facebook’s social network.
In the first seven months since its debut, Plus has attracted more than 90 million users, according to Google.
To promote Plus, Google recently began including recommendations about people and companies with Plus accounts in its search results.
That change has provoked an outcry from critics who say Google is abusing its dominance in Internet search to drive more traffic to its own services.
Google and the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement last year that forbids Google from misrepresenting how it uses personal information and from sharing an individual’s data without prior approval.
Google also agreed to biennial privacy audits for the next two decades.
Google said it talked to regulators about the upcoming privacy changes, which it will apply worldwide. An FTC spokeswoman declined to comment on the changes or say whether the agency was consulted.
Some critics saw Google as trying to beat regulators to the punch by setting a precedent before the FTC unveils its own framework for protecting online privacy.
Defence: Google argues that its new policy will give users ‘a more intuitive experience’
Jeff Chester, executive director of the privacy group Center for Digital Democracy, said Google hopes ‘that by creating a one-stop shop for privacy policy it will deflect regulatory action.’
Vivian Reding, the European Commissioner for Justice, welcomed Google’s announcement: ‘Google was quick. Google made the first in the step of more privacy rules. I can only applaud more companies to try to move in the right direction.’
Google, Facebook and other popular Internet services all want to learn as much as possible about their users so they can sell more advertising at higher rates to marketers looking to target people interested in specific products, such as golf clubs or skinny jeans.
Google says users who opt to see personalised ads are 37 percent more likely to respond to an ad than people who opt out of targeting.
The changes follow a rare letdown in revenue growth at Google’s lucrative advertising network.
Google’s fourth-quarter earnings report last week showed the company’s average revenue per click fell 8 percent from the previous year, despite robust growth in online shopping at the holidays.
Google shares, which have fallen 9 percent since the report, closed Tuesday at $580.93, down $4.59 for the day.
Ryan Calo, director for privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, said Google is trying to make its policy privacy transparent instead of bogging users down with pages of legalese; the new privacy policies run about 10,000 words, down from 68,000.
But he said the company must ensure that the ways it uses data help users without revealing sensitive information.
‘If it creeps people out, then they need to be aware of that,’ he said.
Paulette Goddard, getting into her husband’s (Charlie Chaplin) Rolls-Royce Phantom II Some 20s glamour:
Fatty Arbuckle and his 1919 Pierce Arrow
Erich Von Stroheim and his Cadillac
Harold Lloyd and wife Mildred Davis with their Buick
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry aka Stepin Fetchit with his Cadillac Phaeton
Joan Crawford with her 1929 Ford Town Car
Babe Ruth receiving a 1926 Auburn Roadster as a gift
And now – to 30s and 40s!
Lilian Harvey and her Mercedes
Johnny Weissmuller with his 1932 Chevrolet
Clark Gable with his 1932 Packard
Laurel and Hardy in their Buick 1930 Series 30 Model 30-45 phaeton
Joan Crawford (again) and her 1930 (or 1931) Cadillac Fleetwood
Carl Brisson behind the wheel of his 1934 Isotta Fraschini
Al Jolson with his Mercedes
Jean Harlow with her Cadillac
William Powell admires Gary Cooper’s Duesy
Buck Jones with his 1933 Packard Special
Errol Flynn driving his Packard…
… and Auburn Roadster
Tyrone Power with his Duesenberg…
… and post-war Jaguar
Robert Montgomery with his Cadillac Sport Phaeton
Joan Crawford (yes, again!) driving her 1933 Ford roadster
James Stewart with his Plymouth
Ginger Rogers and her 1937 Dodge
Norwegian Olympic figure-skating champion, and Hollywood star Sonja Henie, posing with her Cord 810
Cecil B deMille with his 1937 Cord
Rita Hayworth with her 1941 Lincoln Continental
Bing Crosby giving rides around the studio lot in his 1939 Olds coupe convertible
Cary Grant parked on the fender of his 1941 Buick Century
And finally, some double-retro:
John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in a 1914 Stutz Bear Cat. 
sympathetic
Hide all
It’s Obvious 
David icke 
changling 
comments
, that “propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.” This can be seen most clearly in the modern police state and the growing citizen 
, wrapped up in the pseudo-patriotic War on Terror. The increasing consolidation of media has enabled the entire corporate structure to merge with government, which now utilizes the concept of 
the population from the above.
. Today, it has been taken to even further extremes as a 
as the testing ground for mind control. The military mind is perhaps the most malleable, as those who pursue life in the military generally resonate to the structures of hierarchy, control, and the need for unchallenged obedience to a mission. For the increasing number of military personal questioning their indoctrination, a recent story highlighted DARPA’s plans for 
73 (January 2012)
TheRR9
Hello Sour Grapes Moderator (LOL);
Since people are sharing photos, here’s link to hundreds of old Bohemian Grove photos from the late 1800′s on… feel free to look at them and in light of those and the thick huge redwood forest woodlands there and huge acres in those mountain areas researchers will see, I invite anyone too look those photos over and YOU tell me how a fat, spoiled bitch like Alex Jones who is clearly NOT an outdoorsman got inside there and waded through that forest unseen with highest level Security and Bodyguards like US Secret Service on there and how he got through that thick mountain redwood zone to find the “Elites” doing their thing to film it besides the Security to do that.