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| - Northern Europe: Eric IX the Lawgiver, king of Sweden, is killed by assassins on the payroll of the rival Sverker house. After the brief rule of Magnus Henriksson, Charles VII, son of the murdered Sverker I, is enthroned. Western Europe: Duke Conan I of Anjou revolts against the usurper Pepin the Handsome. As Pepin besieges Conan at Cholet, he is caught by surprise, defeated and captured by the Breton army of king Eudes I, ally of the legitimate emperor Henry II, who can thus reenter France. The captive usurper is pardoned at the insistence of the French Church, but at the price of exile and taking vows as a Templar to live and fight in the Levant for the rest of his life:cool: . 1161 Northern Europe: King Inge I of Norway dies, succeeded by his rival nephew Haakon II Herdebrei, first son of Sigurd II, who manages to bring a relative peace in the country. British Isles: The Northumbrians defeat the deposed Godred I of Alba and Scotland at Penrith and conquer Cumbria/Cumberland, forcing Godred to flee to the Isle of Man. Southern Europe: A Norman-Anconitan fleet first defeats the Venetians off the Conero promontory, then is crushed by them off Cherso/Krk island. The Venetian fortresses in Otranto and Leuca are taken back by the Italo-Normans. William I of Lesser Normandy (southern Italy) plunders Romagna, torches Rimini, but fails in the siege of San Leo, and when he tries to attack Ravenna his army is decimated by malaria. Caucasus: The Danishmendids take back Ani from the Iberians/Georgians. India: The Pala dynasty of Bengal and Bihar comes to an end with the death of Madanpala, not before having firmly re-established Buddhism as a major religion in NE India with the help of Tibetan preachers. The vast Pala domains are carved between the Chandra and Sena sub-kingdoms. Far East: The Tatar tribe shatters the first Mongol confederacy into a collection of warring clans. Northern Hesperia (*OTL America): The Norseman Olaf Eiriksson explores the southern fringes of Skraelingarland (*OTL Acadia), that is the lands later to be known as New Palestine (*OTL Massachussets, New Hampshire and Maine). 1162 Western Europe, Middle East: Count Donat II of Barcelona self-raises his state to Duchy; his younger brother, Bernat of Tortosa, inherits the powerful crusader county of Tripoli (Lebanon) by marrying her distant cousin, countess Myriam. Southern Europe: King Arrigo I the City-Razer decides to support Genoa in the incessant struggle for supremacy in Sardinia; a Lombard army lands in the norther part of the island and decisively crushes the Norman forces of Torres in the battle of Tilickennor (*a hamlet near OTL Sassari) with help from the other Sardinian judges-kings. Arrigo I has himself crowned High King of Sardinia in Genoa, though recognizing a theoretical Papal suzerainty over the island, and any commercial privilege to the Genoese. Robert III of Torres, the defeated Norman ruler, takes refuge in Naples. Byzantine Empire: Basileus Andronicus I Comnenus, more and more supporting the anti-Latin faction, suddenly has all Venetians throughout the empire arrested:mad: , revoking Venetian trade privileges and tax exemptions. Extinction of the Sigurdopoulos house of Pamphilia; the duchy reverts to the imperial crown of Byzantium as a catepanate, despite the claim from princess-regent Theodora of Antioch, sister of the deceased duke Magnus Sigurdsson. India: Bijjala, a powerful local governor of Karnataka from the Kalachuri clan, overthrows and kills his overlord Taila III of the Kalyani Chalukyas, usurping the Chalukya throne. Far East: Emperor Gaozong of southern Song China, having no more heirs, is succeeded by a sixth-degree :eek: cousin, Xiaozong (Zhao Shen), being most of the imperial family either dead or in Jurchen captivity in Manchuria. Southern Europe: The Patriarch of Aquileia, Ulrich II von Treffen, conquers Grado but is later captured by the Venetians, publicly humiliated and forced to give back the town. Central-Eastern Europe: Stephen III, the legitimate heir of king Géza II, wins a civil war against his rebel uncles Ladislas/Làszlò II and Stephen IV, who had briefly dethroned him 1162-1166 Southern Europe: Raška/Kosovo shakes off Hungarian yoke. Soon afterwards Desa Vukanovic, the last scion of the Vojislavljevic clan, is overthrown by the four brothers Tihomir, Stracimir, Stefan Nemanja and Miroslav, who carve between themselves most Serbian lands up to Adriatic. In the end Stefan Nemanja, with Byzantine support, liquidates Tihomir, founding the Nemanji? dynasty of Raška/Kosovo, while Miroslav holds sway over Zahumlje (*later Dukovina, *OTL Hercegovina) and Travunja/Trivalja (a sub-kingdom due north of OTL Montenegro) and Stracimir becomes lord of parts of northern Serbia. North Africa: Failed attempt to subdue the Guanches of Gran Canaria by Joan Mikel el Serrano, nephew of king Augustine II of Sevilla; the Guanches resist successfully, but accept Christianity as Mencey (king) Maxirca is baptized as Paul. Other islands have marginal contact with Pisan tradesmen, the only known outcome being fierce epidemics of hitherto unknown diseases among the natives. 1163 Western Europe: A council of bishops held in Tours condemns Cathars, wherever they are found, to be deprived of any possessions:rolleyes: , sparking a major hunt for wealthy heretics in Aquitania/Occitania and Septimania, and intensifies plunder in the areas of Mauretania (*OTL Morocco) already held by Crusaders. Byzantine Empire: The Vardariotes invade and conquer Morea/Peloponnesus on orders of basileus Andronicus I; duke Leo Diogenes flees to Heraklion, the Cretan port just taken by the Venetian fleet. The Venetians conquer Crete, Rhodes and the Ionian islands from the Byzantines. Middle East: Emir Nur ad-Din of Syria vainly besieges the Hospitalier stronghold of Krak des Chevaliers Southern Europe: Ban (duke) Bori? leads Bosnia to revolt against Hungary, occupying central Dalmatia with Split/Spalato and parts of Croatia. He eventually renews allegiance to the Hungarian crown, but retains substantial freedom for his land. 1164 Northern Europe: Western Pomerania is finally made a vassal of Germany, renewing tensions with Albert the Bear's Brandenburg and its overlord-ally, Bohemia. Southern Europe: Honorius III (*OTL Victor IV), the Norman-backed rival Pope installed in Rome, dies. King William I of Lesser Normandy (southern Italy) has the Primate of Africa Peter V enthroned in Rome as Pope and king of Italy/Spoleto with the name of Augustine III; the exiled Alexander II (*OTL Alexander III), by now widley recognized in most of the Christian countries as the only the legitimate Pope-king, remains defiant in Ravenna and renews his interdict of the Italo-Norman kingdom. A matrimonial alliance is celebrated between the Castiglioni counts of Seprio and the royal Amedei family, as Gualberto, heir to count John, is officially engaged to Lucia, daughter of Arrigo I the City-Razer, king of Lombardy and Sardinia. Arrigo founds the city-fortress of Cuneo in southern Piedmont to control the Maritime Alps passes, then invades the Burgundian lands in alliance with the rebellious Communal city of Marseille, rising in revolt against king Adalbert III. Provence is ravaged and Arles briefly besieged before Arrigo withdraws beyond the Alps. Judge (king) Barisone II of Arborea, the most powerful local ruler, is made viceroy (Bisdonno) of Sardinia by High King Arrigo I, and repels Pisan and Lesser Norman attacks, though the Pisan-Norman alliance manages to gobble up Cagliari/Santa Igia, the southern Sardinian judicate. North Africa: Masfalku II, co-ruler of Lesvallia (*OTL Kabylia) and a distant descendant of Yoshua I Lamzag, crushes an invading Ifrigian force and its Numidian vassals at the battle of Nat'Rathen (*OTL Larba). Byzantine Empire: The invading Ortoqid army conquers Caesarea/Mazhak and Iconium as Turkmen tribes go rampant in central Anatolia; the Batiturks rise again. The Venetians sack Athens and conquer Corinth, soon to be ousted by the Vardariotes; the Byzantine army takes Dyrrachion (*OTL Durres) from Venice. Middle East: Nur ad-Din of Syria, by now a hero in the Muslim world for his uncompromising stance against the Crusaders, defeats the Templars at Baniyas. 1164-1166 Southern Europe: Ancona rebels against her Norman allies-overlords and is twice vainly besieged. 1164-1167 Southern Europe: Genoa, angered at Arrigo's support of rival Marseille, turns against the king and suffers a long siege, escaping destruction only through its domination of the sea routes. When the Pisans try to blockade the town by sea, a dreadful storm, known as the Baptist's Breath (from the city's saint patron John the Baptist), wipes away the enemy. Then the Comune of Genoa negotiates favourable terms of surrender with king Arrigo, solemnly receiving him. North Africa: A struggle for Egypt begins as the Kurd Shirkuh, one of Nur ad-din's ablest generals, manages to get a hold over the Vizierate of Fatimid Egypt, by now firmly held by Waliist :eek: (*followers of the Walis, the Sunni “Popes”) Mamluk soldier-slaves, despite the Fatimid “Caliphs”, now reduced to puppets, being Shi'a Ismailis, in a most unholy cohabitation. With the avowed intent of “freeing” :rolleyes: Egypt and “restoring” :rolleyes: the Fatimids, viceroy Guido of Biandrate-Levant-Jerusalem repeatedly invades the country, finally conquering all of the Nile Delta as the Genoese and Western Imperial navies take the fortress of Damietta and the city of Alexandria, where a Catholic Patriarchate is installed. Arabia: Abdullah bin Yusuf an-Nafudi, a young Waliist Bedouin chieftain from a minor branch of the Banu Murra tribe endowed with both charisma and military genius, unifies the nomads of the wide deserts between Mesopotamia and Hijaz under his banner. Northern Europe: A German-led “Crusade” for the Christianization of the western Slavic lands along the Baltic is waged by Frederick II of Germany (*OTL Barbarossa) and margrave Albert the Bear of Brandenburg, with Danish support. Poland is cut off from the Baltic coast up to the Vistula, saving only Danzig. Northern Europe: Frederick II of Germany (*OTL Barbarossa) ravages Jutland, extorting tribute from Valdemar I of Denmark. The German king divides Frisia between the rich bishopric od Utrecht and the county of Holland, but neither has real authority over the region, ruled by local abbeys and free trading cities. Western Europe: The first known Cathar synod is held in Lombers (Septimania) to counter the menace from the Catholics. King Raymond II, from his capital in Toulouse, desperately resists ecclesiastical call for an anti-Cathar Crusade, knowing it would disrupt his already ailing and feud-ridden state. Southern Europe: Supported by both Venice and Frederick II of Germany the towns of Veneto/Bernmark rise against margrave Welf VI of Memmingen to form the Venetic League under the leadership of the Comune of Verona. This weakens the Welf rivals of Frederick, still not ready to acknowledge his royal status. Byzantine Empire: Leo Diogenes reenters Morea/Peloponnesus and defends the stronghold of Monemvasia against the Byzantine army.
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