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481
Clovis
United several Frankish factions and founded Merovingian dynasty of kings. Clovis defeated the last Roman ruler in Gaul and conquered various Germanic peoples in what is today France. His conversion to Catholicism would prove a landmark development for the Frankish nation.
Clovis was the son of the Frankish king Childeric and the Thuringian queen Basina; he succeeded his father as ruler of the Salian Franks in 481. -
527
Justinian
Emperor Justinian I as born around 482 in Tauresium, a village of Illyria.Justinian reigned from 527 to 565 and considered one of the most important Roman and Byzantine emperors. He started an important military campaign to take back Africa from the Vandals in 533 to 534, and Italy from The Goths a year later. His other great achievement was the completion of the Codex Iustinianus (Codex of Justinian) between 529 and 534 CE. This was the bringing together of all the Roman laws. -
Oct 10, 732
Battle of Tours
Was fought on October 10, 732 between forces under the Frankish leader Charles Martel and a massive invading Islamic army led by Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman, near the city of Tours, France. During the battle, the Franks defeated the Islamic army and Emir Abd er Rahman was killed. This battle stopped the northward advance of Islam from the Iberian peninsula, and is considered to be of macrohistorical importance, in that it halted the Islamic conquests and preserved Christianity. -
Mar 14, 768
Charlemagne
Also known as Karl and Charles the Great, was a medieval emperor who ruled much of Western Europe from 768 to 814. In 771, Charlemagne became king of the Franks, a Germanic tribe in present-day Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and western Germany. He embarked on a mission to unite all Germanic peoples into one kingdom, and convert his subjects to Christianity. -
Period: Mar 5, 800 to Jan 7, 1150
Viking Invasions
. During this period, around 200,000 people left Scandinavia to settle in other lands, mainly Newfoundland (Canada), Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, England, Scotland, the islands around Britain, France (where they became the Normans), Sicily. They traded extensively with the Muslim world and fought as mercenaries for the Byzantine emperors of Constantinople (Istanbul). However, by the end of the 11th century the great days of Viking expansion were over. -
Jan 12, 1000
University of Bologna founded
Italian Università Degli Studi Di Bologna, one of the oldest and most famous universities in Europe, founded in the Italian city of Bologna in the 11th century. It became in the 12th and 13th centuries the principal centre for studies in civil and canon law and attracted students from all over Europe. Since it then had no fixed site or student housing, scholars of like nationality formed free associations, or guilds, to secure protections that they could not claim as citizens. -
Jan 6, 1054
East-West Schism
as afternoon prayers were about to begin, Cardinal Humbert, legate of Pope Leo IX, strode into the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, right up to the main altar, and placed on it a parchment that declared the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, to be excommunicated. He then marched out of the church, shook its dust from his feet, and left the city. A week later the patriarch solemnly condemned the cardinal.
It's considered the beginning of the schism between the Latin and the Greek churches -
Sep 28, 1066
Norman Conquest of England
William, the Duke of Normandy, invaded England in the auumn of 1066, beginning a campaign of conquest leading to his crowning as the king of England and the establishment of Norman rule over England. -
Jan 12, 1137
Eleanor of Aquitaine
was one of the most powerful and influential figures of the Middle Ages. Inheriting a vast estate at the age of 15 made her the most sought-after bride of her generation. She would eventually become the queen of France, the queen of England and lead a crusade to the Holy Land. She is also credited with establishing and preserving many of the courtly rituals of chivalry. -
Apr 12, 1215
Magna Carta
. England's "Great Charter" of 1215 was the first document to challenge the authority of the king, subjecting him to the rule of the law and protecting his people from feudal abuse.
Although most of the charter's ideas were revised or have since been repealed, the Magna Carta's fundamental tenets provided the outline for modern democracies. One of its clauses, still in the English law books, has been credited as the first definition of habeas corpus – the universal right to due process. -
Feb 7, 1292
Marco Polo
Italian explorer and adventurer, traveled with his family from Europe to Asia from 1271 to 1295. He remainedin China for 17 of those years, his book Il Milione describes his travles and experiences and infulenced later adventurers and merchnats. Two centuries after Marco's passing, Christopher Columbus set off across the Atlantic in hopes of finding a new route to the Orient. With him was a copy of Marco Polo's book. -
May 11, 1337
Hundred Year’s War
Two factors lay at the origin of the conflict: first, the status of the duchy of Guyenne (or Aquitaine)-though it belonged to the kings of England, it remained a fief of the French crown, and the kings of England wanted independent possession; second, as the closest relatives of the last direct Capetian king, the kings of England from 1337 claimed the crown of France. -
May 15, 1340
Johann Gutenberg
Was born circa 1395, in Mainz, Germany. He started experimenting with printing by 1438. In 1450 Gutenberg obtained backing from the financier, Johann Fust, whose impatience and other factors led to Gutenberg's loss of his establishment to Fust several years later. -
May 5, 1430
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc, a peasant girl living in medieval France, believed that God had chosen her to lead France to victory in its long-running war with England. With no military training, Joan convinced the embattled crown prince Charles of Valois to allow her to lead a French army to the besieged city of Orléans, where it achieved a momentous victory over the English and their French allies, the Burgundians. Later, Joan was captured by Anglo-Burgundian forces and burned at stake in 1431. -
Aug 11, 1453
Fall of Constantinople
The Ottoman Empire brought their cannons to the gate of Constantinople and stormed the Christian capital after a siege. The Greek Emperor was killed; the great church of St.Sophia was plundered of its treasure and turned into a mosque. The Fall of Constantinople marks the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of a new epoch in Europe.
