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A Tumultuous Period The defeat of the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071 ushered a period of upheavals in the region we call Middle East. For a while the Seljuk empire was dominant but that dominance was challenged by the Crusaders who over a period of nearly 200 years fought not only the Muslim powers but also the Byzantines. The first Mongol invasion in the early 1200's produced more upheavals and it was not until the mid 1300's that a power had risen that was eventually going to dominate the region. These were the Ottoman Turks. A second Mongol invasion in 1402 delayed their rise, but in 1453 the Ottomans took Constantinople and dominated the region until the 20th century.

St. Dominic

"Introduction: A visitor to the Empress Matilda's tomb at Rouen might be mistaken in believing that its occupant had never sought the English throne in her own right. Yet in the long struggle which engulfed the kingdom after her father's death in 1135 this is exactly what she did. Matilda may indeed have been the greatest English heiress of the twelfth century to fail to secure her inheritance. Charles Beem remarks that Matilda's epitaph 'described the summit of earthly achievement to which a twelfth-century aristocratic woman could aspire, according to the dictate of a male-dominated feudal society'. Matilda's rule lasted less than seven months before she was unceremoniously driven out of London in the spring of 1141. Even so, her lordship bore many of the typical characteristics of royal administration, and with King Stephen imprisoned by her supporters Matilda for a time was recognised as the sole source of royal authority in the kingdom."

Medieval England was not a comfortable place for most women. Medieval women invariably had a hard time in an era when many men lived harsh lives. A few women lived comfortable lives but Medieval society was completely dominated by men and women had to know 'their place' in such a society.

The subject of The Life of King Louis the Fat  was Louis VI, the first important Capetian king of France, who reigned from 1108 to 1137.  Louis's main achievement was to consolidate royal power within the Ile-de-France by suppressing the castellans who dominated the royal domain lands. (The term "castellan" refers to a noble who possessed one or more castles.) Louis's success owed much to an alliance he forged between the French monarch and the great Churchmen (bishops and abbots) and the leading townsmen of northern France.  Suspicious of the power of his barons, Louis used clergy and burghers rather than great nobles as royal administrators. His efforts to establish peace and maintain order facilitated the development of agriculture, trade and intellectual activity in the Ile-de-France. Under his rule, Paris began its expansion which would make it by 1200 the greatest Christian city north of the Alps. The following excerpts describe Louis's military actions against the "robber barons" of the Ile-de-France and the King of England Henry I (r.1100-1135).

"Recent work has brought together what we know of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval cathedrals beneath and around Wren's St Paul's, the City of London's most important historic building and monument. Now the little-known medieval cathedral, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, can be revealed as of European importance. It dominated the City and should be compared with other cathedrals - Ely, Norwich and Winchester."