12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages.

See also: Renaissance of the 12th century

Events

• Renaissance of the 12th century in Europe.

Southern Song in 1142.

• The Song dynasty loses power over Northern China.
• The Kamakura Shogunate deprives the Emperor of Japan of political power.
• Gothic Architecture begins in France
• First, Second, and Third Crusades of western European kingdoms against Islam.
• Conflict between the Khmer Empire and Champa. Angkor Wat is built under the Hindu king Suryavarman II. At the end of the century the Buddhist Jayavarman VII becomes ruler.
• Pope Adrian IV grants overlordship of Ireland to Henry II of England.
• Suger rebuilds the abbey church at St Denis north of Paris, regarded as the first major Gothic building.
• King Coloman unites Hungary and Croatia under the Hungarian Crown (1102)
• Foundation of the Knights Templar c.1119
• Portugal gains independence from the kingdom of León in 1128 (recognised by León in 1143).
• Nalanda, the great Indian Buddhist educational centre, is destroyed.
• 1169, start of the conquest of Ireland. Richard fitzGilbert de Clare ('Strongbow') makes an alliance with the exiled Irish chief, Dermot MacMurrough, to help him recover his kingdom of Leinster.
• Pierre Abelard teaches.
• Thomas Becket is murdered in 1170.
• The Toltec Empire collapses.
• Founding of the cathedral school (Katedralskolan) in Lund, Sweden, 1185. The school is the oldest in northern Europe, and one of the oldest in Europe as a whole.
• The medieval Serbian state formed by Stefan Nemanja and continued by the Nemanjić dynasty.

Significant people

• Genghis Khan, Great Khan of the Mongol Empire.
• Pierre Abélard, one of the first scholastic philosophers; author of "Historia calamitatum mearum", a description of his love affair with Héloïse.
• Bernard of Clairvaux, French abbot influential in church politics.
• Manuel I Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor who allied with the Crusaders.
• Saladin, ruler of Egypt and Syria who resisted the Crusaders.
• Hugh of St. Victor, French scholar.
• Philip II, French king.
• Friedrich Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor
• Richard I of England
• Richard of St. Victor, theologian.
• Alfonso I Henriques, first King of Portugal.
• Maimonides, leading Jewish philosopher.
• Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury.
• Minamoto no Yoritomo, first shogun of Japan.
• Omar Khayyám, Persian poet and astronomer
• Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen consort of France and later England.
• Hildegard of Bingen, first Western musical composer known by name.
• Suryavarman II Khmer king
• Jayavarman VII Khmer king

Inventions, discoveries and introductions

• Beginning of the Gothic architecture style in France.
• Building of Angkor Wat in Khmer empire.
• First European universities founded.
• Christian humanism becomes a self-conscious philosophical tendency in Europe.
• Earliest record of a miracle play, in Dunstable, England.
• Beginning of trouvère music and poetry in France.
• ars antiqua
• Earliest account of a mariner's compass, by Alexander Neckam is "De utensilibus".
• First fire and plague insurance (in Iceland).
• First authenticated influenza epidemics.
• Start of Middle English

Decades and years