The Breton Counterattack and the Capture of…

Old regulations prescribing special dress for Christians and Jews are reinstated with new vigor.

Unlike his predecessors, al-Mutawakkil, who has reigned in Samarra from 847, applies a discriminatory policy toward Minority groups like the Nestorian Christians and Jews.

In a decree of 850, the caliph orders that these "Protected Peoples" be made to wear various specific identifying marks and honey-colored robes and even to make their slaves immediately identifiable in the marketplaces.

The caliph issues a yellow badge edict, and forbids non-Muslims to ride on horses.

These decrees also force the destruction of all churches and synagogues built since Islam had been established and confiscate one out of every ten Christian or Jewish homes with the stipulation that, where suitable, mosques should occupy the sites or that the sites should be left open.

The doors of remaining buildings are to be identified by wooden images of devils that are to be nailed to them.

The decree also stipulates that Jewish and Christian graves should be flat against the ground, which will identify them as non-Muslim ones.

Al-Mutawakkil bars Jews and Christians from ruling over Muslims, thus effectively removing them from government service, and limits their schooling to that which is taught by Jews and Christians, forbidding Muslims from teaching them.

The aggregate effect of these rulings is a means of identifying "infidels", their women and even their slaves, the doorways of their houses, and their graves, in order to expose them to the wrath of the mob.

Vijayalaya, a Chola chieftain, attacks the city of Tanjore, apparently with the approval of the Pallavas, his nominal overlords.

With the critical military assistance of the Velirs of Kodumbalur, he captures the city from his rivals, the Muttaraiyars, in approximately 850.

The region of Madras (Tamil Nadu), in southeast India located on the Coromandel coast of the Bay of Bengal, becomes, from 850, the seat of the independent Chola state inaugurated by Vijayalaya.

Fustat has become the largest Jewish community in the East by the mid-ninth century.

Hebrew is considered the primary language of trade between the Carolingian and 'Abbasid domains because Jews often serve as a mercantile bridge between the Latin- and Arab-speaking worlds,

Sallam, a Spanish Jewish merchant said to speak thirty languages, had in 845 reportedly reached China.

Ibn Laid al-Hassan, a Muslim traveler, writes of riots in 850, in China's Kansu province in which Jews are counted among the dead.

The unstable situation of the Balkan Slavs, located as they are on the frontier between the Eastern Empire and the semi-nomadic peoples of Asia, enable them to assert some measure of independence.

The basis of the Serbs' social organization is the zadruga, or extended family.

Several zadruge are grouped locally under a zupan, or chieftain.

With kinship and locality playing such a pivotal role in social organization, sustained collaboration within larger groups is difficult.

Several zupani might, on occasion, unite under a veliki zupan, or grand chieftain, who for a short time would succeed in establishing control over a substantial territory and declare himself king or emperor.

The first such state to which Serbs trace a political identity is created in about 850 by Vlastimir.

This state is centered on an area in eastern Montenegro and southern Serbia known as Raska and extends over the valleys of the Piva, Tara, Lim, and Ibar rivers (or roughly between the Durmitor and Kopaonik mountain ranges).

The kingdom initially accepts the supremacy of Constantinople.

Four Saracen columns depart in 850 from Taranto and …

…Bari to sack Apulia, …

…Campania, …

…Calabria, and …

…Abruzzi.