Nomadic tribes break into Transylvania and plunder…

The Cumans defeat the armies of the three sons of Yaroslav the Wise—Iziaslav Yaroslavych, Sviatoslav II Yaroslavych, and Vsevolod Yaroslavych—in 1068 at the Alta River.

After the Cuman victory, they will repeatedly invade Ukraine, devastating the land and taking captives, who had become either enslaved to the Cumans or are sold at markets in the south.

The most vulnerable regions are the principalities of Pereiasla, …

…Novhorod-Siverskyi, and …

…Chernihiv.

Iziaslav and Vsevolod flee back to Kiev following the unsuccessful Battle on the Alta River near the city of Pereiaslavl, and their unwillingness to arm the general populace to march out and fight the raiders leads to an uprising in the city.

A veche (public assembly) is convened on an unknown initiative in the marketplace and the people there demand arms to fight the Kipchaks.

When these are not forthcoming, they ransack the house of voivode Konstantin.

The Kievans free Prince Vseslav of Polotsk, who had been imprisoned earlier by Iziaslav, Vsevolod, and Sviatoslav, and place him on the Kievan throne in hopes that he can stop the Cumans.

Iziaslav, for his part, flees to his nephew, Boleslaw II of Poland, whose aunt Gertrude is Iziaslav’s wife.

Burchard II, Bishop of Halberstadt, had in 1057 become provost of the church of SS Simon and Judas in Goslar.

In 1059, through the intervention of his uncle, Anno, he had succeeded Burchard I in the diocese of Halberstadt.

In 1062, it had been the decision of a German-Italian synod held at Augsburg to send Burchard, high in the favor of the regent of the young Henry IV, Empress Agnes, to Rome to mediate a disputed Papal election between the legitimate Pope Alexander II and the Antipope Honorius II.

Although the German crown stood by Honorius, Burchard had vowed to stand by Hildebrand, the great Papal reformer, and supported Alexander.

In gratitude, Alexander had bestowed on Burchard the coveted pallium.

In the dead of winter 1067–1068, Burchard, crossing frozen marshland, invades the country of the Lutici, razes the pagan temple at Radgosc, and returns to Saxony riding the sacred black horse.

The emergency lends weight to the military aristocracy in Anatolia who, on January 1, 1068, finally secure the election of one of their own number, the Cappadocian Romanos Diogenes, as emperor.

As Emperor Romanos IV, he marries the widowed Empress Mother Eudokia Makrembolitissa later in the year.

John Doukas, after serving as a counselor and supporter of his brother, had come to the fore after his brother's death in 1067 as the natural protector of the rights of his nephew Michael VII Doukas.

His position as Caesar and his family’s influence in the Senate means that he is behind the opposition of the court officials to the Empress and her marriage to Romanos.

Emperor Romanus IV assembles an army to deal with what he sees as a large-scale military operation.

Marching to Cappadocia, Romanus takes Manbij, northeast of Aleppo.

The imperial counteroffensive forces the Seljuqs to retreat from Heraclea to …

…Aleppo.

The Mirdasids have the military advantage of light Arab cavalry, and several Arab groups in the region, such as the Numayrids of Harran and their own Kilabi brethren, have provided valuable assistance.

The Seljuqs have now supplanted the East Romans and Fatimids as their primary antagonist; the Turks' light cavalry is superior to their own and the Mirdasids have a much more difficult time dealing with them.

The Mirdasids have resorted to recruiting Turkish mercenaries into their armies, although this has caused its own problems, as the Turks have begun to acquire an increased role in the government.

As Alp-Arslan is about to attack Aleppo, whose prince had been too late in siding with the 'Abbasids, and is preparing to occupy Syria, Alp-Arslan learns that the emperor, with a formidable army, is assaulting his rear army in Armenia.