Pope Callixtus II dies on December 13…

A treaty of alliance is established between Jerusalem and the Venetians prior to the beginning of the siege of Tyre in February 1124 (the city will capitulate to the crusaders later this year).

The treaty is negotiated by Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and thus it is known as the Pactum Warmundi (Warmundus being the Latin form of his name).

Earlier treaties had been negotiated between Jerusalem and the Venetians and other Italian city-states, and the Venetians themselves had been granted privileges in 1100 and 1110 in return for military assistance, but this treaty is far more extensive.

The Pactum grants the Venetians their own church, street, square, baths, market, scales, mill, and oven in every city controlled by the King of Jerusalem, except in Jerusalem itself, where their autonomy is more limited.

In the other cities, they are permitted to use their own Venetian scales to conduct business and trade when trading with other Venetians, but otherwise they are to use the scales and prices established by the King.

In Acre, they are granted a quarter of the city, where every Venetian "may be as free as in Venice itself."

In Tyre and Ascalon (though neither has yet been captured), they are granted one-third of the city and one-third of the surrounding countryside, possibly as many as twenty-one villages in the case of Tyre.

These privileges are entirely free from taxation, but Venetian ships will be taxed if they were carrying pilgrims, and in this case the King will personally be entitled to one-third of the tax.

For their help in the siege of Tyre, the Venetians are entitled to three hundred "Saracen besants" per year from the revenue of that city.

They are permitted to use their own laws in civil suits between Venetians or in cases in which a Venetian is the defendant, but if a Venetian is the plaintiff the matter will be decided in the courts of the Kingdom.

If a Venetian is shipwrecked or dies in the kingdom, his property will be sent back to Venice rather than being confiscated by the King.

Anyone living in the Venetian quarter in Acre or the Venetian districts in other cities will be subject to Venetian law.

The Pactum is signed by Patriarch Warmund; Ehremar, Archbishop of Caesarea; Bernard, Bishop of Nazareth; Aschetinus, Bishop of Bethlehem; Roger, Bishop of Lydda; Guildin, abbot of St. Mary of Josaphat; Gerard, prior of the Holy Sepulchre; Aicard, prior of the Templum Domini; Arnold, Prior of Mount Sion; William Buris; and the chancellor, Pagan.

Aside from William and Pagan, no secular authorities witness the treaty, perhaps indicating that the Venetians consider Jerusalem a papal fief.

The Failed Imperial-Norman Invasion of France (1124 CE)

In 1124, Emperor Henry V of the Holy Roman Empire and his father-in-law, King Henry I of England and Duke of Normandy, launched an attack on King Louis VI of France. This invasion, composed largely of German forces, sought to weaken Capetian influence and assert imperial and Norman power in France.

However, Louis VI, known as Louis the Fat, proved to be a formidable opponent, successfully rallying the French nobility to resist the invasion.

Louis VI’s Defense Against the Imperial-Norman Coalition

• Louis VI mobilized a large French army, drawing support from his vassals, the clergy, and powerful nobles across the realm.
• Faced with a unified and determined French resistance, Henry V and Henry I were forced to abandon the campaign, marking a significant victory for the Capetian monarchy.
• The failed invasion reinforced Louis VI’s authority, proving that even the combined forces of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Anglo-Norman king could not easily overcome Capetian defenses.

Louis VI’s Other Challenges: Conflict with Count Stephen of Blois

Beyond imperial threats, Louis VI also had to contend with powerful regional rivals, including Stephen, Count of Blois, who sought to expand his influence at the expense of the Capetian crown.

• Despite Stephen’s ambitions, Louis successfully maintained his dominance over central France, preventing Blois from significantly weakening royal authority.
• His military campaigns against powerful feudal lords, including those in the Île-de-France, Burgundy, and Aquitaine, helped consolidate the French monarchy, though not without difficulty.

Louis VI’s Failed Intervention in Flanders (1127)

Three years after his victory over the imperial-Norman invasion, Louis VI attempted to intervene in Flanders, but with less success:

• After the murder of Count Charles the Good in 1127, Flanders descended into a succession crisis.
• Louis backed William Clito, the son of Robert Curthose, as the new count, hoping to strengthen Capetian influence in the region.
• However, local Flemish factions opposed Clito’s rule, and he was eventually defeated and killed in 1128.
• This failed intervention weakened Louis’s standing in Flanders, demonstrating the limits of Capetian power beyond the royal domain.

Significance of Louis VI’s Reign

Despite setbacks in Flanders, Louis VI’s ability to repel imperial and Anglo-Norman aggression in 1124 cemented his reputation as a strong defender of the French monarchy.

• His successful military leadership helped strengthen the Capetian dynasty against both external threats and internal feudal opposition.
• His reign set the stage for the gradual expansion of royal power, which would continue under his son, Louis VII, and later Philip II (Augustus).

While Capetian France was still weaker than the Anglo-Norman and Holy Roman Empires, Louis VI’s victories and political maneuvers ensured the continued survival and consolidation of the French crown.

Dún Bhun na Gaillimhe ('Fort at the Mouth of the Gaillimh') is constructed in 1124, by the King of Connacht Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair.

The Annals of the Four Masters note that in that year "Three castles were erected by the Connaughtmen, the castle of Dun-Leodhar, the castle of the Gaillimh, and the castle of Cuil-maeile."

This fort is also called a caislean (castle) in the annals.

Tyre, the last great city north of Ascalon still in Muslim hands, falls on July 1124 to the crusaders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli, with the aid of the Venetians.

It will become one of the most important cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

It is part of the royal domain, although there will also be autonomous trading colonies there for the Italian merchant cities.

The original Diocese of Tyre, one of the most ancient in Christianity, was part of the Province of Antioch and was subject to the Patriarch of Antioch.

The congregation followed the Eastern Orthodox rite following the schism between Rome and Constantinople in 1054.

When the Crusaders conquer Tyre, however, arguments over who has the right to appoint the suffragan fall in favor of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox bishop flees to Constantinople.

The city's Jewish population is unmolested.

The central Song court remains politically divided and focused upon its internal affairs until alarming new events to the north in the Liao state finally come to its attention.

The Jurchen, a subject tribe within the Liao empire, have rebelled against the Liao and formed their own state, the Jin Dynasty.

The Song official Tong Guan (1054–1126) advises Emperor Huizong (1100–1125) to form an alliance with the Jurchens, and their joint military campaign topples and completely conquers the Liao Dynasty by 1125.

However, …

…the Jurchens, observing the poor performance and military weakness of the Song army, immediately break the alliance with the Song, launching an invasion into Song territory north of the Hwang He in 1125.

Scholars and farmers demonstrate around Kaifeng for the restoration of a military official, Li Gang, from January through March.

Small conflicts erupt between the protesters and the government.

The rule of the young Hungarian king, Stephen II, had become increasingly unpopular among his barons, because he did not want to marry and preferred living with his concubines.

Finally, in 1120, his barons had obliged him to marry Cristiana, a daughter of Prince Robert I of Capua.

Prince Yaroslav of Volhynia, who had been dethroned by his subjects, had come to Stephen's court in 1123, seeking assistance to recover his principality from his rebellious subjects.

Stephen, taking advantage of the absence of the Venetian fleet, had reoccupied Dalmatia in 1124, but the territory is lost again in the next year.

Azaz, the scene of a humiliating defeat of the Emperor Romanos III in August 1030, had soon after been captured by the imperial forces under Niketas of Mistheia.

Joscelin I of Edessa had captured the city from the atabeg of Aleppo in 1118.

The Crusaders under Roger of Salerno had been severely defeated at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis the following year, and King Baldwin II of Jerusalem had been captured while patrolling in Edessa in 1123.

Released in 1124, Baldwin had almost immediately laid siege to Aleppo on October 8, 1124, capturing the the attention of il-Bursuqi, the Seljuq atabeg of Mosul.

Il-Bursuqi marches south to relieve the siege of Aleppo, which is nearing the point of surrender in January 1125 after a three-month siege.

Baldwin cautiously withdraws without a fight.

Il-Bursuqi now besieges the town of Azaz, to the north of Aleppo in territory belonging to the County of Edessa.

Baldwin II, Joscelin I, and Pons of Tripoli, with a force of eleven hundred knights from their respective territories (including knights from Antioch, where Baldwin is regent), as well as two thousand other foot soldiers, meet il-Bursuqi outside Azaz, where the atabeg has gathered his much larger force.

Baldwin pretends to retreat, thereby drawing the Seljuqs away from Azaz into the open where they are surrounded.

After a long and bloody battle, the Seljuqs are defeated and their camp captured by Baldwin, who takes enough loot to ransom the prisoners taken by the Seljuqs (including the future Joscelin II of Edessa).

Apart from relieving Azaz, this victory allows the Crusaders to regain much of the influence they had lost after their defeat at Ager Sanguinis in 1119.

Irnerius, at the urging of Countess Matilda of Tuscany, had begun to devote himself to the study of jurisprudence, taking the Justinian code as a guide.

After teaching jurisprudence for a short while in Rome he had returned to Bologna, where he founded a new school of jurisprudence in 1084 or 1088, which soon rivaled the law school of Ravenna.

Some jurisprudence had been taught at Bologna, before Irnerius founded his school, by Pepo and a few others, and a tradition of jurisprudence had developed at Pavia since the mid-ninth century.

He has introduced the custom of explaining the Roman law by means of glosses, which originally were meager interlinear elucidations of the text, but since the glosses were often too extensive to be inserted between the lines of the text, he had begun to write them on the margin of the page, thus being the first to introduce the marginal glosses which afterwards came into general use.

After the death of Pope Paschal II, Irnerius had defended the rights of Emperor Henry V in the papal election and upheld the legality of the election of the imperial antipope Gregory VIII.

After 1116, he appears to have held some office under the emperor.

He dies, perhaps during the reign of the emperor Lothair III, but certainly before 1140.