Sviatoslav continues the war against Yaropolk with…

Olaf Haraldsen, after trying in vain to regain his heritage, proclaims himself king in Scania in 1139, fighting his cousin King Eric III of Denmark.

The civil war mostly consists of alternating raids, during which Olaf kills Bishop Rike of Roskilde, an act that sees him excommunicated by the Pope.

Zengi, as atabeg of Mosul, has come to exercise authority over a considerable geographic area, but he wants to create a kingdom that will also include Syria and Palestine.

The sultan has charged him with the duty of defeating the Christian crusaders, and he sees himself as the champion of Islam.

He is opposed, however, by Muslim princes who refuse to accept his authority as well as by the crusaders.

To both, Zengi reacts with equal harshness.

By diplomacy, treachery, and warfare he steadily extends his authority, with the immediate goal of securing control of Damascus—a goal he will never achieve.

The Templars perform courageous service in the Holy Land, and their numbers have increased rapidly, partly because of the propaganda writing of Bernard of Clairvaux.

The Templars had originally vowed obedience to the patriarch of Jerusalem, but Pope Innocent II in 1139 places the Templars directly under the pope's authority: the Templars thus are exempted from the jurisdiction of any bishop in whose diocese they might hold property.

The Templars rapidly diversify their activities.

Soon becoming a vital element in the defense of the Christian crusader states of the Holy Land, they garrison every town of any size there.

At their height, the Templars number about twenty thousand knights.

Aimery II of Narbonne, killed fighting along with Alfonso I of Aragon against the Almoravids at the Battle of Fraga on July 17, 1134, had left only two underaged daughters as his heirs, Ermengarde and her half-sister Ermessinde (daughter of Aimery's second wife, also named Ermessinde).

Aimery had at least one son, also called Aimery, attested in numerous charters, but he predeceased him in about 1130.

Thus, the approximately five-year-old Ermengarde had inherited the viscounty of Narbonne, which occupies a strategic place in the politics of Languedoc: it is desired by the Counts of Toulouse, the Counts of Barcelona, the Trencavel viscounts of Carcassonne, and the Lords of Montpellier.

Alphonse I of Toulouse, claiming his right to the regency of Narbonne during Ermengarde's minority, invades the viscounty in 1139 with the support of Archbishop Arnaud de Lévezou.

In the same year, …

...Ermengarde witnesses a charter in Vallespir, in the territory of her cousin Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, with whom she must have taken refuge in the face of the threat from Toulouse.

Count Afonso Henriques of Portugal leads forces to victory over the Moors in 1139 at the Battle of Ourique (the site of the battle is uncertain, but is probably not that of present-day Ourique in southern Portugal).

Pope Innocent II convokes the Second Lateran Council in 1139 to reaffirm the unity of the church after the eight-year schism.

The Council prescribes imprisonment and confiscation of property as punishment for heresy and threatens to excommunicate princes who fail to punish heretics.

The Council ends the schism, though opinion remains divided.

Though the Pierleoni family will mostly submit to Innocent and his successors, Anacletus' brother Giordano, who is at this time leader of the Commune of Rome, will actively oppose Innocent's successors in the following decade.

Arnold of Brescia, a Paris-educated Italian reformer and Augustinian monk, has attacked the worldliness of the church by advocating radical church reforms, including a life of poverty for the clergy and the abandonment of wealth and temporal power by the church; he rejects the idea of confession of sins to a priest.

Following the Council’s condemnation of Arnold’s views, Innocent orders him exiled and his books burned.

Managing to evade imprisonment, Arnold will teach for a short time in Paris until expelled by the royal authorities, then travel in Switzerland and Bohemia.

Afonso Henriques Declares Portugal’s Independence (1139)

Following his decisive victory at the Battle of Ourique in 1139, Afonso Henriques formally proclaimed the independence of his county from the Kingdom of León and Castile, ruled by his cousin, King Alfonso VII. This bold declaration marked a turning point in the struggle for Portuguese sovereignty, solidifying Afonso Henriques’ leadershipand paving the way for the emergence of an independent Portuguese kingdom.

King Stephen had declared that if Roger demanded half of the kingdom he should have it, but has chafed against the overwhelming influence of the official clique that Roger represents.

Roger himself has built at Devizes the most splendid castle in Christendom.

He and his nephews seem to have secured a number of castles outside their own dioceses, and the old bishop behaves as if he were an equal of the King.

Stephen at a council held in June 1139 finds a pretext for demanding a surrender of their castles, and on their refusal they are arrested.

After a short struggle all Roger's great castles are sequestrated, but Henry of Winchester demands the restoration of the bishop.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, bishop of Saint Asaph in Wales, writes the Historia Regnum Britannia, (“History of the Kings of Britain”).

Begun in 1135 and completed in 1139, Geoffrey’s essentially folkloric history helps to popularize Arthurian legend in Western literature.

Arthur, a national hero to the English and now indistinguishable from folk and literary accretion, appears as the master of a European empire.