The First Council of the Lateran, convoked…

Stephen II of Hungary, in agreeing to aid the dethroned Prince Yaroslav, leads his armies against Volhynia and lays siege to its capital, Vladimir.

However, Yaroslav is slain during the siege, and the Hungarian nobles want to abandon the struggle.

Although Stephen wants to continue the war, his barons threaten him with a new king if they do not return home; therefore Stephen is obliged to leave Volhynia.

The conquest of all of Mieszko I's Pomerania (of which the remaining eastern part had been lost by Poland from after the death of Mieszko II), a task begun by his father and completed by Boleslaw III around 1123, is one of Boleslaw's major achievements.

Szczecin is subdued in a bloody takeover and …

…Western Pomerania up to Rügen, except for the directly incorporated southern part, becomes Boleslaw's fief, to be ruled locally by Wartislaw I, the first duke of the Griffin dynasty.

Dubai, general of the Banu Mazyad tribe, attempts in 1123 to take advantage of the momentary lack of power and, after plundering Bosra, …

…attacks Baghdad together with a young brother of the sultan.

He is, however crushed by a Seljuq army under Zengi and Ahmad ibn Nizam al-Mulk.

During the same year, al-Mustarshid removes Ahmad ibn Nizam al-Mulk as his vizier.

Al-Ma'mum, the new Vizier of Egypt, organizes a major invasion of Crusader land in 1123.

The Fatimids plan to capture the coastal city of Jaffa.

In this era, the Egyptian armies usually deploy with Sudanese archers on foot, supported by dense formations of Arab and Berber light cavalry.

Unfortunately for the Fatimids, this relatively immobile array provides the Frankish heavy cavalry with an ideal target, resulting in a massacre of the foot-soldiers.

The defeat is decisive.

Except for continued raids from Ascalon until the Siege of Ascalon in 1153, Egypt will cease to be a threat to the Crusader states until the rise of Saladin in 1169.

The so-called “Maiestas Christi,” a conventional representation of the transcendental deity reserved for the half-dome of the apse, is among the most important and most frequently occurring pictorial subjects in the interior decoration of the walls and vaults of Romanesque churches.

The ”Maiestas” fresco on the apsidal vault of the Catalan church of Sant Climent de Taüll, executed around 1123, follows a long-established convention in portraying Christ seated on a rainbow with his right hand raised in blessing.

The artist of Tahull encloses the scene within a traditional oval frame known as a mandorla, the symbol of divine glory, but transforms the image itself into highly schematized patterns that almost caricature Christ’s features.

This totally unrealistic interpretation of the deity serves, in the soft light of the sanctuary, to express the all-pervading presence of the Lord.

Henry I, in endowing Reading Abbey in 1121, had given the abbey his lands within Reading, along with land at Cholsey.

He had also arranged for further land in Reading, previously given to Battle Abbey by William the Conqueror, to be transferred to Reading Abbey, in return for some of his land at Appledram in Sussex.

Following its royal foundation, the abbey is established in 1123 by a party of monks from the French abbey of Cluny, together with monks from the Cluniac priory of St Pancras at Lewes in Sussex.

The abbey is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist.

The first abbot is Hugh of Amiens.

King Baldwin II is taken prisoner by the Artuqids in 1123, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem is subsequently invaded by the Fatimids of Egypt.

The Doge of Venice, Domenico Michele, sets sail with a large fleet, which defeats the Egyptian fleet off the coast of Syria and captures many ships.

The Venetians then land at Acre; the Doge completes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he celebrates Christmas, and meets with Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Constable William Buris, governing Jerusalem in place of Baldwin II.

It is agreed that the Venetian fleet will help the crusaders attack either Tyre or Ascalon, the only two cities on the coast still under Muslim control; the barons from the south of the Kingdom want to attack Ascalon, while those in the north prefer to direct the fleet against Tyre, which is larger and wealthier and a valuable port for enemy Damascus further inland.

According to William of Tyre, "The matter came near resulting in a dangerous quarrel."

Tyre is chosen by lot.

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.