The Jurchen cross the river and besiege…

The Kara-Khanid Khanate, or the Karakhans (Black Khans) Dynasty, is a state formed by the a confederation of Karluks, Chigils, Yaghma and other tribes in Semirechye, Western Tian Shan, and Kashgaria, and who had later conquered Transoxiana.

During the reign of Ahmad b. Ali, the Karakhanids had engaged in wars against the non-Muslims to the east and northeast.

In 1006, Yusuf Kadr Khan of Kashgar had conquered the Kingdom of Khotan.In 1017–1018, the Karakhanids repelled an attack by a large mass of nomadic Turkish tribes in what is described in Muslim sources as a great victory.

The brothers Ahmad and Nasr had conducted different policies towards the Ghaznavids in the south—while Ahmad had tried to form alliance with Mahmud of Ghazna, Nasr had attempted to expand, unsuccessfully, into the territories held by Ghaznavids.

The unity of the Karakhanid dynasty had been fractured early in the eleventh century by frequent internal warfare that eventually resulted in the formation of two independent Karakhanid states.

A son of Hasan Bughra Khan, Ali Tegin, had seized control of Bukhara and other towns.

He had expanded his territory further after the death of Mansur.

The son of Nasr, Ibrahim Tamghach Bughra Khan, had later waged war against the sons of Ali Tegin, and won control of large part of Transoxania, and made Samarkand the capital.

In 1041, another son of Nasr b. Ali, Muhammad 'Ayn ad-Dawlah (reigned 1041–52) took over the administration of the western branch of the family that eventually led to a formal separation of the Kharakhanid Khanate.

Ibrahim Tamghach Khan is considered by Muslim historians as a great ruler, and he had brought some stability to Western Karakhanid Khanate by limiting the appanage system which had caused much of the internal strife in the unified Kara-Khanid Khanate.

The Hasan family remains in control of the Eastern Khanate.

The Eastern Khanate has its capital at Balasagun and later Kashgar.

The Ferghana-Semirechye areas have become the border between the two states and are frequently contested.

When the two states were formed, Ferghana had fallen into realm of the Eastern Khanate, but had later been captured by Ibrahim and become part of Western Khanate.

The Seljuk Turks had defeated the Ghaznavids at the Battle of Dandanaqan in 1040 and entered Iran.

The Karakhanids had been able to withstand the Seljuks initially, and had briefly taken control of Seljuk towns in Khurasan.

The Karakhanids, however, had developed serious conflicts with the religious classes (the ulama).

In 1089, during the reign of Ibrahim's grandson Ahmad b. Khidr, at the request of the ulama of Transoxiana, the Seljuks had entered and taken control of Samarkand, together with the domains belonging to the Western Khanate.

The Western Karakhanids Khanate has thus been a vassal of the Seljuks for half a century, and the rulers of the Western Khanate are largely whomever the Seljuks choose to place on the throne.

Béla is the only son of Duke Álmos, the younger brother of King Coloman of Hungary; his mother was Predslava of Kiev.

Duke Álmos had led several rebellions against his brother, but finally, he and Béla were blinded in 1113.

Father and son were living together in the Premonstratensian Monastery of Dömös until 1126, when Duke Álmos tried to organize a conspiracy against King Stephen II, King Coloman's son and heir.

Stephen had given shelter to the Pechenegs (besenyő), who had been defeated totally by the Emperor John II Komnenos, and organized them in a troop of bodyguards, which had resulted in the conspiracy aimed at the restoration of Duke Álmos.

However, the conspiracy had been revealed and Duke Álmos had been obliged to escape to the protection of Constantinople.

Following his father's escape, Béla is taken secretly to the Monastery of Pécsvárad by his father's partisans.

Stephen has a meeting with Duke Sobeslav I of Bohemia in the autumn of 1126 and they make peace.

Sobeslav of Bohemia is first documented about 1107, when he and his elder brother Duke Bořivoj II of Bohemia were expelled by their Premyslid relative Svatopluk of Olomouc and fled to the court of their maternal cousin Duke Boleslaw III Wrymouth of Poland.

After Svatopluk was assassinated during the Battle of Głogów in 1109, Borivoj's attempts to regain the Bohemian throne failed, as in the following fratricidal war his younger brother Vladislaus I prevailed, backed by King Henry V of Germany.

Later, the brothers reconciled and Sobeslav was vested with rule at Brno and Znojmo in Moravia from 1115 until 1123, when the tensions between the brothers rose again and Sobeslav was once more expelled.

Nevertheless, as the last surviving son of Vratislaus II, Sobeslav had succeeded to the ducal throne after Duke Vladislaus' death in 1125.

From the beginning, his rule had been contested by Otto II of Olomouc, the younger brother of Svatopluk, who had gained the support not only from Vladislaus' widow Richeza of Berg but also from King Lothair III of Germany.

Junior princes, throughout the Premyslid era, will often rule all or part of Moravia from Olomouc, Brno or Znojmo, with varying degrees of autonomy from the ruler of Bohemia.

When Sobeslav decided to remove Otto II from Olomouc, the despoiled prince had looked to the German king for recourse.

Lothair III, declaring that no one could succeed to the Bohemian throne without Imperial investiture, proceeded to invade on behalf of Otto II.

This, however, is dangerous to the interests of the local nobility, and they rally around Soběslav.

The German and Moravian troops under Lothair meet on February 18, 1126, with the Bohemian forces at the Battle of Chlumec, a frontier fortress at the border with the March of Meissen (either near Chlumec or near Jílové).

Sobeslav routs and captures King Lothair, while Otto II is killed in battle.

However, the relationship between the two countries returns to the former vassal-suzerain relation, as King Lothair is released on condition of Sobeslav’s investiture with Bohemia.

'Imad Ad-din Zengi Ibn Aq Sonqur, or Zengi, had fled to Mosul after his father, the governor of Aleppo, was killed in 1094.

In 1126, the Seljuq sultan Mahmud II appoints Zengi governor of Basra.

Bohemond is the son of Bohemond I of Tripoli and Constance of France.

When his father died, absent from Antioch, Bohemond II was a child living in Apulia.

His cousin Tancred had taken over the regency of Antioch until he died in 1112; it had then passed to Roger of Salerno, with the understanding that he would relinquish it to Bohemond whenever the latter arrived.

Roger, however, had been killed at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis in 1119, and the nobles of Antioch had invited King Baldwin II of Jerusalem to govern the Principality.

Bohemond had reached his majority in 1124, at the age of sixteen, and has spent the past two years attending to affairs of state in the Mezzogiorno.

After his eighteenth birthday in October 1126, he finally leaves Apulia for Antioch.

According to William of Tyre, he had reached an agreement beforehand with his cousin William II, Duke of Apulia, that whichever of them died first, would leave his lands in Italy to the other.

This is flatly contradicted by Alexander of Telese, who states that Bohemond left his lands under the governance of the Pope, and by Romuald of Salerno, who states that the regency of Taranto went to a relative of Bohemond's, Alexander, Count of Conversano.

To whomever the principality of Taranto was left or promised, as part of his agreement to come to Antioch, Bohemond also marries Baldwin II's daughter Alice.

According to Matthew of Edessa, Baldwin supposedly also promised him the crown of Jerusalem, but Matthew might be confusing Alice with her elder sister Melisende of Jerusalem, who also married a westerner, Fulk V of Anjou, around the same time.

Baldwin II, after winning the Battle of Azaz northeast of Antioch, leads an army of Franks to attack Damascus in early 1126.

His army consists of the usual mounted knights and men-at-arms supported by spearmen and bowmen on foot.

At Marj al-Saffar, thirty kilometers outside Damascus, the Crusaders encounter the army of Damascus, which offers battle.

Toghtekin, founder of the Burid dynasty, rules Damascus at that time.

Only a few details are known about the battle.

The sources are not in agreement about tactical details, but they concur that the Crusaders failed to seize Damascus.

The Franks lost many men to Turkish archery in a very close-fought engagement.

Because of their heavy casualties, the Crusaders were forced to retreat.

Al-Mustarshid had rebelled in 1125 against Seljuq rule.

He sends an army to take Wasit but is defeated near Baghdad and imprisoned in his palace in 1126.

The fifty year reign of Vikramaditya VI, the most successful of the later Chalukya rulers, is an important period in Karnataka's history and is referred to by historians as the "Chalukya Vikrama era".

Not only has he been successful in controlling his powerful feudatories in the north and south, he has successfully dealt with the imperial Cholas, whom he had defeated in the battle of Vengi in 1093 and again in 1118.

He has retained this territory for many years despite ongoing hostilities with the Cholas.

This victory in Vengi had reduced the Chola influence in the eastern Deccan and made him emperor of territories stretching from the Kaveri River in the south to the Narmada River in the north, earning him the titles Permadideva and Tribhuvanamalla (lord of three worlds).

The scholars of his time pay him glowing tributes for his military leadership, interest in fine arts and religious tolerance.

Literature has proliferated and scholars in Kannada and Sanskrit adorn his court.

The rule of Vikramaditya, though marred by repeated battles for supremacy in the south, is a glorious era in Kannada literary history.

Vijnanesvara, the author of Mitakshara, is an authority on Hindu law.

The poet Bilhana, who had immigrated from far away Kashmir, eulogizes the king in his well known work Vikramankadeva Charita.

Kirthi Verma writes Govaidya during this period.

Vikramaditya VI is not only an able warrior but also a devout king as indicated by his numerous inscriptions that record grants made to scholars and centers of religion.

Perhaps no other king in Indian history has left behind as many inscriptions, all in Kannada language, as has Vikramaditya VI.

Legends recount that he followed a ritual of giving away land to the needy on a daily basis.

Vikramaditya's long reign comes to an end in 1126.

His son Somesvara III becomes the Chalukya king.

The continual warring with the Cholas has exhausted both empires, giving their vassals the opportunity to rebel.

In the decades after Vikramaditya VI's death, the Western Chalukya empire will steadily decrease in size as their powerful feudatories expand in autonomy and territorial command.

Peter Abelard Becomes Abbot of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys (1126 CE)

In 1126, Peter Abelard, the brilliant yet controversial theologian, was unexpectedly elected abbot of the Abbey of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys in Brittany. This appointment placed him in charge of one of the most notoriously immoral monastic communities of the time, a role that would prove to be one of the most difficult and frustrating of his life.

The Abbey of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys: A House of Disorder

• Located on the rugged Breton coast, Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys was plagued by corruption and lawlessness.
• The monks were openly defiant of monastic discipline, resisting the Rule of Saint Benedict.
• The abbey had a long-standing reputation for moral laxity, and many of its monks were accused of living worldly and disorderly lives.

Abelard’s Appointment and Struggles as Abbot

• Abelard, still recovering from his public disgrace and conflicts with the Church, did not seek the position, but was nonetheless chosen by the monks themselves—perhaps due to his fame as a scholar or influence within the Church.
• Despite his reputation for intellectual brilliance, Abelard was ill-suited to the role of abbot, lacking both the diplomatic skill and patience needed to reform such a wayward community.
• His attempts to impose discipline were met with fierce resistance, as the monks ignored, defied, or even plotted against him.

Near-Death Experience and Abelard’s Escape

• Abelard’s enforcement of stricter monastic discipline made him deeply unpopular.
• According to his later writings, his own monks conspired to kill him, and he narrowly escaped with his life.
• Recognizing his inability to control the situation, Abelard eventually abandoned the abbey, effectively ending his time as an abbot.

The Aftermath and Abelard’s Return to Scholarship

• Abelard left Saint-Gildas and returned to intellectual life, eventually founding the Paraclete, a more spiritually fulfilling endeavor.
• His time as abbot of Saint-Gildas was one of frustration, humiliation, and failure, reinforcing his lifelong conflicts with institutional authority.
• Though he had been a master of theological argument, Abelard proved unsuited to leadership in a corrupt monastery, marking another painful chapter in his turbulent life.

The disastrous abbacy of Abelard at Saint-Gildas serves as a testament to his strength as a thinker but weakness as a practical leader, illustrating the deep contrast between his intellectual authority and his inability to wield institutional power.

The Jurchens invade again in 1127, capturing not only the Song capital at Kaifeng, but the retired emperor Huizong, his successor Qinzong, and most of the Imperial court, remnants of which flee south, including much of the populace and communities such as the Kaifeng Jews.

(It is surmised that a small community of Jews, most likely from Persia or India, had arrived either overland or by a sea route, and settled in the Sung capital, a cosmopolitan city on a branch of the Silk Road.)