The Rise of Tomar and the Knights…

Wanyan Wulu is a grandson of the founder of the Jin dynasty, Wanyan Aguda, and the son of the famous early-Jin general Wanyan Zongfu.

Wulu's father had died when the boy was just twelve years old, and he has grown up under the influence of his mother, who had come from a Sinicized Bohai gentry family from Liaoyang.

After her husband's death, Wulu's mother had chosen to become a nun instead of remarrying one of her husband's relatives, as is the Jurchen custom.

Thanks to his mother and her relatives, Wulu has received a good Chinese education, and has as good a knowledge of Chinese classics as any Chinese emperor.

Wulu is said to have also been greatly influenced by the wife he had had before becoming emperor.

Her birth name was Wulinda.

She had advised Wulu to be patient and to pretend to be loyal to his cousin, the then reigning Emperor Hailing Wang (also known as Wanyan Liang).

Hailing Wang had admired his cousin's wife and in 1151 called her to his inner court, but she had committed suicide.

This event resulted in a deep enmity between the two cousins.

When in 1161 Emperor Hailing Wang invaded the Southern Song to reunify China under the Jurchen rule, he had also sent agents to assassinate many of his own relatives and thus to cement his power within the Jin state.

Wulu, also on this hit list, had raised a rebellion against Emperor Hailing Wang.

The rebellion had been supported by many Jurchen officers and aristocrats dissatisfied with Hailing Wang's policy of cultural Sinicization and administrative centralization, and the human cost of Hailing Wang's southern adventure.

The first military officer to support the rebellion was said to be Wanyan Mouyan.

Hailing, after losing the Battle of Caishi against the Song, had been assassinated by his own disaffected officers at the end of 1161.

Wulu has been able to become the new ruler of the empire without actually fighting Hailing Wang.

Once on the throne, Wulu—who from now on will be known to the posterity as Emperor Shizong—reverses Hailingwang's plan for invading Southern Song, as well as his domestic Sinicization policies.

Although conversant with Chinese culture himself, Shizong thinks that the Jurchens' strength is in maintaining their "simple and sincere” culture, and will often attribute Hailing Wang's defeat to the latter's wholesale abandonment of it.

He isn't opposed to Chinese culture per se—in fact, he claims at one point that the "natural and honest" Jurchen way of life is much like what the ancient Chinese sages had taught—but he thinks that merely reading the classics without putting their ideas into practice is counterproductive.

During Shizong's reign, he confiscates large areas of unused land and land that had been grabbed by a few large Jurchen landowners, and redistributes it to the Jurchen settlers in North China.

Still, many Jurchen's prefer not to work their land plots, but lease them to Chinese farmers, and engage in heavy drinking instead.

The emperor criticizes his people for losing their martial spirit and military skills, such as archery and riding.

To give an example to his subjects, Shizong makes hunting an annual royal activity in 1162, and until 1188 he will go hunting almost every autumn and winter.

He likes archery and ball games as well.

As part of his promotion of the Jurchen culture and Jurchen language, soon after ascending the throne Shizong starts a program of translating Chinese classics into Jurchen.

The Jurchen version of the Chinese Classic of History (Shang shu) wil lbe first to be published; by the end of the Dading era, many other Chinese classics will have become available in Jurchen as well.

The present Beisi Pagoda in Suzhou dates to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) (with renovations in following eras), but the historical site of construction for the pagodas dates back seventeen hundred years.

A Buddhist pagoda built during the reign of Sun Quan in the third century originally stood at the site (in honor of his wet nurse), along with another pagoda built during the Liang Dynasty (502-557).

The current design of the pagoda structure is made between the years 1131 and 1162, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

The base of the pagoda has an octagonal frame, and the tower rises nine stories in a total height of seventy-six meters (two hundred and forty-nine feet).

The pagoda was once eleven stories tall, but was damaged and reduced to nine stories.

its double eaves and flying corners are similar to that of the Liuhe Pagoda found in Hangzhou.

Its base and outside walls are made of brick, the balustrades made of stone, and the eaves and banisters encircling the structure are made of wood.

Patronage and construction for the Song era pagoda had been headed by the Buddhist monk Dayuan.

However, the pagoda will be burnt down by fire towards the end of the Song Dynasty and rebuilt during the Ming.

Song Emperor Gaozong, following the successful defense of Nanjing, signs a new treaty with the Jin in 1162.

King Stephen III has escaped to Pozsony by the time Ladislaus, his uncle arrives in Székesfehérvár and is proclaimed king.

Lukas, Archbishop of Esztergom, who remains loyal to the young king, denies Ladislaus' coronation, however; he is therefore crowned in July 1162 by Mikó, Archbishop of Kalocsa.

On the occasion of his coronation, Ladislaus grants Tercia pars Regni (i.e., one third of the Kingdom of Hungary) to his brother, Stephen.

As Archbishop Lukas still denies the legitimacy of Ladislaus' rule and excommunicates him, Ladislaus has the Archbishop arrested.

Ladislaus sets Archbishop Lukas free on December 25, 1162, at the request of Pope Alexander III, but the prelate does not want to absolve the king.

Ladislaus is the second son of King Béla II of Hungary and his wife, Helena of Raška.

He was only a baby when his mother introduced him and his brother, Géza, to the barons assembled in Arad in order to persuade them to massacre her husband's opponents, which he did at the age of four.

After the occupation of Bosnia, his father had named Ladislaus the duke of the province in 1137, although the province had been governed by the administrators appointed by the king.

When King Béla II died on February 13, 1141, Ladislaus' brother, Géza II, had ascended the throne.

In 1152, the king had organized a separated ducal household for Ladislaus and their younger brother, Stephen.

Géza II had wanted to ensure the succession of his son Stephen; consequently, his relationship with his brothers had deteriorated.

In 1157, Duke Stephen had tried to organize a conspiracy against the king supported by their maternal uncle, Beloš, but Géza had overcome them and Duke Stephen had fled to the court of the Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.

In 1159, Stephen had again conspired against Géza II but, following his failure, he had joined Ladislaus in Constantinople.

In the imperial court of Constantinople, Ladislaus, in contrast to his brother, had not wanted to surrender totally to Manuel I Komnenos, and had refused to marry a niece of the Emperor.

When Emperor Manuel was informed that King Géza II had died on May 31, 1162 and his son Stephen III had been crowned, he decided to begin a campaign against Hungary in order to have his niece's husband, Duke Stephen, ascend the throne.

On hearing the Emperor's demand, the Hungarian barons send an embassy to his camp and offer to accept Ladislaus' rule pursuant to the Hungarian custom, which gives precedence to the eldest male member of the royal family over a deceased king's son.

The Emperor accepts the barons' offer and sends Ladislaus to Hungary.

The Yazidi are a Kurdish-speaking people who adhere to a branch of Yazdanism that blends elements of Mithraism, pre-Islamic Mesopotamian religious traditions, Christianity and Islam.

Their principal holy site is in Lalish, northeast of Mosul.

The Yazidis' own name for themselves is Êzidî or Êzîdî or, in some areas, Dasinî (the latter, strictly speaking, is a tribal name).

Some scholars have derived the name Yazidi from Old Iranic yazata (divine being), but most say it is a derivation from Umayyad Caliph Yazid I (Yazid bin Muawiyah), revered by the Yazidis as an incarnation of the divine figure Sultan Ezi.

Yazidis, themselves, believe that their name is derived from the word Yezdan or Êzid "God".

The Yazidis' cultural practices are observably Kurdish, and almost all speak Kurmanjî (Northern Kurdish), with the exception of the villages of Bashiqa and Bahazane, where Arabic is spoken.

Kurmanjî is the language of almost all the orally transmitted religious traditions of the Yazidis.

Thus, religious origins are somewhat complex.

The religion of the Yazidis is a highly syncretic one: Sufi influence and imagery can be seen in their religious vocabulary, especially in the terminology of their esoteric literature, but much of the mythology is non-Islamic.

Their cosmogonies apparently have many points in common with those of ancient Persian religions.

Early writers attempted to describe Yazidi origins, broadly speaking, in terms of Islam, or Persian, or sometimes even pagan religions; however, publications since the 1990s have shown such an approach to be overly simplistic.

The origin of the Yazidi religion is now usually seen by scholars as a complex process of syncretism, whereby the belief system and practices of a local faith had a profound influence on the religiosity of adherents of the ʻAdawiyya Sufi order living in the Kurdish mountains, and caused it to deviate from Islamic norms relatively soon after the death of its founder, Shaykh ʻAdī ibn Musafir (Kurdish Şêx Adî), who is said to be of Umayyad descent.

He had settled in the valley of Laliş (some thirty-six miles northeast of Mosul) in the early twelfth century.

Şêx Adî himself, a figure of undoubted orthodoxy, enjoys widespread influence.

He dies in 1162, and his tomb at Laliş become a focal point of Yazidi pilgrimage.

Queen Melisende had died in 1161; her son, King Baldwin III, dies on February 10, 1163 in Beirut.

It is rumored that he had been poisoned in Antioch by pills given to him by his Syrian Orthodox doctor.

"As soon as the king had taken the pills," says William of Tyre, "he was seized with a fever and dysentery which developed into consumption from which he was never able to obtain relief or help."

Baldwin on the way home had remained in Tripoli for a few months, then continued to Beirut where he finally succumbed to his illness.

As William says, "For eight successive days, while the funeral procession moved from Beirut to Jerusalem, lamentation was unrestrained and grief was renewed almost hourly."

Theodora, now queen-dowager, retires to Acre.

She is still only sixteen years old; their marriage has been childless.

Baldwin is succeeded by his brother, Amalric I.

Jews and Christians in Granada join forces in 1162 in an unsuccessful rising against the ruling Almohads, who permit only converts to Islam to live in the city.

Ibn Mardanish, ruler of the Moorish kingdom of Murcia and an important leader of the opposition to the Almohads during the 1150s, engages Almohad forces in 1162 near Granada, but his forces suffer defeat.

Pope Alexander III had canonized Edward the Confessor 1161 and had almost immediately been confronted by antipope Victor IV, who, created by Frederick in 1159, forces Alexander to take refuge in France for part of 1162.

The Lombard cities will not accept the verdict of the Diet of Roncaglia, and it has to be enforced by war.

Imperial forces dominate prior to the true unification of the Lombard League (1167), and the city of Milan is razed to the ground in 1162, its inhabitants scattered among four villages.

Post destructionem Mediolani ("after the destruction of Milan"), the cities come to understand the value of a proper alliance.