Category: Bible Timeline Chart

In 1811, a lawyer and amateur historian named Henry Brackenridge “discovered” the Cahokia mounds and wrote a detailed account of the place to a friend, then president Thomas Jefferson. His discovery, however, was largely ignored by the American public even after his accounts of the site were published in newspapers. Interest for it was only revived in the second half of the twentieth century. Over the years, many of the Cahokia mounds failed to survive the ravages of time after these were flattened to give way to farms, houses, and shops. Luckily, a sizable number of these mounds still exist to provide valuable information about the place called Cahokia, as well as the people who once lived there. Cahokia is recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History around 1200 AD.

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History

Cahokia was an ancient Mississippian culture and place that flourished between 1000 and 1400 along the banks of the Mississippi River near present-day Collinsville, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri. It started as a small agricultural community which depended on the cultivation of corn. It grew over the years to become the largest trade center in the northeastern part of present-day United States. Henry Brackenridge estimated that at its peak, Cahokia was home to around 10,000 to 12,000 people. Recent research concluded that the population ranged from anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000, which meant that Cahokia was one of the largest prehistoric communities in North America. Religious leaders, secular rulers, merchants, farmers and hunters made up the highly organized and complex Cahokian society.

Cahokian Mounds

The hallmark of the Mississippian Culture, particularly in Cahokia, was the presence of the enormous earth mounds. Based on the size of the earthworks built on the site, the Cahokia community possessed a large labor force that built these massive mounds. These were of different shapes and sizes. Some of the most common were the platform mounds. These angled earthworks were usually square or rectangular at the base and featured a flat top where storehouses, temples, royal palaces, or charnel houses once stood.

The height and size of the platform mound were determined by the status of its occupant, so that the higher the mound, the higher the occupant’s status was in society. The largest and tallest of these was the Monks Mound which was named after the Trappist Monks who occupied it in the 19th century. It was constructed at the center of the archeological site as a four-leveled terrace. A palisade or defensive wall enclosed the Monks Mound as well as the other sizable mounds within Cahokia proper (the center of the city). This meant that the Monks Mound was possibly the site of a royal residence. Smaller platform mounds that were occupied by farmers, tradesmen, and merchants surrounded the palisade.

Cone-shaped and ridge-top (hayrick) mounds were also present in Cahokia. The two other types of mounds served different purposes. Cone-shaped mounds had circular bases with softly rounded tops. These often served as burial mounds. Ridge-top mounds featured rectangular bases that rose to a narrow ridge at the top and served as markers for the communities and sometimes, burials grounds.

More than a thousand years ago, a distinct North American culture flourished on the banks of the Mississippi River. This culture was named after the great river which became the lifeline of the people who lived near its banks. It was also the hallmark of the Mississippian culture where the massive earth monuments or mounds were left behind. The mysterious decline of the Mississippian Culture and their abandonment of the flat-topped mound bases for temples appeared on the Bible Timeline Poster with World History in AD 1190.

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Mississippian Culture’s Flat-Topped Mounds

The ancient Mississippians built mounds of different sizes and shapes. Some of the most striking and intriguing were the flat-topped platform mounds. These massive earthworks were usually quadrilateral and circular in shape and were made up of rocks, log mantles, clay, and soil. The largest of these is the Monk’s Mound at Cahokia which covered an area of about six hectares (around 15 acres) at the base and reached a height of up to 30 meters (around 98 feet). Most were built around AD 800 and beyond until the Mississippian culture faded around the twelfth century.

Flat-topped mounds primarily served as bases for temples and mortuary shrines. They were also used as platforms for tribal council meetings and as ceremonial stages. In rare instances, the mounds were used as bases for houses of tribal and religious leaders. The mounds were enlarged over the years as tribal chieftains died and were replaced by another. The areas around the flat-topped platform mounds were restricted to the general population and protected by defensive walls or palisades.

Decline

The end of the construction of these flat-topped mounds came around the twelfth century when the Mississippian Culture underwent a rapid decline. It is possible that over-hunting and deforestation which were worsened by climate change and erosion played a part in the disappearance of the native Mississippians. The invasion of other tribes and the onset of diseases were also possible causes for the collapse of the Mississippian culture. Whatever the reason, the Mississippian flat-topped mounds were largely abandoned when the Europeans arrived in the sixteenth century.

Jerusalem was taken from the city’s Christians rulers by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in 1187 according to the Bible Timeline Chart with World History. The defeat of the Christian rulers in the Battle of Hattin only hastened the fall of Jerusalem. News of Jerusalem’s loss later pushed the rulers of Europe to launch the Third Crusade.

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The Rise of Saladin

The great Muslim ruler Saladin was born Yusuf ibn Najm al-Din Ayyub Salah al-Din. He was one of the most unusual Muslim rulers as he was not an Arab, a Turk, or a Persian. His Kurdish family migrated from Dvin in Armenia and into Tikrit (present-day Iraq) before he was born. His father, Najm al-Din Ayyub, was the warden of Tikrit who saved Zengi, the Turkish ruler of Mosul, when he escaped from the city. His family was later forced to leave Tikrit when his uncle, Shirkuh, killed a man.

Saladin was born during the night that they left Tikrit in 1139. They traveled to Mosul where Zengi (now back as the city’s ruler) welcomed them in payment for his debt. Nur ad-Din, Zengi’s son, succeeded his father several years later. Saladin grew up during a time when European Crusaders flowed into the Holy Land and conquered some territories. He, along with his uncle, served Nur ad-Din after he rose as ruler of Mosul.

In Jerusalem, King Baldwin III died and was succeeded by his younger brother Amalric I in 1163. Eager to enlarge his territory, Amalric attacked Fatimid Egypt which, by that time, had weakened. The more powerful vizier Shawar asked for Nur ad-Din’s help to defend Egypt from Amalric. Nur ad-Din sent Turkish troops he needed and they were led by Shirkuh and his young nephew, Saladin. Together with the Fatimid troops, they defeated Amalric’s soldiers and drove them back to Jerusalem.

Saladin in Egypt and the Collapse of the Fatimid Dynasty

But Shirkuh was an ambitious man, and he wanted Egypt for himself. Shawar quickly realized that the alliance was a mistake, so he offered an alliance to Amalric. Together, they attacked and drove out Shirkuh, Saladin, and the Turkish troops out of Egypt. Shirkuh, however, never forgot about Egypt and his dreams of conquering it. He returned to Egypt with Saladin and the Turkish troops to defeate their enemies in 1167. Shawar, meanwhile, knew that he would not last in his position, so he went to Shirkuh to bargain with him in 1169. Saladin and his men stopped him when he was near the camp, took him somewhere else, and killed him.

Shirkuh ruled Egypt and controlled the Fatimid caliph al-Adid from then on. He did not get to enjoy his new status for long as he died two months later. The rule of Egypt passed to Saladin, after his death. Seven months after he rose as the ruler of Egypt, Saladin faced the threat of a combined Crusader and Byzantine force. He easily toppled this alliance as the Crusaders and the Byzantines were poorly equipped and often fought against each other. He drove their army back to the Holy Land and returned to Egypt to rule on Nur ad-Din’s behalf.

In 1171, Nur ad-Din ordered Saladin to remove the young Fatimid ruler al-Adid so that Egypt would be in Turkish hands. Saladin thought that this was not a good idea at that time but later changed his mind. He finally followed Nur ad-Din’s instruction just as when the caliph became so ill. Caliph al-Adid died not knowing that he was removed from his position and that he was the last of the Fatimids to rule Egypt.

Saladin ruled Egypt from then on. He gradually became so powerful that he began to rule it without paying heed to Nur ad-Din’s orders. For example, he attacked the Crusader castle of Montreal from Egypt while Nur ad-Din closed in on the same castle from the north. He bowed out of this battle and returned to Egypt. He lost Nur ad-Din’s trust because of this, and his former master started his plans to remove Saladin from Egypt. But the Turkish ruler died of throat infection before he could carry out his plans in 1174. His young son, Al-Salih Ismail, was left to rule his kingdom.

Saladin knew this was his chance to wrest the Holy Land and Syria for himself, so he went to Damascus and presented himself as the boy’s guardian. He also married Nur ad-Din’s widow and the young Al-Salih conveniently died in 1181. With the Turkish rulers out of the way, Saladin was now free to rule Syria and Egypt.

Division in the Holy Land

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Baldwin IV the Leper succeeded his father Amalric II as King of Jerusalem. As Baldwin was just a child when his father died, Miles of Plancy stepped up to become his regent. Raymond III of Tripoli and other noblemen challenged his claim as regent. When Miles was killed, his widow married the Lord of Oultrejourdain called Reynald of Chatillon. Reynald had a history of being an all-around troublemaker. His antics would help bring about the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin.

With Miles of Plancy dead, Raymond III of Tripoli was free to arrange the marriage of Baldwin IV’s sister Sybilla to another nobleman. The couple had a son which they named as Baldwin V, but Sybilla’s new husband also died. Their son was later named as his uncle Baldwin IV’s co-ruler, while his mother married another nobleman named Guy of Lusignan.

Between 1177 and 1178, Saladin wore down Baldwin IV’s attempts to strengthen his kingdom. In 1182, Reynald of Chatillon led a raid on a caravan bound for Syria. It angered Saladin as the caravan was under his protection. He decided to attack the Crusader states in the same year. Reynald provoked Saladin once again when he announced his plans of invading Mecca via the Red Sea. Saladin attacked them for the second time in 1183 because of this.

King Baldwin IV knew that he needed to face Saladin in battle. The problem was that he had leprosy. So he allowed his new brother-in-law, Guy of Lusignan, to lead his army into battle. Guy replaced Raymond III of Tripoli as regent, but he and his army did not confront Saladin in battle—a move which made him unpopular in Jerusalem. Baldwin IV removed his brother-in-law as regent and brought back Raymond III of Tripoli. He also announced that his nephew, Baldwin V, would succeed him as king. But the young boy died in 1185, followed by the king a year later.

The throne of Jerusalem was vacant, and both Raymond and Guy fought to occupy it. Guy, Sybilla, and the ever-present Reynald of Chatillon later staged a coup to remove Raymond III as ruler of Jerusalem. Raymond was forced to seek an alliance with Saladin in hopes that he would get Jerusalem back. While he was negotiating with Saladin, however, Reynald of Chatillon raided another Syria-bound caravan. Saladin demanded payment for the damages. Reynald refused and even defied Guy who asked him to pay up.

The Battle of Hattin and the Fall of Jerusalem

Guy knew that this was the last straw for Saladin, so he sent his knights to make peace with Raymond. His strategy failed as Saladin’s men who lurked in Raymond’s territory killed the knights that he sent. In July of the same year, Saladin brought as much as 30,000 soldiers with him and besieged Raymond’s stronghold in Tiberias. Guy and his troops tried to attack Saladin in the Battle of Hattin, but infighting, lack of water, and the unbearable heat of the valley made it hard for them to win.

The Christian forces experienced a crushing defeat in Hattin, and all the noblemen were captured. Saladin treated the Christian noblemen with courtesy, and they were eventually set free. But he singled out Reynald of Chatillon whom he beheaded with his own sword. He also ordered his men to execute all Knight Templars and Hospitallers who joined the battle.

One by one, the cities of the Holy Land surrendered to Saladin’s army, and the refugees were forced to flee to Jerusalem. The holy city’s residents panicked when they heard that Saladin’s troops were headed their way, but Balian of Ibelin arrived and led the defense of the city. On the 20th of September 1187, Saladin and his warriors arrived outside the walls of Jerusalem. Although they were willing to fight, the residents knew that they were no match for the Muslim forces on the other side of the walls.

Balian was forced to negotiate with Saladin to save the city’s residents. Because of Balian’s efforts, Saladin agreed to let Jerusalem’s Christian residents leave the city unharmed. He accepted Jerusalem’s surrender and entered it in victory the same year. The Muslims then removed the cross from the Dome of the Rock. Once again, Jerusalem was in Muslim hands.

Chichen Itza

Founded around 800 AD, the northern lowland Maya city of Chichen Itza continued to flourish even after its southern Maya neighbors had declined around 900 AD. At its peak, Chichen Itza was possibly the largest and densely populated Maya state. But the Maya domination of one of its magnificent cities ended when refugees from the destroyed Toltec city of Tula arrived at its fringes and saw an opportunity to take over. The Toltecs were later driven out of Chichen Itza during 1180 according to the Bible Timeline Chart with World History.

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The Conquerors from Tula

The Toltecs occupied the great city of Tula for less than a century before they were driven out by mysterious forces. The city showed evidence of fire and widespread destruction because of internal strife. It was also possible that external threats, such as climate change and warfare brought the empire down. The Toltecs left the city in the eleventh century and dispersed in neighboring areas while others continued further south into the tropical areas of present-day Mexico. Those who migrated south traveled once again into the Yucatan Peninsula and conquered the great city of Chichen Itza.

The Toltec conquerors left behind traces of their violent domination of the Maya city. Reliefs that showed Toltec warriors besieging the city and violently taking captives were found in Chichen Itza. The Toltec also left behind one of the most distinct signs of their presence: the tzompantli or skull rack. The Toltec introduced the large-scale sacrifice of war captives in Chichen Itza. They commemorated their victory by building a large skull rack displayed on a platform (still intact and can be viewed). They later constructed several Chac Mool statues in Chichen Itza where they placed the hearts of sacrificial victims and hurled captives as human sacrifice in the Sacred Cenote (sacred pool which was the site of pilgrimage and worship during the Maya heyday).

The descendants of the Toltec conquerors who ruled Chichen Itza were later deposed by Hunac Ceel, the ruler of Mayapan, in the late twelfth century. The great Maya city was also largely abandoned during the 1200s, but pilgrims continued to visit the Sacred Cenote even after many of the Chichen Itza inhabitants fled the city.

Muslim-Dominated Spain Between the Tenth and Twelfth Centuries

In 711, a mix of Arab and Berber warriors landed in Spain to remove its Visigoth rulers and proceeded to fold it into the Umayyad realm. They changed its name from Hispania to al-Andalus. The Umayyads’ hold on the caliphate remained strong even after three hundred years of rule. The tenth century was the height of the caliphate’s power but by 1025 al-Andalus was divided into thirty small competing kingdoms called the Taifa (muluk al-tawa’if) that were held by different prominent families. Each family had its own court, and private armies made up of Berbers (native North Africans) and saqaliba (Slavs and other northern warriors). This led to the Almoravids being driven from Zaragoza by King Alfonso I of Aragon during 1118 AD according to the Bible Timeline Chart with World History.

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The Christian north slowly reemerged from obscurity in the eleventh century, but the Iberian Peninsula was still overwhelmingly Muslim. The Muslim Taifas were forced to pay the neighboring Christian kingdoms tributes or indemnities (parias) to ward off their attacks. By 1080, the independent Taifa kingdoms went down from thirty to just nine which included Zaragoza (held by the Hudid family), Seville, Toledo, Badajoz, Almeria, Majorca, Granada, Albarracin, and Alpuente.

The Arrival and Domination of the Almoravids in al-Andalus (1050-1118)

The majority of Morocco’s Berbers practiced Islam since the religion’s arrival in 680 AD. But more than three hundred years later, Abdallah ibn Yasin (a member of the Gazzula Berber tribe who dominated from 1050 to 1059) felt that the Islam the Berbers followed was only superficial. He had traveled across the Strait of Gibraltar before and saw how serious the people of al-Andalus were in practicing Islam. So he imposed a “pure” form of the religion to his followers. This Marrakesh-based movement was called the Almoravid. Just like the Prophet Mohammed before him, ibn Yasin attacked and conquered neighboring tribes which he considered as infidels.

Ibn Yasin died in 1059 AD, but the Almoravid movement had spread to the other parts of Morocco. In the years that followed, these hardy Berbers had conquered the Strait of Gibraltar. The Almoravids’ rise to prominence coincided with the rise of the Castilian king Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile. They united the kingdom after he allegedly had his brother, Sancho the Strong of Leon, assassinated. With Sancho dead, Alfonso now had his brother’s army under his command. With the army came the formidable general El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz). The general conquered Toledo while in service of Alfonso VI, but El Cid turned into a mercenary for the Taifa king of Zaragoza when he was driven out from Alfonso’s court out of jealousy for his accomplishments.

Angered at El Cid’s choice of a new employer, Alfonso attacked the other Taifa kingdoms until he reached Toledo. He conquered the cities of Coria and Toledo between 1079 and 1085. The remaining Taifa kings had no choice except to accept that Alfonso would conquer their kingdoms soon or send an urgent appeal for help to the powerful Almoravids in Morocco. The Almoravids’ leader Yusuf ibn Tashfin agreed to this offer and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar with 12,000 men to help the Taifa kings. Alfonso’s troops and the Taifa kings’ army (along with the Almoravid reinforcements) met in the Battle of Sagrajas (Zallaqa) in 1086. The Castilian king had to retreat from Zaragoza after his troops were defeated in this battle. Although they temporarily repelled Alfonso, the Almoravid-Taifa victory did not have any significant effect on what remained of al-Andalus. The Taifa kings continued to squabble over the next few years. The Taifa kings were also afraid that the Almoravids would eventually wrest their territories away, so they sent ibn Tashfin and his troops on their way home back to Morocco in 1088.

They recrossed the Strait of Gibraltar in November of 1088, but the Taifa kings’ fears proved true when the Almoravids under ibn Tashfin came back to Spain in 1090 as conquerors. They took Granada in 1090, Almeria and Seville in 1091, and Badajoz in 1094. They faced El Cid in Levante but retreated in 1093; El Cid was left to rule Valencia in 1094 until his death in 1099. By 1104, the Almoravids ruled southern Spain except for the Taifa of Zaragoza which was held by the Hudid family. It served as a buffer state between the Christian north and Almoravid south until 1110.

Out of Zaragoza

The Almoravids besieged El Cid’s Valencia stronghold in 1099. The great Spanish hero later died in the city on July 10, 1099. When El Cid’s widow Jimena saw that the defense of Valencia was impossible, she sent an urgent appeal to her cousin, King Alfonso VI, to escort her and her followers out of the city. By 1102, all of El Cid’s followers had left Valencia, while Zaragoza was still held by the Hudid family as an independent Taifa. In 1110, the last Hudid ruler al-Mustain set off in an expedition against the Christians but was killed at Valtierra. His son failed to secure his throne after his father’s death, so an Almoravid ruler named ibn al-Hajj took over Zaragoza on the 30th of May, 1110.

Alfonso brought with him a formidable army when he launched the siege of Zaragoza in May 1118. The overwhelmed Almoravid governor was forced to send an urgent plea to the governor of Valencia for reinforcements. However, the governor of Valencia sent only a few of his men to the besieged city. The Almoravids of Zaragoza were finally driven out of their domain in December 1118.

The Selection of the Pope in the Medieval Period

The Apostle Peter was considered as the first pope of the Catholic Church, but there was no formal process of selection for his successor after his death in the first century. According to tradition, Peter himself appointed his successors. This continued until the third century when Fabian was “elected” as pope after the people witnessed a dove settle on his head. They took this event as a sign that the Holy Spirit favored him, so he was chosen as the pope to succeed the deceased Anterus. This eventually led to the Great Decline of Papacy in 963 AD as recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History.

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Senior priests continued to elect popes thereafter, but the path to succession became complicated during the Medieval Period as some papal candidates, and secular rulers used the election and the position to grab power for themselves. The line between the state and the church was blurred when Pope Gregory the Great became the sole ruler of Rome. This was after the city was abandoned by the Eastern Roman rulers during the invasion of the Lombards. Since then, the pope became the ruler of the city. The papacy then became a much-coveted position when its prominence and power increased.

The Saeculum Obscurum

A new kind of power emerged during the last years of the ninth century up until the middle of the tenth century when the family of Theophylact, the Count of Tusculum, rose to prominence. This period (904 to 963 AD) would be known as Saeculum Obscurum (Latin for ‘the dark age’)—a time when corruption, murder, and lust dominated the papacy. It was also the time of the papacy’s great decline. This followed the domination of the powerful and notorious Roman women of the same family. Namely the Count of Tusculum’s wife Theodora, and her daughters, Marozia and Theodora, which led to the period’s nickname: pornocracy.

This started with the rise of Theophylact I, Count of Tusculum, who first appeared in the deposition of Antipope Christopher in 904 (it was also rumored that Theophylact was involved in the murder of Christopher while he was imprisoned). Together with Alberic I, and the Duke of Spoleto, Theophylact supported the election of Sergius III to succeed Christopher. With Sergius III under their thumbs, Theophylact and Theodora began to appoint themselves the rulers of Rome.

Sergius III was a staunch supporter of his predecessor, Pope Stephen VI. He was one of the bishops who took part in the infamous Cadaver Synod that Stephen assembled in 897 AD against his enemy, Pope Formosus. Stephen was later killed by the angry supporters of Formosus. Sergius reinforced the decrees of the said synod when he acceded as pope in 904 AD. Sergius’ notoriety did not stop there as according to Bishop Liutprand of Cremona, he took Theodora’s daughter Marozia as his mistress and fathered Pope John XI. The Frankish chronicler Flodoard contradicted this with a claim that Marozia’s husband Alberic I of Spoleto fathered John.

All of the eleven popes who succeeded Sergius were either supported by or were members of Marozia’s family. The Popes John XI and John XII were direct descendants of the powerful family. Although their direct domination ended in 963 AD, they would continue to produce five more popes who became powerful until the eleventh century (namely Popes Benedict VII, John XIII, Benedict VIII, John XIX, and Benedict IX). The reign of the eleven popes who succeeded Sergius were brief and unremarkable because of the domination of Marozia’s corrupt son, Alberic II, who proclaimed himself the Prince of the Romans.

The last pope of the Saeculum Obscurum, John XII, was the son of Alberic II. This pope rose at the same time as the German king, Otto I. It seemed that the apple did fall far from the tree, as papal historians consider him as a corrupt and an inept ruler who reportedly kept women at the Lateran Palace. Rumors of his immorality and his disloyalty to Otto I led to his deposition, as well as death in 963 AD under mysterious circumstances.

Empress Theodora, the Iconodule

Empress Theodora, the wife of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos, secretly venerated icons even when she was married to a resolute iconoclast. Just like her female relatives, she kept icons inside her room. Her secret was revealed when a dwarf court jester named Denderis wandered into her room one night. Theodora had brought out her icons, and Denderis asked her what it was after he saw her kissing one. The empress replied that it was only a doll, and when dinner came, Theophilos asked Denderis where he went. The court jester answered that he just came from Theodora’s room and remarked that he saw the empress kissing a doll. It did not take long for Theophilos to realize that what the court jester saw was an icon. He stormed into Theodora’s room and asked for an explanation, but the empress only repeated what she said to Denderis. The emperor readily believed her or he just let the matter pass, and Theodora had the dwarf punished and threatened the next day. The definite decision for worship or veneration of images is recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History at 842 AD.

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Restoration of the Veneration of Pictorial Icons

Theophilos died of dysentery on the 20th of January, 842 AD and as her son Michael III was just an infant. Theodora became the regent along with her uncle the Chief Magister Manuel and the Logothete of the Course Theoktistos. A year after Theophilos’ death, Theodora assembled a council to make a decision on the most important issue at that time: the controversial and unpopular imperial policy of iconoclasm. Her advisers told her that the restoration of the worship of idols was the only way to secure her son’s succession to the Byzantine throne. This was not an easy decision for her as there was a big chance for her husband to be anathematized in this council.

The council, which was presided by the prominent court spiritual adviser Methodius, assembled in March, 843 AD. The council deposed Patriarch John (who was then replaced by Methodius as Patriarch of Constantinople) while leading iconoclastic personalities were anathematized. Iconoclastic bishops and clergy were kicked out of their offices, and they were only allowed to remain if they repented in public. The deceased emperor Theophilos was the only exception thanks to Theodora’s earlier condition that he be exempted from condemnation. The empress later claimed that her husband repented in his deathbed. The veneration of pictures of icons was once again made legal starting in 843 AD. This legitimization did not cover sculptures that represented God, Jesus, and other saints.

Background

The Holy Roman Emperor Otto I was the first monarch to appoint a pope after the rebellious John XII fled Rome with his ally, Adalbert. When he acceded the throne, Otto II continued his father’s policy of hand-picking a pope’s successor.  However, his reign was cut short when he died while campaigning in southern Italy against the Byzantines. He left the throne to his three-year-old son, Otto III. He was then kidnapped by his father’s relative and longtime nemesis, the aptly-named Henry the Quarrelsome, Duke of Bavaria to keep him from being proclaimed as Holy Roman Emperor. Henry took advantage of the absence of the child’s mother, Theophanu, who had traveled to Italy to attend to her husband’s burial. These events led to the rise of Gregory V between 996 – 999 AD according to the Bible Timeline Chart with World History.

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The Duke kept the child away from his family, but the road to the domination of Germany was a rocky path for Henry. He lacked all the necessary backers for his cause. Finally, Lothair IV of Western Francia negotiated with Henry for the child to be returned to his mother. To which Henry agreed after he saw that he would never amass enough supporters from the German nobility. Otto III grew up with his mother Theophanu who served as his first coregent until her death and then by his grandmother Adelaide until he reached 14 years old.

Fresh from his victory over the Slavs, Otto III marched into Italy in 996 AD to crush the rebellion led by Antipope Boniface VII and his allies Crescentius the Elder, Crescentius II, and John Crescentius. They had deposed Pope John XIV, and Boniface VII took over the throne; when he died, the usurper Crescentius II chose John XV as the next pope. When Otto III reached Ravenna, the nobles of Northern Italy agreed to accept and proclaim him as their king. This made Northern Italy (including the territories of the Lombards) a part of Germany. He appointed his cousin, the 24-year old chaplain Bruno, as the new pope after the death of John XV in the same year. The new pope adopted the name Gregory V and started to rule in Rome in 996 AD.

Gregory V

Bruno (Gregory V) was the son of Otto I, the Duke of Carinthia and Marquis of Verona, by his wife, Judith. He was also a grandson of Liutgarde of Saxony, the daughter of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, which made the young pope a cousin of Otto III. His consecration as pope on the 3rd of May, 996 AD was welcomed by the Italians. Papal biographers described him as rich, handsome, and educated. The young pope was also described as eloquent and fluent in Latin, Italian, and German. Pope Gregory was considered to be the first German pope, and in return for his appointment as Bishop of Rome, Gregory crowned the 16-year old Otto III as the new Holy Roman Emperor in front of the Roman nobility.

Gregory V granted privileges to monasteries during his first few days as pope. On the 25th of May, he held a synod in Rome to settle some issues within the church and reinstated Arnulf to the See of Rheims in France. The synod also issued the deposition of Gerbert of Aurillac (the future Pope Sylvester) from the See of Rheims. Gregory V personally consecrated Herluin as the Bishop of Cambria after the conflict between Gerbert and Arnulf stood in the way of his consecration. Gregory V also issued a decree (papal bull) that prohibited any noblemen in his empire from interfering with the properties of the See of Cambrai.

Rebellion of Crescentius II

Gregory V and Otto III had the rebel leader Crescentius II summoned to face the synod. Otto wanted to have Crescentius exiled, but Gregory interceded on his behalf to have him pardoned in a bid to show his compassion and goodwill to the Romans. Otto granted his request, but Gregory paid heavily for this act of mercy later on as Crescentius started a plot against them right after his release. Otto left Italy and returned to Germany—an event that the Romans deeply resented because they felt the Emperor had abandoned them. Crescentius cleverly used their resentment to stoke the fires of rebellion.

As months passed by, Gregory’s suspicions that Crescentius was up to no good intensified. So he pleaded for his cousin to come back and help him. But Otto dismissed his cousin’s fears with a letter telling him that he had ordered the Italian noblemen including the Marquis of Tuscany and the Duke of Spoleto and Camerino to support and protect the pope. By 997 AD, Gregory suspicions were confirmed when Crescentius II launched a rebellion. The pope was unable to counter from of his lack of preparation.

Gregory fled to Pavia and pleaded once again for his cousin to send some military aid to Rome. Otto III probably did not realize the importance of the situation, or he was confident that his army would easily crush the rebellion, but he took his time in reaching Rome. It wasn’t until fourteen months that he and his troops arrived outside the city walls in early 998. By then, Crescentius had already appointed Johannes Philagathos as Pope John XVI (considered as an antipope).

Otto’s army must have been formidable as Crescentius fled to Castel Sant’Angelo and Pope John XVI fled from Rome the moment the troops arrived. Although the Romans simmered with resentment, they had no choice but to open the city gates to Otto III and his troops. Gregory came back from Pavia while Otto stayed for two more months in Rome and later had Crescentius executed for his rebellion. He had the antipope John XVI mutilated and paraded down the streets of Rome as punishment for his part in the dissent. Saint Nilus the Younger interceded for the emperor to save John’s life. The antipope was banished instead to a monastery in Fulda where he spent his last days.

Pope Gregory V died mysteriously on the 4th of February, 999 AD and was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Background

The rise of the Mayors of the Palace pushed the do-nothing (Roi fainéant) Merovingian kings out of the power arena. And according to Charlemagne’s historian Einhard, the last Merovingian king Childeric III was a little more than a peasant by the end of his reign. Childeric’s standard of living had fallen so low that even when he had the title of King of the Franks, he had to be content with a “single country seat that brought him but a very small income. There was a dwelling house upon this, and a small number of servants attached to it, sufficient to perform the necessary offices.” This later led to the rise of Charlemagne to power. He is recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History at the beginning of the 8th century AD.

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On the other hand, Charles Martel, as well as his sons Pepin the Younger and Carloman continued to rule over the vast Frankish domain. Charles Martel divided the Frankish territories between his sons, with Neustria as the domain of Pepin the Short and Carloman as ruler of Austrasia. In 747 AD, Carloman abandoned the role of the Mayor of the Palace, traveled to Rome, and had himself consecrated as a monk. His abdication made Charlemagne’s father, Pepin the Short, the sole ruler of the Frankish lands after he deposed the last of the do-nothing Merovingian kings, Childeric III.

Pepin was not of Merovingian blood, and he needed to legitimize his rule, so he sent envoys to Pope Zachary as a way to request (subtlety) for a justification for the removal of the legitimate Merovingian king. Zachary happily complied with this request as he needed Pepin as an ally against the Lombard king Aistulf who had chipped away some lands previously owned by the Pope in Italy. Zachary sanctioned Pepin’s rule as king of the Franks while Pepin had Childeric tonsured (the shaving of the hair at the crown), had him consecrated as a monk, and sent him to a monastery where he died three or five years later.

Pope Zachary anointed Pepin as king of the Franks in the city of Soissons. When the pope died, his successor Pope Stephen II also appointed Pepin’s sons, Charles and Carloman, as heirs to the Frankish realm. Stephen’s approval of Pepin and his sons’ rule accomplished two purposes: first was to reinforce the Papal-Frankish alliance against the Lombards of Italy and second was to tie Pepin, as well as his descendants, to the idea that they were the rightful Christian kings. Pepin kept his end of the bargain and drove out Aistulf from the papal lands in Italy; in addition, he appointed a minor Lombard nobleman called Desiderius as a puppet ruler of the land. Pope Stephen II also presented a document to Pepin called the “Donation of Constantine” which claimed that Emperor Constantine donated the city of Rome and the surrounding lands to the papacy after Pope Sylvester cured the emperor of leprosy. (The document, in all likelihood, was a forgery, but Pepin conveniently ignored this possibility since both of them benefited from the arrangement.)

Accession as King

Charles (later Emperor Charlemagne) and his brother Carloman acceded the throne when their father died of dropsy in 768 AD. They got rid of the Neustrasian-Austrasian borders and divided their domain from north to south: Charles received the northern portion while his brother ruled the southern part of the Frankish territories. Charles married the daughter of Desiderius but cast her aside after a year of marriage which greatly angered her father. He then sought peace with the Franks’ eastern neighbors by marrying a Swabian lady, which for Desiderius, seemed like adding insult to injury. The Lombard king sought an alliance with Carloman to get rid of Charles, but the southern Frankish king died while they prepared for war against his brother.

Wars and European Expansion

Charlemagne doubled the Frankish territory during his 46-year reign. He and his brother Carloman picked up where their father had left off in the war against Aquitaine and defeated the Aquitanian rebel leader Hunald in 769 AD. The Franks acquired Aquitaine in the same year followed by a campaign against the Lombards—but this time, without his brother who died in 771 AD. The campaign against the Lombards was at the request of the newly-elected Pope Adrian (just like Pope Stephen before him). Charlemagne marched south past the Italian Alps to besiege his former father-in-law Desiderius. Charlemagne’s troops defeated the Lombards in 773 AD and drove the Lombard king’s heir, Adalgis, away from Italy in the same year. He restored the former Lombard lands to the Pope and installed his son, Pepin (formerly Carloman), as king of Italy.

Charlemagne and his troops also subdued the Saxons, their fierce neighbors in the northern frontier, who frequently raided the Frankish border towns. The Franks accused the Saxons of murder, theft, and arson (although the Franks also committed these crimes against the Saxons), but the fact that the Saxons practiced paganism made them the perfect heathen targets for hostilities and conversion by the Christian Franks. The border raids between the two people became a full-blown war in 772 AD. It went on for as long as thirty-two years before the Saxons submitted completely to Charlemagne, who then forced them to convert to Christianity. Like many kings before him, Charlemagne practiced a resettlement program to break the captives’ identity and resettled many Saxons between Gaul and Germany.

Charlemagne won the wars he waged against the Franks’ northern and eastern neighbors, but nothing could have prepared him for that one ill-advised expedition to Al-Andalus (Umayyad Spain) which stained his war record. In 778 AD, envoys sent by a rebel from the newly-formed Umayyad emirate named Sulayman al-Arabi approached Charlemagne and requested him to invade Al-Andalus to get rid of the Umayyad emir Abd al-Rahman. This emir was the sole survivor of a massacre staged by the new Abbasid caliph. He ousted the province’s governor after he arrived in Al-Andalus. Unbeknownst to Charlemagne, al-Arabi had changed his mind while the king and his troops crossed the Pyrenees, and refused to let the Frankish troops enter the city the minute they arrived outside the gates. Charlemagne and his army were forced to camp outside the city for some weeks until he decided that this expedition was useless and commanded his troops to return to Frankish land. He attacked the Vascones (Basques) who lived in the Pyrenees region in his anger and humiliation, but the survivors retaliated and massacred the tail of Charlemagne’s army in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 AD. Many of the Franks’ most important noblemen, such as the king’s steward Eggihard and Roland of Brittany (immortalized in the Song of Roland), marched in the rear and were killed by the Vascones. The Frankish king never ventured south again after the disastrous end of his Al-Andalus adventure.

Charlemagne led his troops to besiege Brittany and wrested the territory from the Bretons in 786 AD. He ordered his troops to march south into Italy and seized the Duchy of Benevento from its duke in 787 AD. He also commanded the Bretons and the Beneventans to send hostages for peace to Aachen (the Frankish capital), as well as a hefty annual tribute.

Liutperga, daughter of King Desiderius of Lombardy and wife of Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria, convinced her husband to avenge her deposed father and challenge the authority of Charlemagne, his overlord. Tassilo made a treaty with the Avars and enlisted their help against the Frankish king. However, the Duke immediately surrendered when Charlemagne responded to this threat by leading his large army into Bavaria. Charlemagne also took some Bavarians, which included Tassilo’s son Theodo, to his court in Aachen as hostages for peace.

He also subdued the Veleti Slavs (Welatabians) who harassed the Frankish allies, the Obodrites, as well as campaigned against the Avars in Pannonia starting in 791 AD. Pepin of Italy led the campaigns against the Avars until the Franks subdued them after seven years of war. The Avars submitted to Charlemagne and converted to Christianity afterward. Charlemagne also subdued the Bohemians in 806 and the Linonians in 808. However, another formidable enemy, the Danes, started to become serious threats around this time. The Danes started out as pirates led by King Godfred. They sailed south and terrorized the Frankish coast for much of the 9th century. These marauders had planned to attack Frankish territories, but Godfred’s untimely death before they could reach Aachen in 810 AD postponed this raid.

Foreign Relations

Enemies surrounded the Frankish Empire during much of Charlemagne’s reign, but Alfonso II of Galicia and Asturias recognized him as an ally against the Muslim Emirate of Cordoba. Charlemagne and the Abbasid caliph Harun Al-Rashid—two of the richest and most powerful men at that time—also established an amicable diplomatic relationship. The diplomatic relationship between the two empires was so good that Harun sent Charlemagne exotic gifts through his ambassadors, including a water clock and an elephant. The Byzantine rulers Irene, Nicephorus, Michael, and Leo eyed him with wariness and simmered with resentment for taking away the role of Holy Roman Emperor. This did not stop them from actively pursuing an alliance with the powerful Frankish king.

Carolingian Revival and Legacy

Charlemagne was a man of great ambition, and although his reign was far from peaceful, he restored relative stability to Europe. This allowed learning, culture, and religion to flourish in his court. The Carolingian revival did not start during Charlemagne’s rule, but his grandfather Charles Martel made contacts with surrounding kingdoms and exposed his court to the leading intellectuals of his time. This likely made an impression to the young prince. The presence of the intellectuals planted a seed in Charlemagne’s life. While he was a warrior at heart, he embraced the scholarly life by learning and reading Latin.

He had read and greatly admired St. Augustine’s the City of God, and invited Anglo-Saxon and Italian scholars to learn and work in his court. The revival spilled over to the Carolingian coinage, art (especially manuscript illustration), architecture, liturgical texts, and sermons. He also implemented educational reforms in grammar, reading, and training of scribes. One of his most important legacies to the Western world was the development of the Carolingian minuscule which was a script that became a standard in writing the Latin text. The development of the Carolingian minuscule revolutionized manuscript writing, and the standardization of the letters made it easy for priests, government officials, and scholars to read many Medieval texts.

Death

Charlemagne divided his kingdom between his three eldest sons in 806 AD. Two of them died between 810 and 811 AD which left only Louis the Pious of Aquitaine alive at this point. He crowned Louis as the next emperor in 813 AD, but the old emperor fell ill in the same year. He died of pleurisy on January, 814 AD and was buried on the same day in the Aachen Cathedral.

The Hohokam people started their migration out of Mexico into present-day Arizona in 300 BC. They settled in the northwestern portions of the Sonoran desert, particularly the Salt-Gila River basin. This was an area that received a relatively stable amount of rainfall. Which was enough to support a diverse ecosystem. Archaeologists christened this stage as the Pioneer Period (300 BC-500/700 AD). It was followed by the Colonial Period (500/700-900 AD) in which the Hohokam people expanded their territories and their influence within Arizona. The Hohokam people expanded their settlements around 800 AD, which is where it is recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History.

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The Hohokam started to pour out of their core settlements in the Salt-Gila River basin during the Colonial Period. They did not wander too far from their original settlements. The migrants settled in the nearby Verde Valley in the north, the Gila Valley in the east, and the Santa Cruz and San Pedro Valleys in the South. These areas had one thing in common: they all had the same favorable environment similar to the Salt-Gila River basin that allowed the Hohokam to thrive in an arid region.

The Colonial Period was characterized by the disappearance of large pit-houses they built during the Pioneer Period and the appearance of the Mesoamerican ball courts and capped trash mounds. This period also saw the widespread cultivation of corn, squash, barley, tobacco, beans, and cotton which thrived because of the Hohokam’s construction and extension of their irrigation canals. They also prized some wild plants such as the prickly pear, yucca, agave, mesquite, and the saguaro cactus. Rabbits, deer, antelopes, badgers, turkeys, and foxes were important sources of protein, while domesticated dogs served as the Hohokams’ companions.