Statutes of Kilkenny

Statutes of Kilkenny

In 1366 c.e. the Anglo-Irish parliament met in Kilkenny and produced a body of royal decrees that became known as the Statutes of Kilkenny. The statutes aimed to prevent English colonists living in Ireland from adopting Irish culture and mandated that the Irish conform to English customs before they could obtain certain social, legal, and religious rights.

In particular, the statutes prohibited marriage between English and Irish; ordered the English to reject Irish names, customs, and law; prohibited the Irish from holding positions in English churches; and limited the mobility of peasant laborers. The statutes also sought to prevent the colonists from waging war without the consent of the English Crown.

Penalties for noncompliance were severe and included death, loss of property, and excommunication. Although they were not ultimately successful, the Statutes of Kilkenny foreshadowed the continuously troubled relationship between England and Ireland in the following centuries.


England’s involvement with Ireland followed from the Norman (French) defeat of the English at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. After occupying England the Normans’ proximity to Ireland naturally led to involvement with their neighboring country. Ironically an Irishman helped pave the way for English occupation.

In 1166 the defeated Irish leader Dermot MacMurrough fled to England to seek allies. To gain support, Dermot offered his Irish inheritance to an Anglo-Norman lord, Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow. Strongbow consequently invaded and defeated the Irish high king, Rory O’Connor.

King Henry II of England arrived in 1171 and gained the allegiance of Strongbow and many of the Irish rulers. However before returning to England he was unable to ensure a peaceful coexistence between the Irish and the colonists from England. By 1360 Dublin and the surrounding areas (later called the English Pale) were under the control of the descendants of En glish colonists, the Anglo-Irish; land beyond the Pale was generally free from direct English control.

Lionel of Clarence, son of King Edward III and lieutenant of Ireland, summoned the 1366 parliament in an effort to reclaim English lands in Ireland. The Statutes of Kilkenny dealt with three distinct groups: the Anglo-Irish colonists known as the “English by blood” or “middle nation”; the “English by birth,” often either imported English administrators or absentee lords who ruled their Irish estates from England; and the native Irish. In addition to revealing aspects of the relationship between the ruling English and subordinated Irish, the Statutes of Kilkenny show internal divisions between the English groups.

In the two decades prior to 1366 rebellious Anglo-Irish colonists had become an increasing masalah for England. English taxation, absentee English lordship alongside demands for protection of English interests, and close contact with Irish culture lessened Anglo-Irish allegiance to the Crown. The Black Death of the mid-14th century and the Hundred Years’ War with France may also have greatly reduced the influx of English immigrants, making the colonists more susceptible to Irish influences.

The statutes’ attempts to uproot Irish elements in the Anglo-Irish sought to create not only distance from the native Irish, but also a greater sense of connection between the Anglo-Irish and those born in England. The statute prohibiting England-born colonists from discriminating against Anglo-Irish colonists shows that such divisions must have often occurred.

The statutes also placed restrictions on native Irish living in English-controlled areas: Irish men and women were not allowed to participate in English churches, Irish minstrels were forbidden among the English, and common laborers were forbidden to travel without permission.

Yet in order to promote peace in lands under direct English control, the statutes also granted limited protections to loyal Irish. English authorities mandated a warning period before enforcement of selected statutes, forbade the English to war against the Irish without consent of the Crown, and warned against unlawful imprisonment of the Irish for another man’s debt. In this way, English forces could focus their military presence on the greater threat of the outlying Irish.

Statutes concerning the native Irish followed a long line of prior legislation. In 1297 one of the earliest Irish statutes ordered English colonists to shun Irish dress and hairstyles; in 1310 religious houses were told to deny entrance to Irishmen; a 1351 ordinance prohibited Brehon law and Irish-English alliances; and in 1360 limitations were placed on Irish holders of municipal and religious offices. Yet the Statutes of Kilkenny did not prevent Anglo-Irish colonists from being affected by Irish culture and custom.

They instead showed the inability of the English colonists to subordinate Ireland successfully. Although the statutes remained in effect for centuries, historical records indicate that Irish and English alike overrode them in the decade following the 1366 parliament. The Statutes of Kilkenny now form part of both the historical record of colonization and the English-Irish conflict that continues into the 21st century.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was the son of John Chaucer, a prosperous wine merchant, and Agnes de Copton. Around 1355 his fairly wealthy parents secured a position for the young Geoffrey as a page in a household of royal rank, that of Prince Lionel, the earl of Ulster, the future duke of Clarence and son of Edward III.

This provided a suitable environment to cultivate their son’s talents as he was exposed to the world of aristocracy and developed an appreciation for manners of the court. Chaucer was known for his keen observation of his surroundings. In such a setting, he would have also acquired knowledge of French and Latin, and he made his first acquaintance with his future patron, John of Gaunt.

After serving as a page Chaucer joined military service and fought in France. In 1360 he was captured but was released upon payment of ransom by Edward III. From 1374 to 1386 Chaucer was a customs controller in the port of London. It was an important post as the king’s revenue came mainly from customs duties.

Later he became a clerk of the King’s Works. In 1367 he became a yeoman in the king’s household and two years later was promoted to esquire. Chaucer married Philippa Roet in 1366, the sister of the mistress and future wife of his patron, John of Gaunt. Philippa Roet served the queen as a lady-in-waiting. Their marriage lasted until her death in 1387.


In his work for the king, Chaucer engaged in diplomatic missions to France, Italy, and Spain—centers of learning and literary production far more renowned than London at the time. It was in Italy that he met Giovanni Boccaccio, the Italian novelist, whose writings he admired. Not surprisingly, continental European influences are found in his works.

Early in his career Chaucer displayed a tendency to adopt the French style. He was heavily influenced by French works such as the Roman de la Rose, an allegory about love written in eight-syllable couplets by two poets—Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. In 1369 Chaucer wrote The Book of the Duchess, likely for John of Gaunt’s first wife, Blanche, who died in the same year.

While keeping the French influence, Chaucer began to be influenced by Italian authors such as Dante Alighieri and Boccaccio. One of his works, Troilus and Criseyde, was in fact based on Boccaccio’s Filostrato. Boccaccio provides the basis for four of Chaucer’s characters in his most famous work The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer died on October 25, 1400. His body was buried in Westminster Abbey and was later moved to Poets’ Corner at the east aisle of the south transept.

The 14th century was a golden period when the literary arts flourished in England. During this masa known as the Middle Ages, literature in the English language enjoyed an unprecedented popularity. The English language became a source of pride for the English people.

The new status accorded to the language was due in no small part to Chaucer’s choice of the English language as the worthy medium of his own artistic expression. The intellectual milieu during the Middle Ages was very much characterized by philosophical concerns provided by Christianity. Christian allegory thus became a major feature of medieval literature.

Allegory is polysemous, in that multiple levels of meaning can be discerned. Sets of meanings are also intricately connected with other sets of meanings, creating a text that is significantly rich. All the meanings relate to a central theme, which is repeatedly alluded to in the text. Chaucer succeeded in marrying philosophical ruminations in a creative manner.

Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales between 1387 and 1400 during the aftermath of the Black Death and the Peasants’ Revolt. It is a collection of 24 tales recounted by different characters who are pilgrims. He adopts a powerful satirical style in writing The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer draws upon contemporary persons commonly found in medieval society, so his audience would be familiar with them.

Chaucer’s literary style was revolutionary in that he incorporated local dialects in his writing, such as in the “Miller’s Tale,” part of The Canterbury Tales. In the “Knight’s Tale,” the miller, who speaks in a drunken style, actually interrupts the protagonist. As a complex collection of stories of various characters from all social strata, male and female, The Canterbury Tales forms a valuable view of the workings of society during this volatile period in history.

Epidemics in The Americas

Epidemics in The Americas

The European encounter with the Americas after 1491 set in motion a demographic catastrophe among indigenous peoples across the hemisphere, specifically epidemic and pandemic diseases against which native peoples had no biological immunities, and a crucial component of the larger Columbian exchange between the Old World and New.

The precise characteristics and magnitude of this catastrophe remain a matter of scholarly debate. Population estimates for the Americas on the eve of the encounter vary widely. The most reputable estimates fall between 40 and 100 million for the hemisphere as a whole, a population reduced by an estimated overall average of 75 to 95 percent after the first 150 years of contact, with tremendous variations in time and space.

Colonial Latin America and The Circum-Caribbean

Central Mexico is the most intensively studied region regarding the impact of European diseases on indigenous demography. Where in 1520 there lived an estimated 25 million native peoples, in 1620 there lived some 730,000—a decline of 97 percent, attributed overwhelmingly to disease.


Similar catastrophes unfolded across the hemisphere. The most precipitous decline is thought to have occurred in the Caribbean, where the precontact indigenous population of several millions had been all but exterminated by the 1550s.

Such diseases spread rapidly in all directions, preceding and accompanying military incursions, weakening indigenous polities, and facilitating the process of conquest and colonization in the Caribbean, Mexico, the Andes, Brazil, New England, and beyond. This process of demographic catastrophe, an unintended consequence of the European encounter with the Western Hemisphere, affected every aspect of the subsequent history of the Americas.

In the English-speaking world, the predominant view for centuries regarding Indian depopulation in postconquest Spanish America centered on the “Black Legend” of Spanish atrocities, a view most forcefully articulated and propagated by the Spanish bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas in the 1500s.

By the early 2000s, a scholarly consensus had emerged that the principal cause of indigenous population declines was in fact pandemic and epidemic diseases. The exact sequence and timing varied greatly from place to place. Every locale had its unique history of demographic decline, with periodic outbreaks of various pathogens: smallpox, measles, typhus, influenza, yellow fever, diphtheria, bubonic plague, malaria, and others.

Far and away the deadliest killer was smallpox, the first documented New World outbreak occurring in the Caribbean in 1518. Spanish friars, reporting to King Charles V in January 1519, estimated that the disease had already killed nearly one-third of Hispaniola’s Indians and had spread to Puerto Rico. In these earliest outbreaks, influenza probably accompanied the spread of smallpox.

By the early 1520s, three principal disease vectors, mainly of smallpox and influenza, were spreading rapidly through indigenous populations. One had entered through northern South America near the junction with the Central American isthmus, and by the late 1520s had spread far into the interior along the northern Andes.

The second had entered along the gulf coast of Mexico, from Yucatán to present-day Veracruz, and by mid-1521 was decimating the population of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. By the late 1520s, this second vector had bifurcated, spreading south into Central America and north into western and northern Mexico, where it was poised to sweep farther north.

The third disease vector was launched with the first exploratory expeditions along the Pacific coast of Central America and Peru, beginning in the early 1520s. By the late 1520s, this third vector had also bifurcated, spreading north through Nicaragua and Guatemala, and in less than a decade racing 3,000 miles south down the Andes, reaching as far as southern Bolivia.

A fourth set of vectors began spreading inland from the Brazilian coast from the beginning of permanent settlements in the early 1550s. By the late 1550s and early 1560s, the epidemics had spread along much of the Brazilian coast and were sweeping into the interior.

Widespread death from disease weakened indigenous polities, engendering profound cultural crises and facilitating processes of conquest and colonization. The most dramatic and extensively documented such instance occurred in Tenochtitlán during the conquest of Mexico, where a major smallpox outbreak coincided with the Spanish invaders’ siege of the island city.

From May to August 1521, as many as 100,000 of the city’s inhabitants succumbed to the disease. The smallpox virus typically enters the victim’s respiratory tract, where it incubates for eight to 10 days, followed by fever and general malaise, then the eruptions of papules, then vesicles, and finally large weeping pustules covering the entire body, followed soon after by death.

Scholars agree that this smallpox epidemic, occurring just as their empire and capital city were under assault by the Spanish and their Indian allies, fatally weakened the Aztec capacity to mount an effective resistance.

A similar if distinctive dynamic is thought to have unfolded before and during the conquest of Peru. Again, the timing of the Spanish invasion could not have been more propitious. Less than a decade before the incursion of Francisco Pizarro in 1532, the vast Inca Empire was in relative tranquility under a unified ruling house.

Around 1525–28, at the height of the Inca Huayna-Capac’s northern campaign against recalcitrant indigenous polities around Quito, an unknown pestilence, probably smallpox, ravaged the northern zones. During this epidemic, the Inca was struck by fever and died.

Spanish chronicler Pedro de Cieza de León recorded that the first outbreak of the disease around Quito killed more than 200,000 people. Other chroniclers offered similar descriptions of a wave of pestilence in the northern districts during this same period.

Huayna Capac’s death set in motion a crisis of dynastic succession and civil war that Pizarro deftly exploited to the Spaniards’ advantage. Contributing to the spread of the disease was the Andean tradition of venerating the mummified corpses, as thousands of indigenous Andeans came into contact with the dead Inca and those who ritually had prepared his body.

During this early period, more politically decentralized zones including the Central American isthmus, the Maya regions, northern South America, and the Brazilian coast and hinterlands were also severely stricken, facilitating Spanish and Portuguese incursions less by exacerbating elite divisions or shattering cosmologies than by the sheer magnitude of the deaths.

Almost everywhere that Europeans intruded, indigenous polities, societies, and cultures became profoundly weakened by maladies with no precedent and no cure, as emphasized repeatedly in scores of locales by a diversity of Spanish, mestizo, and indigenous chroniclers.

The second major pandemic to sweep large parts of the Americas was measles, beginning in the early 1530s. From the Caribbean islands the pathogen quickly spread to Mesoamerica, South America, and Florida, causing mortality rates estimated at 25–30 percent. Outbreaks of bubonic and pneumonic plague began erupting around the same time.

In the mid-1540s, came another series of waves of epidemics across large parts of Mesoamerica and the Andes. The precise bacterial or viral agents responsible for the “great sickness” that swept Central Mexico in the 1540s remain the subject of debate, though the evidence suggests typhus, pulmonary plague, mumps, dysentery, or combinations of these.

There is little disagreement that the death rates thus generated were extremely high, as upward of a million natives in New Spain succumbed to the collection of epidemic diseases in the 1540s. By this time, bubonic plague, typhus, and other pathogens had spread to the Pueblo Indians in the Southwest and to Florida.

The spread of epidemic diseases swept inland from Florida beginning in the 1520s and perhaps earlier. The odyssey of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his small party of shipwreck survivors across the U.S. South and Southwest (1528–37) is thought to have introduced numerous diseases to the native inhabitants.

In particular, the expedition of Hernando De Soto from Florida through the North American Southeast to the Mississippi River Valley (1538–42) is believed to have wreaked tremendous ecological damage, introducing previously unknown pathogens across large parts of the interior.

By the time of sustained European encounters with these regions, beginning in the 1680s, the dense populations and many towns and settlements described by De Soto more than a century before had vanished, leaving behind a landscape largely denuded of its human inhabitants.

Local and regional studies show endless variations on these more general themes, with wave after wave of epidemic diseases wreaking demographic havoc for centuries after the initial encounter. In Brazil, the creation of numerous disease vectors along the coast from the 1550s to the 1650s, diseases often carried by African slaves, generated repeated epidemics of smallpox, typhus, and other pathogens that dramatically reduced populations in the interior.

The disease chronology of northwestern Mexico in the first half of the 17th century illustrates the more general pattern of repeated outbreaks, which in this case were recorded in 1601–02, 1606–07, 1612–15, 1616–17, 1619–20, 1623–25, 1636–41, 1645–47, and 1652–53.

In his classic study of the postconquest Valley of Mexico, Charles Gibson recorded major disease outbreaks every few years, with 50 major epidemics from 1521 to 1810, an average of a major epidemic every six years.

Colonial North America

The Pilgrims in Massachusetts and the first Europeans to settle on the coast of Maryland and Virginia found a nearly empty country. Almost nine-tenths of the former Native American populations had been wiped out by smallpox in an epidemic of 1618–19.

John Winthrop, the leader of colonial Massachusetts, commented in 1684: “For the native, they are neere all dead of the small Poxe, so as the Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess.” This Puritan leader and others felt that this disease was God’s plan to make land available for Europeans by eliminating the Native Americans who had previously occupied it.

Smallpox followed the priests, explorers, traders, soldiers, and settlers from Europe into the heartland of the North American continent. The Hurons were affected in 1640, the Iroquois in 1662. In British North America, smallpox indirectly promoted the growth of institutions of higher learning. Wealthy colonial families sent their sons to England to educate them.

Many of these young men, born in North America, did not have the immunity to smallpox their fellow students in England possessed. Enough of these young men from the colonies contracted and died from smallpox while being educated in Europe that colonial North Americans founded their own colleges, including Harvard, William & Mary, and Yale.

In some cases, smallpox was spread to North American indigenous peoples intentionally, as a form of germ warfare. During the American Revolution, American troops were victims of the disease during a campaign in Quebec. George Washington successfully had the susceptible American troops inoculated. British troops, who had grown up in England and Ireland, had immunity to the disease.

By the time George Vancouver explored the Pacific coasts of what would become Washington State and the Province of British Columbia, he found entire villages of Native Americas in ruins and deserted with skeletons lying all around. By the 20th century, smallpox had wiped out as much as 90 percent of the preconquest Native American population.

In sum, the impact of hitherto unknown European diseases on indigenous societies unleashed a demographic cataclysm across the Western Hemisphere, representing one of the most important chapters in the history of the postconquest Americas, whose characteristics and impacts scholars are still grappling to comprehend.

Christian States of Spain

Christian States of Spain

When the Moors from Morocco invaded Spain in 711, they easily managed to capture most of the Iberian Peninsula with the exception of the area around the Asturian Mountains in the north. When they did get around to attacking that region in 718, the Christians defeated the Moors at the Battle of Covadonga, near Asturias.

The Moors decided to leave that part of Spain unconquered, marking what became the first battle in what the Spanish called the “Reconquista,” or Reconquest of Spain for Christendom. Over the next centuries several Christian kingdoms emerged in Spain, notably Asturias, León, Castile, Aragon, and Navarre.

These gradually expanded and eventually managed to defeat the Moors using their alliances. They ejected them from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, when Isabella, heir to the throne of Castile, and Ferdinand II, king of Aragon, captured Granada, the last Muslim possession on the peninsula.


Kingdom of Asturias

The kingdom of Asturias was, in origin, a Visigoth kingdom of Spain created by Pelayo (Pelagius), a grandson of King Chindaswinth, who had been defeated by the Moors. Pelayo established his capital at Cangas de Onis, securing his independence with a victory at the Battle of Covadonga. The Moors, rather than sending more soldiers into Asturias, headed into France and in 732 were defeated at the Battle of Tours.

For the next century the Moors were on the defensive and this allowed Pelayo and his successors to rebuild their strength. Pelayo’s son, Favila, became king on his father’s death in 737 but died two years later in a boar hunt. He had no son so his brother-in-law was proclaimed King Alfonso I.

He enlarged the kingdom of Asturias by annexing Galicia in the west, and León in the south. He also extended his lands in the east to the borders of Navarre. When Alfonso died, his cruel son Fruela I came to the throne. One of Fruela’s first acts was to kill his own brother, Bimarano, who he thought wanted the throne. After reigning for 11 years, Fruela was murdered on January 14, 768, and was succeeded by his cousin Aurelius (son of Alfonso’s brother Fruela).

He was, in turn, succeeded by Silo, a nephew, who had married Alfonso I’s daughter. Aurelius had managed to prevent the Moors from attacking by paying them tribute, and all that is known about Silo is that he moved the kingdom’s capital from Cangas de Onis to Pravia. This period coincided with Charlemagne’s invasion of Spain, and his capture of Barcelona.

Silo’s successor, Mauregato, was an illegitimate son of Alfonso I (his mother allegedly being a slave) (r. 783–788) and was alleged to have offered 100 beautiful maidens annually as tribute to the Moors. The next king, Bermudo I, a brother of Aurelius, had been ordained deacon and reluctantly accepted the position as king, abdicating three years later and allowing Alfonso II “The Chaste,” a son of Fruela I, to become king.

Initially people were worried that Alfonso might try to avenge the murder of his father—instead he ruled for 51 years. He had been married to Berta, said to have been a daughter of Pepin, king of the Frankish tribe, but they had no children as he had taken a vow of celibacy.

During his long reign he stabilized the country’s political system amd attacked the Moors, defeating them near the town of Oviedo, which they had recently sacked. Alfonso II was so impressed by the beauty of Oviedo that he moved his court there and proclaimed it his capital. It was to remain capital of the kingdom of Asturias until 910, when León became the new capital.

Work began on the construction of the Oviedo Cathedral, where Alfonso II was eventually buried. Alfonso’s main achievement was that he conquered territory from the Moors, moving the reach of his Christian kingdom into the edges of central Spain. The Moorish king Abd ar-Rahman II (r. 822–852) was, however, able to check the advances of Alfonso, drive back the Franks, and stop a rebellion by Christians and Jews in Toledo.

The next king of Asturias was Ramiro I, a son of Bermudo I. He began his reign by capturing several other claimants to the throne, blinding them, and then confining them to monasteries. As a warrior he managed to defeat a Norman invasion after the Normans had landed at Corunna, and also fought several battles against the Moors. His son, Ordono I, became the next king and was the first to be known as king of Asturias and of León.

Ordono extended the kingdom to Salamanca and was succeeded by his son Alfonso III “The Great.” Alfonso III reigned for 44 years (866–910) and during that time consolidated the kingdom by overhauling the bureaucracy and, then fought the Moors. He managed to enlarge his lands to cover the whole of Asturias, Biscay, Galicia, and the northern part of modern-day Portugal. The southern boundary of his kingdom was along the Duero (Douro) River.

Kingdom of León

Alfonso had three feuding sons who plotted against each other and then against their father. To try to placate them all, Alfonso divided his kingdom into three parts. Garcia became king of León, Ordono became king of Galicia, and Fruela became king of Oviedo (ruling Asturias). This division was short-lived as wars among the young men resulted in all the lands eventually coming together under one ruler.

García only reigned for four years before he died, without any children. Ordono II ruled in Galicia before dying 14 years later and eventually Fruela II “The Cruel,” Alfonso III’s fourth son, who had outlived the others, reunited the kingdom in 924. However he died of leprosy in the following year, with Ordono II’s son’s becoming King Alfonso IV.

He did not want to rule and abdicated in order to spend the rest of his life as a monk. This allowed Alfonso IV’s brother to become King Ramiro II. Soon after this, Alfonso tried to regain the throne, only to be taken by his brother, blinded, and left at the Monastery of St. Julian, where he died soon afterward.

Ramiro II was succeeded by his elder son, Ordono III, and then by a younger son, Sancho I “The Fat.” There were two years when Ordono IV “The Wicked,” a son of Alfonso IV, was king, but then Sancho I’s only son became King Ramiro III. He was five when he became king and the Normans decided to attack again, destroying many coastal towns. Eventually he abdicated and allowed his cousin, Bermudo II, son of Ordoo III, to become king.

It was during the reign of Bermudo II that the Moors attacked and managed to get as far as León. When Bermudo II died in 999, his son Alfonso V was only five, and Don Melindo González, count of Galicia, became regent. In his 20s Alfonso V led his armies into battle against the Moors, recaptured much of León, but was killed in battle with the Moors at Viseu in Portugal, on May 5, 1028.

His only son, Bermudo III, was 13 and during his nine year reign faced more threats from the neighboring Christian kingdom of Castile. In 1037 he was killed at the Battle of the River Carrion fighting King Ferdinand I of Castile, and the kingdom of León, as it was then known, was absorbed into Castile.

Kingdom of Castile and Granada

The kingdom of Castile began as a dependency of León and was controlled by counts. However in 1035 Ferdinand I “The Great” was proclaimed king of Castile and two years later after defeating and killing Bermudo III, became king of Castile and León, ruling for the next 27 years.

These new kings saw themselves as lineal descendants of the heritage of Asturias, even if not by blood. When Ferdinand I died he divided his lands among his children and Sancho received Castile, Alfonso received León and Asturias, García was given Galicia and northern Portugal, his daughter Urraca was given Zamora, and Elvira was given Toro.

This was meant to end squabbling by them but only ended up with much fighting. At this time, a nobleman, Rodrigo Díaz de Bibar, emerged as the great Spanish pahlawan El Cid. Interestingly he later tried to set up his own kingdom of Valencia, which ended in his death. Eventually Alfonso ruled all the lands as Alfonso VI “The Brave,” king of Castile.

Alfonso VI launched a number of attacks on the Moors but most of these were overshadowed by the efforts of El Cid. In 1085 the Christians were able to capture the city of Toledo, and Alfonso reigned until his death in June 1109 at the age of 70. He had five or six wives. His daughter Urraca succeeded Alfonso VI. She married first Raymond, count of Burgundy, and later Alfonso I, king of Aragon.

Her successor was Alfonso VII (r. 1126–1157), titling himself as “Emperor of All Spain.” When he died his lands were divided between his eldest son, Sancho III “the Desired,” who was given Castile; and his second son, Ferdinand II, who was given León.

Sancho III only reigned for a year and his only surviving son became Alfonso VIII, r. 1158–1214. In 1212 he defeated the Moors at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, giving Castile control over central Spain. When he died, Henry I, his youngest but only surviving son, succeeded him. He died and was succeeded as king of Castile by his nephew Ferdinand III.

Meanwhile in León, Ferdinand II had reigned for 31 years, and when he died in 1188, his brother, Alfonso IX, succeeded him. Alfonso IX’s first wife Teresa, from whom he was divorced, was later canonized as Saint Teresa in 1705. His eldest surviving son with his second wife was Ferdinand, who had already become king of Castile. When Alfonso IX died in 1230, the kingdoms of Castile and León were reunited.

Ferdinand III embarked on a series of wars against the Moors, managing to capture the cities of Córdoba (1236), Jaen (1246), and Seville (1248). With the capture of Seville, the “Reconquista” was almost complete—the Moors held only the city of Granada. The forces of Ferdinand were unable to take that city, although the emir of Granada did acknowledge his overlordship.

Ferdinand III also founded the University of Salamanca, died on May 30, 1252, and was buried in Seville Cathedral. In 1671 Pope Clement X canonized him, and he became St. Ferdinand (San Fernando). Ferdinand’s son, Alfonso X, had two titles, “The Wise,” and “The Astrologer.”

During his reign he codified the laws, wrote poems, and had a large number of scholars produce a great chronicle of Spanish history. One of his advisers, Jehuda ben Moses Cohen, wrote that the king was someone “in whom God and placed intelligence, and understanding and knowledge above all princes of his time.”

He was also elected as King of the Romans in 1257, renouncing the title of Holy Roman Emperor in 1275. However Alfonso X was faced with a dynastic succession crisis. His eldest son, Ferdinand de la Cerda, died in 1275, leaving two young sons, Alfonso X did not want a young boy on the throne so nominated as his successor his second son, Sancho. Ferdinand’s wife championed the cause of her two boys, and Alfonso X’s wife sided with her.

The conflict continued when the French—Ferdinand’s wife was a French princess—declared war on Sancho, who had the support of the Spanish parliament, the Cortes. War seemed inevitable, but when news arrived that Sancho was ill, Alfonso died of grief and despair.

Sancho IV “The Brave” became the next king, his illness being not as serious as was first thought, and after reigning for 11 years, he was succeeded by his son Ferdinand IV “The Summoned,” who was only nine when he became king—his mother ruled ably as regent. Little of note happened during Ferdinand IV’s reign and he gained his title from sentencing to death two brothers who had been accused of murdering a courtier.

They went to their execution protesting their innocence and “summoned” Ferdinand to appear at God’s court of judgment in 30 days. As Ferdinand was only 26 years old at the time he was unconcerned, but on the 30th day after the execution his servants found him dead in bed.

His one-year-old son, Alfonso XI “The Just,” became the next king and in 1337, when he was 13 years old, attacked the Moors of Granada. At the Battle of Río Salado on October 30, 1340, the Spanish, supported by the Portuguese, defeated a Moorish army. It was said to have been the first European battle where cannons were used. Alfonso XI reigned until 1350 when he was 39.

Alfonso was married to Maria of Portugal but spent most of his reign with Leonor de Guzmán, a noble woman who had recently been widowed. Alfonso and Leonor had a large family but when Alfonso died, Leonor was arrested on orders of the queen and taken to Talavera, where she was strangled. The next king was the son of Alfonso and Maria, Pedro I “The Cruel,” who reigned from 1350 until 1366.

During the reign of Pedro I he also married Blanche of Bourbon, cousin of the king of France, but fell in love with Maria de Padilla. Initially Pedro appointed Maria’s friends and family to positions of influence, but some nobles forced the dismissal of supporters and relatives of Maria.

In 1355 he had four of these noblemen stabbed to death, and apparently blood splattered over the dress of his wife, earning Pedro his title “The Cruel.” In 1366 he was deposed by his half brother Henry II of Trastamara, “The Bastard,” but managed to oust Henry and returned as king in the following year, spending the next two years in battles with his half brothers, and assisted by the English led by Edward the “Black Prince.”

These events formed the backdrop of the French novel Agenor de Mauleon (1846) by Alexander Dumas. Eventually Pedro was murdered and Henry II was restored to the throne. Over the next 10 years, until Henry died, attempts were made, ultimately successful, to prevent John of Gaunt from invading Spain.

Henry II’s only legitimate son, was John I, 21 years old, and he became king when his father died. Some 11 years later, while watching a military exercise, John I fell from his horse and was killed. His 11-year-old son, Henry III “The Infirm,” became the next king. When he died in December 1406, his one-year-old son was proclaimed John II. When he was 13 years old, the Cortes declared the teenager to be “of age,” and John II ruled in his own right.

The king had many favorites, one of whom was Don Alvaro de Luna, who later writers suggested was a boyfriend of the young king. John II reigned until his death in 1454, was succeeded by his son, Henry IV, who reigned until 1474. He had a daughter and before Henry IV died, the heiress, Isabella, married Ferdinand of Aragon, uniting Christian Spain.

Kingdoms of Aragon and Navarre

The royal House of Aragon, in northeastern Spain, traces its origins back to Ramiro I (r. 1035–1063). His father, Sancho III, king of Navarre, had left him Aragon, as Ramiro was illegitimate. Ramiro was a warrior prince and quickly extended his lands, even briefly taking part in forays into the land of his half brother Garcia III, who had inherited the rest of Navarre.

In a war with the Moorish emir of Saragossa over tribute, Ramiro was killed in battle on May 8, 1063. Ramiro’s successor was his eldest son, Sancho I, who managed to recapture lands from the Moors, pushing the boundaries of Aragon to the north bank of the river Ebro. In 1076 when his cousin, the king of Navarre, died, Sancho succeeded to the throne of Navarre.

In June 1094 Sancho was killed during the siege of Huesca. His son and successor, Pedro I, then became king of Aragon and Navarre, carrying on the siege of Huesca for another two years. In 1096 he defeated a large Moorish army and its Castilian allies, at the Battle of Alcoraz, with help, legends state, from St. George. Pedro’s two children died young, and in grief both he and his wife died soon afterward.

Pedro was succeeded by his brother Alfonso I “The Warrior.” Having no children he was succeeded by his younger brother, Ramiro II “The Monk.” Ramiro was only king for three years, abdicating to spend the remaining 10 years of his life in a monastery.

His only child, Petronilla, became queen, when she was one year old. When she turned 15 in 1151, she married Ramon Berenguer IV, count of Barcelona. Twelve years later she abdicated the throne in favor of her son Alfonso II (r. 1163–96).

His eldest son and successor was Pedro II, who was alleged to have kept scandalous company with many women. With the outbreak of the Albigensian Crusade in France, and the persecution of the Cathars in southern France, Pedro II led his army into the region to demonstrate the historical ties of Aragon to the region.

He tried to stop the carnage that was taking place around Carcassone and urged the pope to recognize the area as a part of Aragon, not France, which would have ended the crusade. He failed and on September 13, 1213, at the Battle of Muset, was killed in battle with the crusaders led by Simon de Montfort.

Pedro’s son James I “The Conqueror” was only five when he succeeded his father. After a terrible regency, James took control and led his armies in taking the Balearic Islands (1229–35), conquering Valencia from the Moors in 1233–45, and also in the campaign against Murcia in 1266. When James died his son, Pedro III, succeeded him, leading his armies against the Moors.

He had a claim to the kingdom of Sicily through his wife and invaded the island in 1282, earning the title “The Great.” He was badly injured in the eye during fighting with the French and died soon afterward to be succeeded by his son Alfonso III “The Do-Gooder.” This interesting title came from the fact that he granted his subjects the right to bear arms.

His brother and successor James II “The Just” conquered more land from the Moors and was in frequent disputes with the papacy. In 1310 he conquered Gibraltar, and possibly to placate Pope Clement V, two years later he suppressed the Order of the Knights Templar.

James II was succeeded by his son Alfonso IV “The Debonair” or “The Good.” Most of his reign was spent in disputes over the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, which were captured by the Genoese. His son and successor, Pedro IV, held a huge coronation, apparently with as many as 10,000 guests, and earned the title “The Ceremonious.”

He managed to lead his army into Sicily, which he recaptured, and when he died in 1387, his feeble son John I succeeded to the throne. His wife, Iolande de Bar, was actually in control of the kingdom. John died after being gored by a boar during a hunt, and his younger brother Martin “The Humane” became king.

It was during his reign that the famous santo cáliz was transferred to Valencia Cathedral, where it is still revered by many as the Holy Grail. It was said that St. Peter took it from the Holy Land to Rome, and it was taken to Valencia. Martin lost the throne of Sicily and when he died in 1410, there was a brief interregnum until Ferdinand I “The Just” was proclaimed king.

Ferdinand I was the son of John I and was elected king by the nobles. When Ferdinand I died in 1416, after reigning for just four years, his eldest son, Alfonso V “The Magnanimous,” became king. There was a plot to overthrow him, and he refused to hear the names of the conspirators, allowing them to go unpunished.

He spent much of his time and energy in his possessions in Italy: Naples and Sicily. When he died, his lands in Spain went to his brother John, who had been king of Navarre, and he became king of Aragon and Navarre. His Italian lands went to his illegitimate son Ferdinand. John II reigned from 1458 until 1479.

His greatest achievement was arranging the marriage of his son, Ferdinand, to Isabella, heir to the throne of Castile. They were married in 1469 at Valladolid. When John died on January 19, 1479, the Christian kingdoms of Spain were united with Ferdinand and Isabella as joint rulers. In 1492 the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella finally took Granada, the last Moorish part of the Iberian Peninsula, ending the “Reconquista.”

Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio

Boccaccio is the most recent of the three “great minds” of 14th-century Italian humanism, after Dante Alighieri and Petrarch. He was a poet, a scientist, and, most important, a creator of the early modern short story genre. Boccaccio’s ancestors were peasants, but his father became a wealthy merchant in Florence not long before his son’s birth. Boccaccio’s mother is unknown.

Some reports suggest the writer’s birthplace was Paris, but most historians agree that it was either Florence or Certaldo (Tuscany). Born illegitimately, Boccaccio was nevertheless officially recognized by his father, who was reported to have been a crude and ill-mannered man.

Wishing Giovanni to enter business, his father sent him to Naples to learn the profession. Soon, however, it became evident that the boy had no aspiration to follow in his father’s footsteps and greatly disliked mercantile business. He was then ordered to study canon law, but this discipline was equally incompatible with Boccaccio’s demeanor, which was better suited to the vocation of poetry and letters.


His father’s money and position gave Boccaccio access to Naples’s high society and introduced him into the literary-scientific circle gathered around King Robert of Anjou. Naples of the first half of the 14th century was one of the largest cultural centers of western Europe, and Boccaccio’s affiliation with it, as well as his love affair with the king’s daughter Fiammetta, greatly stimulated the young man’s literary and poetic talent.

During this first Neapolitan period of creativity, Boccaccio wrote numerous poems eulogizing Fiammetta, then produced the novel Filocolo (1336–39) and two lengthy poems, Filostrato and Teseida (both finished in 1340). Today almost forgotten, these works were widely read by Boccaccio’s contemporaries and played an important role in the development of Italian literature.

In 1333–34 Boccaccio was first exposed to the poetry of Petrarch, whose verses began to reach Naples. After having heard Petrarch’s sonnets for the first time, Boccaccio went home and burned all his youthful works, disgusted with his own “petty” attempts at verse composition.

In 1340 two major Florentine banks collapsed, and Boccaccio’s father lost almost all his savings; the young poet returned to Florence to assist his suddenly poor family. The Black Death of 1348, which took the lives of his father, stepmother, and numerous friends, crashed Boccaccio emotionally and took what was left of his family’s money. In spite (or maybe because of) these disasters, the Florentine period was especially productive for Boccaccio.

In Florence he created his most important works:

• Comedia Ninfe (1341–42), also known as the Commedia delle ninfe fiorentine (dedicated to Niccolò di Bartolo Del Buono);
• the first draft of De vita et moribus domini Francisci Petracchi;
• the first version of the Amorosa visione (1342–43);
• Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (1343–44);
• Ninfale fiesolano (1344–45);
• and, finally, the Decameron (1349–51), Boccaccio’s most mature masterpiece of witty satire that greatly influenced further development of Italian literature.

From the 1350s Boccaccio fell increasingly under the influence of Petrarch and began to write more in Latin and more on religious, devotional, and philosophical subjects. His last years were dedicated to Dante, whose works he studied and conducted a series of lectures on the Divine Comedy. Italian humanism is greatly indebted to the author of the Decameron. Boccaccio died on December 21, 1375 in Certaldo.

Mamluk Dynasties in Egypt

Mamluk Dynasties

The Mamluks ruled Egypt from the middle of the 13th century to 1517. The first 24 Mamluk sultans were called the Bahri (river) rulers. In 1382, they were followed by the Burji (tower) Mamluks, so called because they had been quartered in the towers of the Citadel fortress overlooking Cairo. The Mamluks, mostly of Turkish and Mongol origins, were slaves and professional soldiers.

They were purchased by other former slaves as young boys in the slave markets in Syria and Egypt and educated as a professional military caste. With the completion of their education they were freed and given full military regalia and land to pay for the upkeep of the equipment and horses.

The Mamluks were notoriously disputatious and constantly fought among themselves for succession to the throne. Since there was no principle of hereditary monarchy, any Mamluk could hope to become the ruler if he could overthrow the current sultan.

As a result, the average reign of a sultan was only six years. Mamluks married within the caste to the sisters and relatives of other Mamluks. Their society was based on a feudal hierarchy of allegiance of a vassal to a lord.


Recent converts to Islam, the Mamluks emphasized their rule as Muslims, even though many of them were not personally particularly devout. They allowed the exiled Abbasid caliph from Baghdad to reside in Cairo but successive caliphs exercised no real power.

The Mamluks encouraged metalworking, book binding, and textile industries. But Mamluk attempts to monopolize the trade on luxury goods, coupled with high taxes, discouraged many foreign and local merchants.

As great builders and patrons of the arts, the Mamluks encouraged scholars, including renowned historian Ibn Khaldun, to work in Cairo. Under the Mamluks, Cairo became a major intellectual and artistic center and grew into arguably the largest city in the region.

The Mamluks built hospitals, caravan-saries, public fountains, and massive mausoleums for their families. The mausoleum of Sultan Qaitbay (reigned 1468–96) was particularly impressive. Much of medieval Cairo dates from the Mamluk era.

Mamluk soldier

The Mamluk sultan Baybars (reigned 1260–77) drove the crusaders out of the eastern Mediterranean and repelled major invasions by the Mongols. A wily politician, Baybars also established alliances with potential enemies of Sicily, Seville, and the Turks.

The Black Death (plague) in 1340 reduced the population throughout Mamluk territories; in Cairo alone over 25 percent of the people perished. They were further weakened by Timurlane’s destruction in Syria. The expansion of Portuguese trading outposts along the African and Indian coasts led to mounting economic competition and as they lost control of trade from the east, the revenues from commerce declined.

In addition, constant disputes over succession weakened Mamluk authority and made them vulnerable to outside attacks. Their failure to forge a united front contributed to their defeat and the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.

Magyar Invasions

Magyar Invasions

The Magyars, Hungarian ancestors, began raiding into western Europe in 862 against the outposts of the Frankish kingdom in the Danube Valley. Under pressure from the Pechenegs, they moved westward, eventually moving into the Carpathian Basin in 895. Over the next 10 years, they gained control of the entire basin.

From here they continued to raid Europe over the next 55 years, reaching as far west as the Pyrenees mountains. During this time, their raids were successful enough that the Byzantine Empire and several other kingdoms chose to pay off the Magyars to gain relief from invasion.

Their raids were finally brought to an end in 955 at the Battle of Augsburg when King Otto I of Germany defeated the Magyars. The prehistory of the Magyars, because of lack of written record, has been constructed from their language, which is part of the Finno-Ugric language group. Other languages in this group are Finnish and Estonian.


It is believed that the Magyars were originally part of a group of people who lived in western Siberia. Today most of the peoples in this group live in Russia, except the Hungarians and those living in the Baltic region and Finland. The name Magyar is taken to mean “speakers” and is derived from the Finno-Ugrian mon, which means “speak,” and er, which means “man.”

Sometime during the 10th century b.c.e., the Magyars moved south out of western Siberia into the area between the Ural River and the Aral Sea. They lived in this area until sometime during the second century b.c.e. when they moved westward into the Don Basin.

During the first century c.e., the Magyars moved into the region near the Azov Sea and the Black Sea and discovered the use of iron and horses, most likely from their exposure to their neighbors the Scythians and Sarmatians. Interaction with these Iranian peoples can be seen through the incorporation of Iranian words into their language.

They then came under the influence of Turkish peoples. In the sixth century the Magyars joined the Onogurs, a Turkish tribal alliance made up of 10 tribes. (Onogurs means “10 peoples.”) The Onogurs, including the Magyars, were then incorporated into the Turkish empire in 552, but then the Magyars gained their independence again in the early part of the seventh century, only to be incorporated into the Khazar Khanate in 630.

The Magyars gained their independence from the Khazars in 830—at the time settled in the area between the Don and Lower Danube Rivers. In 862 they launched their first raid against a western European kingdom and raided the Frankish tribe. These raids continued over the next several years, sometimes launched alone, and other times while allied with other kingdoms, such as the Turkish Kabars and the Moravians.

In 894 they allied with the Byzantines under Emperor Leo the Wise. The Byzantines were involved in a war with the Bulgars under Czar Simeon. The campaign that year was a success for the Magyars and Byzantines. Unfortunately for the Magyars, they set themselves up for their own defeat. In 894 there was a massive movement of Turkish peoples from the east that pushed the Pechenegs from their homeland.

Fleeing the Turkish invasion, the Pechenegs moved west into Magyar land and signed an alliance with the Bulgars against the Magyars. With the Magyar armies away fighting the Bulgars, the Pechenegs had little trouble overrunning the Magyars, who found themselves caught between the hostile kingdoms of the Bulgars and the Pechenegs. The Magyars had little choice but to flee to the west to avoid their destruction.

Under the leadership of their chieftains Árpád and Kurans, the Magyars moved across the Carpathian Mountains into the middle Danube valley. Over the next 10 years, the Magyars would secure control over the valley, including destroying the Moravian kingdom in 906.

Magyar army

With the death of Kurans, caused by Bavarian intrigue against the Magyars in 904, Árpád became the sole ruler of the Magyars and their tradition of dual rulers ended. Arpad died in 907 and was succeeded by his son. The Magyars finished the conquest of their new homeland and they continued raiding. Their raid into Italy in 899 was at the invitation of the emperor Arnulph of the eastern Frankish kingdom.

Looking for help against his rival King Berengar I of Lombardy (who had a claim on the imperial crown), Arnulph sent 5,000 warriors on a raid into Italy. While the Magyars’ initial attack on Venice was repulsed, the Magyars were able to defeat Berengar in battle at the river Brenta.

With the death of Emperor Arnulph in 899, the Magyars saw their chance to raid the Frankish empire, which was in turmoil because of the emperor’s death. In 900, the Magyars launched their first raid into Bavaria. The raids into Bavaria continued over the next 33 years and became more destructive. In 910 the Magyars defeated the Germans at the Battle of Augsburg, where they led them into an ambush by pretending to flee.

The Magyars, like most of the nomadic peoples from the steppes, were excellent horsemen. They were also very proficient with bow and arrow. They would launch a sudden attack and then pretend to flee from the enemy. They drew their enemy into a trap, where they could encircle the enemy and destroy them with arrows in close combat.

Another part of the success of the Magyars was due to the weakness of the western kingdoms, who were engaged in internal fighting (in Germany and Italy) fending off other external threats (in France the Normans and Saracens). Even the Byzantine Empire found it more useful to submit to the Magyars, using them as an ally against the Bulgars. A standard Magyar strategy was repeatedly to raid an area to compel the ruler to pay the Magyars to leave the area alone.

In 924 the Magyars launched a raid into western Europe. Raiding through Bavaria, Swabia, Alsace, Lorraine, and Champagne on the way west, they then crossed the Rhine and raided Franconia before returning home. At this point King Henry the Fowler decided to buy nine years of peace from the Magyars and used this time to reorganize and strengthen the German cavalry better to defend against the Magyars.

In 926 the Magyars launched a raid into northern Italy. Moving through Ventia and Lombardy, they were repulsed in their attempt to cross the Pennine Alps by soldiers from Burgundy and Vienne. They crossed the Maritime Alps and raided into Provence and Septimantia in southern France all the way to the Pyrenees.

Magyar rider

Returning through the Rhone Valley, they fought several inconclusive battles with the troops from Burgundy and Vienne before returning home. When the nine-year truce King Henry had purchased in 924 expired and he refused to renew it, the Magyars turned their attention back to Germany in 933.

The Magyars sent an army into Germany to convince them to continue paying tribute. Meeting the German army near Merseberg, the Magyars suffered a defeat at the hands of the Germans, resulting in the loss of German tribute money. Henry and his son Otto I the Great fortified eastern German to protect it from the Magyars.

The Magyars turned to easier targets to the south of the Carpathian Basin, raiding the Balkans region and the Byzantine Empire. Launching a campaign into this area in 934 and in 942 against the Byzantine Empire, the Magyars began receiving regular tribute from the Byzantines and others in the area.

The Byzantine tribute would continue until 970, when the Magyars allied themselves with the prince of Kiev, who invaded the Balkans and was defeated by the Byzantines. In 951 Prince Henry of Bavaria defeated the Magyar troops in northern Italy and then raided their province of Pannonia. A civil war in Germany (953–955) between Otto I and his son Ludolf allowed the Magyars to raid western Europe again.

With a force of between 50,000 and 100,000 warriors, the Magyars raided through Franconia and Bavaria. Then with help from Conrad, duke of Lorraine, who was allied with Ludolf, the Magyars crossed the Rhine River at Worms and moved into Lorraine, then moving into northeastern France, Rheims, Chalons, and into Burgundy. From there they moved into northern Italy, raided Lombardy, and finally returned home.

In 955 with a force of 50,000, the Magyars moved into Bavaria and laid siege to the city of Augsburg. The Magyars believed that Ludolf and Conrad were still at war with Otto. Instead, the rebels had made peace with Otto and joined him in attacking the Magyars. With a force of about 10,000 heavy cavalry, the Germans moved to attack the Magyars, who lifted their siege and prepared for battle with the Germans.

The battle was fought on August 10, 955. The Magyars were initially successful and captured the German camp. Otto repulsed the Magyar attack and then had his forces attack and drive the Magyars from the field with heavy losses, including the capture of the Magyar camp. During the simpulan attack Conrad was killed.

At the Battle of Augsburg (also known as the Battle of Lechfeld), the Magyar raids into western Europe finally ended. With their defeat at the hands of the Byzantines in 970, the time was ripe for the Magyars to cease their raids. The Magyars turned to farming and became influenced by the Roman Catholic Church.

Timurlane (Tamerlane)

Timurlane (Tamerlane)

Timurlane, or Timur the Lame, was the founder of the Timurid dynasty that lasted until 1506. Under the reign of the Timurid dynasty, culture, art, and trade experienced a successful revival and flourished in the region now known as Central Asia.

During his military career of about 50 years cut short by his death by pneumonia in 1405, Timurlane’s empire spanned most of Central and South-west Asia, from the Indus River valley to the Black Sea.

On April 11, 1336, Timurlane, also known as Tamerlane, Timur Leng (Persian), or Tamarlang (Arabic), was born in Kesh, also known as Shahr-e-Sabz, situated at the edge of the mountains just south of Samarkand, which would be the future capital of his empire.


He was the son of a Turco-Mongol tribal leader of Barlas. His father was the first of his tribesmen to convert to Islam, and the young Timurlane, a Sunni Muslim, learned how to read the Qur’an.

In fact Timurlane often attacked the lands of infidels or other erring Muslims under the pretext of Islam, but this was only to justify his excesses. Similarly he maintained good relations with other Muslims for purely political reasons. His treatment of Muslims and non-Muslims who opposed him was similarly pitiless and brutal.

He earned the title Timur the Lame because of an injury in the leg sustained early in his life, either during a local rebellion, or by an arrow in the thigh shot by a farmer whose sheep Timur had stolen. Timurlane was very much inspired by another great leader and conqueror, Genghis Khan, the great Mongol conqueror of the 12th and 13th centuries.

Timurlane court

Timurlane even claimed direct descent from Genghis Khan, although this has never been proved. Timur embarked on his grand quest to take over the world when he was only 21 years old. By 1358 he had already established himself as a military leader.

Timurlane’s army consisted mainly of Turks and Turkic-speaking Mongols. He began his campaign by subduing rival forces in Turkistan. By 1370 both Turkistan and Samarkand were under his control.

He established a stronghold in Samarkand, the capital city, in the form of a citadel in the western section with deep ravines around it. Samarkand became his favorite city, which he rebuilt into an opulent city with magnificent architecture in order to project himself as a wealthy and powerful ruler.

He valued opulence so much that master craftsmen and artisans in each defeated country were spared from death. Instead Timurlane would employ them in order to build grand, imposing architectural structures in the lands that he conquered to reflect the grandeur and luxury of his empire.

From his military base in the city, Timur launched attacks on neighboring lands. His objective was to conquer as many countries as possible in order to gain taxable domains.

Timurlane and his ally Mir Hussain conquered Transoxania in 1364 by driving out the Chaqatai (Jagatai) khans. Breaking away from Mir Hussain, Timur marched onward to Khwarazm, a fertile zone lying on the southern shore of the Aral Sea, in 1371, where war was to last another eight years resulting in a victory for Timurlane. Timurlane crushed the Chagatai khans and annexed territory in the Tian Shan (T’ien-shan) mountains after three years of warfare there.

Timurlane continued to conquer land westward until he reached Herat (present-day Afghanistan) in 1381, the land of Toqtamish Khan of the Golden Horde, a successor of Genghis Khan’s world empire whom Timur had helped to conquer the White Horde. In 1386 Timur invaded western Iran, Iraq, and Georgia.

Timur defeating the Mamluk Sultan Nasir-ad-Din Faraj

The method of massacre this time around was pushing men off the cliffs. In 1391 he took on Toqtamish. Toqtamish retreated, even though his forces were greater in number than those of Timurlane; as the morale of his forces dipped, Timur seized his land, harem, and treasures. Georgia was again attacked by Timurlane in 1399 and was defeated.

In 1400 Timurlane advanced into Anatolia, which had recently become part of the Ottoman Empire. Finally after taking Damascus and Aleppo, Timur faced his most formidable adversary, Bayezid I, the Ottoman sultan. In 1402 Timur besieged Ankara and after a grueling battle Bayezid was defeated.

Timur was also known for his sadistic cruelty in dealing with those who stood in his way during his conquests. He often launched savage massacres of his enemies and resistors such as in Delhi, where he slaughtered 80,000 individuals and built grisly pyramids of their skulls to commemorate his victory.

The same piling of skulls occurred earlier in Aleppo. In the late 1380s after a military rampage across the Middle East in Sistan, 2,000 people were laid in wet plaster and built into a briefly living tower. By the time he died, Timurlane had conquered expansive regions in Russia, Iran, India, and Central Asia.

Timur defeats the Sultan of Delhi

Most historians agree that if not for his death, he would have attempted to conquer China as well. Timur is buried in the ostentatious Gur Emir mausoleum, covered in gold leaf and lapis blue. His tomb is made of nephrite jade; in contrast his other family members were buried in marble tombs around him.