1119
Field of Blood
Prince Roger of Antioch, refusing to wait for reinforcements, rode out to meet Ilghazi of Mardin near Sarmada and was annihilated. Roger himself fell with a sword through his face. Crusader heads were stacked on Aleppo's walls, and the northern Frankish principalities never fully recovered. The disaster left the principality of Antioch so weakened that it depended on the king of Jerusalem for military protection for years afterward.
Sinking of the White Ship
Off Barfleur, a crew drunk on wine rowed the White Ship onto a rock in the moonlight. Henry I's only legitimate son William Adelin drowned along with a hundred and forty young nobles. Chroniclers said the king never smiled again. The succession crisis would produce the Anarchy, two decades of civil war between Stephen and Matilda that devastated England and left castles and fields in ruin.
Almoravid decline begins
A major Christian raid reached Granada. Ali ibn Yusuf's government, weakened by political infighting and mounting taxes to fund two fronts in Spain and the Sahara, began to lose the loyalty of its Berber soldiery. The Almohad preachers in the Atlas were watching. Within a decade, the reformers would descend from their mountain strongholds to challenge the Almoravids for control of the entire Maghreb and al-Andalus.
University of Bologna consolidates
Irnerius and the glossators had been lecturing on Justinian's rediscovered Corpus Juris Civilis for a generation, but around this year the students self-organized into a legal collective that historians later identify as Europe's first university. Students banded together by nationality into nationes that negotiated fees and teaching schedules, creating a model of academic self-governance that would spread to Paris, Oxford, and eventually the entire continent.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1119?
Saeculum lists 4 curated events from 1119. The most significant is Field of Blood: Prince Roger of Antioch, refusing to wait for reinforcements, rode out to meet Ilghazi of Mardin near Sarmada and was annihilated.
What era was 1119 part of?
1119 falls within the High Middle Ages (1000-1300). Crusades, cathedrals, and the slow waking of Europe.
Which regions saw notable events in 1119?
The curated events from 1119 span Middle East, Europe and Africa.