Bohemond I, Prince of Taranto and Prince of Antioch, was one of the leaders of the First Crusade. The Crusade had no outright military leader, but instead was ruled by a committee of nobles. Bohemond was one of the most important of these l...

Al-Ghazali known as Algazel to the western medieval world, born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia (modern day Iran). He was a Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic of Persian origin and remains one of the most...

Baldwin I of Jerusalem, was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, who became the first Count of Edessa and then the second ruler and first titled King of Jerusalem. He was the brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, who was the first ruler of th...

Godfrey of Bouillon was a leader of the First Crusade. He was either the eldest or the second son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and Ida, daughter of Godfrey III, Duke of Lower Lorraine. He was designated by his uncle, Godfrey the Hunchb...

William took seven months to prepare his invasion force, using some 600 transport ships to carry around 7,000 men (including 2,000-3,000 cavalry) across the Channel. On 28 September 1066, with a favourable wind, William landed unopposed at...

The Battle of Stamford Bridge took place at the village of Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire, in England on 25 September 1066, between an English army under King Harold Godwinson and an invading Norwegian force led by King Harald Ha...

Peter I was the King of Aragon and Navarre for a decade from 1094 until his death. He was the son and successor of Sancho V Ramírez by his first wife, Isabella of Urgell. He was named in honour of Saint Peter, because of his father's specia...

Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106. He was called Beauclerc for his s...

Hugues de Payens, also de Payns, a French knight from the Champagne region, was the co-founder and first Grand Master of the Knights Templar. With Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, he created the Latin Rule, the code of behavior for the Order....

The Battle of Manzikert was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuq Turks on August 26, 1071 near Manzikert (modern Malazgirt in Mus Province, Turkey). The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the Emperor Roma...

Alfonso I, called the Battler or the Warrior (Spanish: el Batallador), was the king of Aragon and Navarre from 1104 until his death in 1134. He was the second son of King Sancho Ramírez and successor of his brother Peter I. With his marriag...

Peter Abelard (Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailardus; French: Pierre Abélard) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. His love for, and affair with, Héloïse d'Argenteuil have become legendary. The...

Anna Komnene, Latinized as Comnena, was a Greek princess, scholar, physician, hospital administrator, and the daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos of Byzantium and Irene Doukaina. She wrote the Alexiad, an account of her father’s reign, w...

The Domesday Book is a great land survey from 1086, commissioned by William the Conqueror to assess the extent of the land and resources being owned in England at the time, and the extent of the taxes he could raise. The information collect...

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian monastic order. "The voice of conscience, the dominating figure in the Catholic Church from 1125 to 1153", his authority helped to end the sch...