Ögedei Khan, also Ogotai or Oktay, was the third son of Genghis Khan and second Great Khan of the Mongol Empire by succeeding his father. He continued the expansion of the empire that his father had begun, and was the Great Khan when the Mo...

Louis VIII the Lion reigned as King of France from 1223 to 1226. He was a member of the House of Capet. Louis VIII was born in Paris, France, the son of Philip II Augustus and Isabelle of Hainaut. He was also Count of Artois, inheriting the...

Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was a pretender to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, and of Burgundy. He was Holy Roman Emperor fr...

Güyük was the third Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. He was the eldest son of Ögedei Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, and reigned from 1246 to 1248. Genghis Khan's sons and grandsons were haunted by alcoholism, a vice that Genghis himself ha...

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary was a princess of the Kingdom of Hungary, Countess of Thuringia, Germany and a greatly-venerated Catholic saint. Elizabeth was married at the age of 14, and widowed at 20. She then became one of the first members...

Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for fifty-six years from 1216 to his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the...

James I the Conqueror was the King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276. His long reign saw the expansion of the Crown of Aragon on all sides: into Valencia to the south, Languedoc to the north, and the B...

Möngke Khan, also transliterated as Mongke, Mongka, Möngka, Mangu or Mangku, was the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from July 1, 1251 – August 11, 1259. He was the first Great Khan from the Toluid line. Under Möngke, the Mongols con...

Louis IX, commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He inherited the throne at age 12. His mother served as regent until 1234, helping to subdue rebellious barons and Albigensian heretics (Cathari). Louis led a Cru...

Kublai Khan was the fifth Khagan (Great Khan) of the Ikh Mongol Uls (Mongol Empire), reigning from 1260 to 1294, and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty, a division of the Mongol Empire. Kublai was the fourth son of Tolui and a grandson of G...

Hulagu Khan was a Mongol ruler who conquered much of Southwest Asia. Son of Tolui and the Kerait princess Sorghaghtani Beki, he was a grandson of Genghis Khan, and the brother of Arik Boke, Möngke Khan and Kublai Khan. Hulagu's army greatly...

Rudolf I, First German king (1273 – 91) of the Habsburg dynasty. He inherited lands in Alsace, the Aargau, and Breisgau and extended his territory by marriage and through negotiation. Crowned king in 1273, he was recognized by Pope Gregory...

Alfonso X, called the Wise (Spanish: el Sabio), was the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death. During the Imperial election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be King of the Romans (Latin: Rex Romanorum;...

Charles I, commonly called Charles of Anjou, was the King of Sicily by conquest from 1266 (though he had received it as a papal grant in 1262), though he was expelled from the island in the aftermath of the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. Thereaf...

Peter the Great was the King of Aragon (as Peter III) and Valencia (as Peter I) and Count of Barcelona (as Peter II) from 1276 to his death. He conquered Sicily and became its king in 1282. He was one of the greatest of medieval Aragonese m...