1109
Death of Anselm of Canterbury
The Italian-born archbishop who had argued God's existence from pure reason and refused to bend to two English kings died in his monastery bed. His ontological proof would provoke theologians for the next nine centuries. The see of Canterbury was left pointedly empty. Henry I kept it vacant for five years, pocketing its revenues and proving that even a dead saint's legacy could not prevent a king from plundering his church.
Goryeo court commissions the Tripitaka
The Korean Goryeo dynasty launched its first great project to carve the entire Buddhist canon onto wooden printing blocks - an act of pious devotion intended to invoke the Buddha's protection against the Khitan raids ravaging the northern frontier. The tens of thousands of blocks, each meticulously carved in mirror-reverse, would take decades of monastic labor to complete and represented a monumental feat of medieval printing technology.
Crusaders capture Tripoli
After a siege stretching seven years and outliving the count who had begun it, the Lebanese port fell to a coalition of Franks, Genoese, and Provencals. The fourth and final crusader state, the County of Tripoli, was sliced from its coastal hinterland. Its famous library, reputed to hold a hundred thousand Arabic manuscripts on philosophy, science, and law, was largely destroyed in the sack that followed the city's fall.
Srivijaya begins its long decline
The great Malay thalassocracy that had dominated the Straits of Malacca for four centuries was losing its grip on the spice routes as Chola naval raids, Javanese competition from the Kediri kingdom, and the rise of smaller independent port-states along the Sumatran coast all chipped away at its authority. The old capital at Palembang slowly silted into obscurity and jungle.