1113
Papal recognition of the Knights Hospitaller
Paschal II issued the bull Pie postulatio voluntatis, granting the Jerusalem hospital of Blessed Gerard the status of an exempt religious order answering directly to Rome. Its nursing brothers would soon start carrying swords as well as bedpans. Within a generation the Hospitallers would evolve from humble caregivers tending sick pilgrims into one of the most formidable military orders in the Latin East, commanding castles across the Levant.
Jayavarman VI dies in Angkor
The Cambodian king's death triggered a succession war in which his young cousin Suryavarman II seized the throne, reportedly leaping from one war elephant to another to kill his rival in single combat. The victor would build Angkor Wat. Suryavarman's violent accession inaugurated one of the greatest building campaigns in human history, transforming the Cambodian plain into a forest of sandstone temples stretching to the horizon.
Vladimir Monomakh becomes Grand Prince of Kiev
The Rurikid prince of Pereyaslavl was invited by the Kievan assembly to take the throne after a riot against the moneylenders. He would reign for a dozen years, push back the Cuman nomads, and compose a famous Instruction for his sons on kingship and piety. His reign is remembered as the last great age of a unified Kievan state before the centrifugal forces of princely rivalry split Rus into warring fragments.
Eadmer's Historia Novorum completed
The Canterbury monk Eadmer, long-time secretary to Anselm, finished his Latin history of recent English ecclesiastical affairs from the Conquest to his own day. It is one of the most personal and intelligent histories of the century. Written with the insider's knowledge of a man who had stood at Anselm's side through two royal quarrels, the work preserves conversations and private scenes that no other source records.