1136
Suger begins rebuilding Saint-Denis
Abbot Suger of the royal abbey of Saint-Denis outside Paris began reconstructing the west facade and choir of his church, flooding the sacred interior with cascading colored light through pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and vast windows of stained glass. The result - what later generations would name the Gothic style - revolutionized European architecture within a single decade and spread rapidly north to the great cathedrals at Chartres, Reims, and beyond.
Neo-Confucian revival takes root in Song academies
The philosophical revival gathered serious momentum across the Southern Song as disciples of the Cheng brothers spread through the Yangtze valley academies, teaching that the careful investigation of things - from bamboo stalks to human nature - led to genuine moral knowledge. Their school of thought would produce the great synthesizer Zhu Xi a generation later, whose commentaries would dominate East Asian intellectual life for seven centuries.
Geoffrey of Monmouth publishes History of the Kings of Britain
An Oxford cleric of Breton or Welsh extraction released a Latin history claiming descent from Trojan refugees and giving Europe the earliest full narrative of King Arthur, Merlin, and Guinevere. It was dismissed as fantasy by sober chroniclers and devoured by everyone else. Geoffrey's inventions proved irresistible to poets and romancers across Europe, who adapted his stories into French, German, and eventually English vernacular traditions.
Welsh revolt sweeps Gower and Deheubarth
Taking advantage of the Anarchy in England, Welsh princes in the south and west retook castles the Normans had held for a generation. Gruffydd ap Rhys and his sons reoccupied much of their ancestral Deheubarth. The Welsh resurgence would continue under Owain Gwynedd to the north, exploiting English disunity to reclaim territory that had seemed permanently lost to the Norman march lords.
Roger II conquers Naples
The Norman king of Sicily took the Duchy of Naples, adding mainland southern Italy to his kingdom. His court now controlled ports on both sides of the Strait of Messina and could threaten papal states, Byzantine outposts, and Crusader supply lines alike. The conquest gave Roger command of the central Mediterranean's most strategic waters, making the Norman kingdom an indispensable ally or a dangerous enemy to every power in the region.