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Consecration of Saint-Denis
Abbot Suger unveiled the rebuilt choir of his royal abbey north of Paris, filled with pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and jewel-colored stained glass that he called the new light. It was the first fully Gothic structure in Europe, and bishops from all of northern France came to stare. Suger's theological conviction that divine light could be channeled through material splendor gave the Gothic style its spiritual rationale.
Fall of Edessa
On Christmas Eve, Imad al-Din Zengi's army broke through the weakened walls of the County of Edessa while its count was away hunting. The first of the Crusader states fell after less than half a century. News of the disaster reaching the West triggered calls for a Second Crusade. The loss of Edessa shocked Christendom and demonstrated that the Crusader states, far from being permanent, could be dismantled by a determined Muslim adversary.
Blood libel emerges at Norwich
A twelve-year-old boy named William was found dead in woods outside Norwich. A local monk soon began claiming the Jewish community had murdered him in a ritual mockery of Christ's Passion. The accusation - the first of its kind recorded in Europe - would be repeated for eight hundred years.
Geoffrey Plantagenet enters Rouen
Count Geoffrey of Anjou completed his conquest of Normandy by entering Rouen unopposed. For the first time Normandy was ruled separately from England, and by an Angevin. The stage was set for his son Henry II to unite both sides of the Channel. Geoffrey's careful, castle-by-castle conquest of the duchy took nearly a decade, demonstrating the patient methodical generalship his more famous son would inherit.