1165
Pope Alexander III flees to France
Driven from Rome by imperial partisans, the pope settled at Sens in Burgundy under Louis VII's protection, where he would rule the Church by letter for three years. French hospitality to exiled popes and English archbishops helped make the Capetian court briefly the moral capital of Christendom. Alexander used his French exile to build the diplomatic alliances with England and Sicily that would eventually force Barbarossa to recognize him at Venice.
Prester John letter circulates
A forged Latin letter purporting to come from a Christian priest-king ruling an eastern empire near Paradise began passing hand to hand across Europe. Popes wrote seriously to his phantom court. The myth would fuel exploratory fantasies for three hundred years. The letter described a kingdom of marvels - rivers of gems, fountains of youth, lands free from poverty and sin - that captured the medieval imagination with a power no factual geography could match.
Waldemar I pacifies the Baltic
The Danish king Waldemar the Great completed a series of campaigns against the pagan Wends of Rugen, demolished their temple of Svantovit at Arkona, and opened Jutland and the Danish isles to Christianization and Cistercian foundations. The campaigns established Denmark as the dominant naval power in the western Baltic, a position Waldemar's successors would leverage to build a short-lived Scandinavian empire stretching from Estonia to the Elbe.
Anglo-Welsh war of Owain Gwynedd
Henry II led an English army into north Wales to punish Owain Gwynedd's raids on the border. Caught in torrential rain on the Berwyn Mountains, Henry's army was forced to withdraw without fighting, and Owain maintained his independence for the rest of his reign. The failed campaign demonstrated that even the most powerful king in western Europe could be defeated by Welsh terrain, weather, and guerrilla resistance.