1207
Rumi born in Balkh
In a Persian-speaking town on the Afghan plateau, Jalal al-Din Muhammad was born into a family of scholars fleeing the Mongol advance. He would grow into the whirling mystic of Konya whose verses remain among the most quoted love poems in any language. Eight centuries later his Masnavi would still be read from Istanbul to Iowa, the best-selling poet in America.
Wolfram von Eschenbach completes Parzival
A Bavarian knight of modest station completed his Middle High German romance retelling the Grail legend. His Parzival is the strangest and most sophisticated knightly narrative of the age, full of Arabic science, interfaith sympathy, and the moral perils of asking the right question. Wagner would later mine the poem for his final opera, though he stripped it of its generous ecumenism.
Mongols subjugate the Kyrgyz
An army under Jochi, Genghis Khan's eldest son, rode north of the Altai and forced the submission of the forest peoples of Siberia, including the Kyrgyz along the Yenisei. Furs, falcons, and slaves began to flow south into the steppe confederation. The campaign extended Mongol authority into the taiga belt, securing a vast northern flank that no rival could threaten.
Boniface of Montferrat killed in Bulgaria
The Latin king of Thessalonica, one of the Fourth Crusade's leading figures, was ambushed and killed by Bulgarian forces in a mountain pass. His severed head was sent to Tsar Kaloyan. The fragile Latin states carved from the Byzantine corpse lost one of their ablest commanders, and the balance of power in the Balkans tilted further toward Bulgarian and Greek revanchism.