11th Century (The Three Stories)

The 11th century is the crucial turning point from the Early to the High Middle Ages and all three POD's are set in it.

Events

 * 1) In 1083 Radovan Trpimirović, son of the Croatian King Dmitar Zvonimir falls ill, but unlike in the OTL, he survives and marries Marija, daughter of his father's Ban (Viceroy) Petar Snačić, in 1087. This was acctualy a compromise that the King had to grant to the nobility, since Snačić and the other Croatian feudal lords kept pressuring the King to marry both of his children (Princess Klaudija married Viniha, count of Lapčani) into the native nobility, becouse they feared a increase of Hungarian infulence over the court, due to the fact that the Queen and Radovan's mother was Illona Arpad, whose brother Ladislaus ruled the much larger and more powerful Kingdom of Hungary.
 * 2) In late 1089 King Dmitar Zvonimir dies of a stroke, in the Croatian capital Knin. Radovan, now 30 years old, is proclaimed as King by Petar Snačić and the other nobles and is crowned as King of Croatia and Dalmatia in the Cathedral of Split, by Archbishop Lovro of Split on the 12th of January 1090 and he immediatley send a letter to Pope Urban II to recognise his title, wich the Pope does in the summer of that year. In 1091 Radovan founds the Zagreb Bishopric and installs a man named Peter as Bishop.
 * 3) In 1092 King Radovan moves his court from the fortress of Knin to the coastal city of Split, one of Croatia's largest cities. This was a important political move, since, eventough the formerly Byzantine Theme of Dalmatia was ruled by Croatian kings for almost two centurys by now, the Greeks still considered it to be merley a gift to the Croatian court, that could be taken back. Radovan further fortified this by starting to reffer to himself in charters as only Radovan, King of Croatia, showing that he considered that Dalmatia is a integral part of his relam. This was also a warning sign to the Venetians not to make any military excursions along the Croatian coast. Radovan's son Dragoslav was born in October of 1092. To commemorate Radovan orders the construction of a large church near the town of Livno.
 * 4) At the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II, after numerous calls for assistance from the Byzantine Empreror Alexios I Komnenos, calles the rulers of Western Christendom to march on a Crusade to reclaim Asia Minor and the Holy Land from the Seljuks and the Fatimids. Both the Peoples and the Princes Crusade passed trough Croatia in 1096 and early 1097 and some younger Croatian nobles joined the Princes Crusade.
 * 5) In the year 1095 Cuman Khagan Bonyak, whom his enemies called the Mangy, becouse he was born with the caul, was at the peak of his power. He united the various warring tribes of the Cuman people and managed to forge an alliance with the Byzantine Empire, wich lead to a stunning victory at Levounion in 1091, against the Pechenegs, another nomadic people, whom the Cumans considered enemies and rivals. Feeling empowered, Bonyak leads the Cuman hordes into plundering the Kievan Rus', reaching the city of Kiev by mid-May of 1095. There he burnes and loots the country side, resulting in mass devastation, but the Rus' Knyaz, Sviatoplok II, unlike in the OTL, decides to negotiate with Bonyak, after Bonyak repeatedly theratens to burn the entire city to the ground. Bonyak demands all the lands south of Kiev, wich the Knyaz agrees to do, with the condition that Bonyak sends his armies to help Sviatoplok in his war against Oleg of Chernigov and other Rus' princes opposing Kiev's dominant role in the East Slavic area. Bonyak's next move was essential in dramatically transforming the political reality of the Orthodox World. Since he knew that the Kievans would attempt to sieze their southern frontiers from him at the first moment they suspcet he is weakening and given the fact that he was still in amicable terms with Alexios Komnenos. So in early 1096 Bonyak converted to Orthodox Christianity and, since he now ruled a area with more sedetary than nomadic population, decided to start setteling the Cuman tribes on the steppes of the northern Black Sea coast and Kuban.
 * 6) In 1097 Bonyak controlled much of Crimea, so he negotiated with Alexios Komnenos a handover of the Byzantine cities there to Cuman rule, in exchange for a yearly payment for ownership of those cities. Alexios agreed, since he knew that even if Bonyak took his possessions by force, there was nothing he could do, since the Greek armies were preoccupied with the Seljuks of Rum.