Timeline 1175-1190 (Interference)

1176-1180
1175-1177

Central-Eastern Europe: Grand Prince Andrew I Bogolyubsky of Rostov, Vladimir and Suzdal' is murdered by some disgruntled boyars (nobles). A civil war for his succession is settled in favor of Vsevolod III the Big Nest after the battle of the Moskva river, where White Ruthenian forces from Polotsk/Palteskei, eastern Galindian (Balts) and Muromjan (Finns) tribesmen help the winning side. Moscow is burnt and its inhabitants slain during the conflict.

1175-1184

Southern Europe: Milan is rebuilt from scratch under Church protection on impulse of archbishop Galdino, regaining a considerable commercial role in the midst of the Lombard plain (*OTL Padan plain).

1176

British Isles: Richard Strongbow de Clare dies during an Irish revolt. High King Rory O'Connor of Connacht and earl Madoc of Dublin vie for the possessions of Leinster, with the latter marrying Aoife, Richard's widow, and gaining the legitimacy to rule, but not full control over the disputed territories.

Southern Europe: Arrigo I the City-Razer, king of Lombardy and Sardinia, dies, succeeded by his nephew Berengario II; the Lombard Comuni breathe with relief at the news :D. The Marquis of Carretto Enrico I il Guercio gains the marchional title also over Savona, expanding his influence over the Ponente (western) side of Liguria. George, the young Rurikid ruler of Drystra/Silistra, conquers Vidin from the Hungarians and is hailed as Czar of the Vlachs and Bulgarians after previous victories over Byzantines and western Cumans; he holds sway astride the lower Danube from the Iron Gate to the Black Sea, and from the Transylvanian Alps to the Vlachorai (*OTL Balkan range proper).

Byzantine Empire: Raynald the Wolf, together with his ally Tedaldo di Canossa-Novellara, prince of Cyprus, and the Pisan navy, invades Byzantine Pamphilia, claiming it by the inheritance rights of his wife, Theodora of Antioch. The Byzantine army sent there is defeated by the rebellious Batiturks even before confronting the Crusaders and erupts into revolt, marching on Constantinople under the leadership of Theodore Vatatzes, duke of Paphlagonia and a distant relative of the emperor, and his son Basil. Andronicus I tries to abandon the city but is lynched :eek: by a mob with his first son Manuel, and Theodore is enthroned as the new basileus. Pamphylia is subjected to Antioch, with the port of Attalia being conceded to the Pisans. When later in the year Theodore dies, Basil succeeds him.

Middle East: Salah-ad-Din of Egypt defeats a Zengid army near Damascus, then is murdered :mad: by the Nizari Assassins of Syria while besieging Aleppo. His younger brother al-Adil takes over as sultan of Egypt, rejecting Zengid suzerainty (Salah ad-Din was already campaigning against his overlords) and founding the Ayyubid dynasty. Guido of Biandrate, viceroy of Jerusalem and marquis of the Levant (Arsuf and Caesarea of Palestine) dies, succeeded by his son, William II.

1176-1179

Byzantine Empire: John Comnenus, son of the murdered Andronicus, tries to assert his right to the imperial throne of Constantinople from his estates in Morea/Peloponnesus but, despite receiving help from both the Serbs, the Venetians and the Vlacho-Bulgarians, is finally killed at the battle of Delphi, extinguishing the main branch of the Comnenoi.

1177

Northern Europe: King Frederick II of Germany (*OTL Barbarossa) issues the City Charters to face the growth of the Communal movement in the country and reduce the power of the nobility, and asserts the royal prerogative of declaring some cities and towns free from feudal yoke and only subject to the king, while allowed to self-govern in most matters.

Central-Eastern Europe: Mieszko III of Poland, a brutal despot who vainly tried to reunify the country, is driven from Cracow by his younger brother Casimir II the Just, who had remained excluded from the partition of the kingdom after the death of his father Boleslaw III Wrymouth.

Middle East: Sultan al-Adil of Egypt vainly besieges the Western Imperial fortresses of Gaza and Ashqelon, being eventually driven back. Sultan Abdullah of Arabia's forces overrun and conquer the old Shiite emirate of Hillah (southern Iraq), tributary of the Great Seljuks of Baghdad

Far East: The Christian Nestorian Mongol tribe of the Naimans breaks free from Karakhitai supremacy. 1177-1179

Northern Europe: Norway is rocked by yet another civil war when king Haakon II Herdebrei is murdered by the supporters of his acquired uncle Jon Halkelsson, who usurps the throne. Sigurd III, brother of Haakon, together with his brothers Sverre Sigurdsson, Harald and Erik, leads the loyalist struggle supported by the Birkebeiner party, mainly composed by free peasants, as the usurper is supported by the Heklungs (nobility and the high Church). Sigurd is defeated and killed in battle with Harald and Erik early in the war, and Sverre, ousted from Nidaros/Trondheim, crosses the Scandinavian Alps to find refuge in the Swedish province of Östergötland. 1177-1181 SE Asia: The Chams sack Angkor, then the Khmer Empire is restored by Jayavarman VII, son of the late Suryavarman II. Jayavarman, a devout Buddhist who had up to then renounced arms to claim his inheritance not to spill blood:), drives the invaders from Kampuchea/Cambodia 1178

Southern Europe: Roger III of Lesser Normandy dies, leaving the crown to his only son, Tancredi the Knight of Apulia, who finally opts for making Melfi the capital of his kingdom. The new king at once begins long conflict with both Venice and Byzantium by capturing Byzantine-held Dyrrachion, ostensibly in (unrequested:rolleyes: ) support of John Comnenus. Venice, once again alarmed, soon abandons the imperial pretender to his destiny, making a status-quo peace with Basil I Vatatzes.

Byzantine Empire: Raynald the Wolf of Châtillon-Antioch is captured and put to death by the Batiturk chieftain Alpay Yusuf, who rules in Iconium establishing the Alpayoglu emirate under nominal Ortoqid suzerainty, bitterly resisted by other Batiturk tribes previously converted to Orthodox Christianity :confused: and switching allegiance between Byzantium and the Crusaders according to their own convenience. Pamphilia disintegrates into a splinter of Batiturk and Crusader holdings.

Arabia: Sultan Abdullah of Arabia ousts Egyptian forces from Yemen, beginning a vicious struggle against the Yemenite Zaydis, who resist in their mountains.

Far East: Chinese Song annals register the voyage of Muslim sailors to a distant land called Mu-Lan-Pi. Its identification with OTL California is highly dobtful :rolleyes:. 1179 Western Europe: Pope Alexander II (*OTL Alexander III) gives official sanction to Portugal's existence as a kingdom, for its contribution in the struggle against the Maurian Gadirotes (Cathars). The Church throws its support in a succession war on Afonso IV Vimara, supported by the local Templar Grand Master, Dom Gualdim Pais, count of Moreia (*OTL Casablanca). Castile rejects vassalage to Navarra and defeats the Navarrese at the battle of the Duero Springs.

Southern Europe: The Second (*OTL Third) Lateran Council decides that future Pope-kings will be elected by a two-third majority of the cardinal electors. Pataria, Catharism, Waldism and Arnaldism are all anathematized as heresies, and temporal rulers pressured to fight them by any means: a new Crusade against these heresies is called upon.

Middle East: Sultan al-Adil of Egypt captures Gaza from the Western “Roman” Empire of Sicily.

India: Mu'iz-ad-Din Muhammad of Ghor assaults India, razing Multan and martyring the local claimant to the Waliate :eek: (*Sunni “Papacy”), Abdullah VIII; after failing a siege of Lahore, the last Ghaznavid stronghold, he is later repulsed by a coalition of Rajput Hindu princes in the Kurukshetra region.

1179-1180

Far East: Taira no Kiyomori, the all-powerful chief of the Taira samurai clan, arrests the cloistered emperor of Japan Go-Shirakawa and has his own infant grandson Antoku/Tokihito made emperor, causing the start of a major rebellion by the surviving Minamoto rivals, the Genpei War. The Taira side is victorious in the first battle of Uji, where the deafeated Minamoto no Yorimasa commits suicide in the face of defeat, then burn the city of Nara where hostile Buddhist monks opposed resistance. The Minamotos, however, manage to muster further support in the northern provinces.

1180

Western Europe, North Africa: The Second Cathar Crusade unfolds in Septimania (*OTL Languedoc) and Mauretania (*OTL Morocco). In Lyon (Burgundy) the local Communal authority is overthrown and the Arnaldists and Waldensians largely massacred and forced to flee to the Alpine valleys for their lives. In Septimania hordes of petty nobles from the Norman empire and Luxemburg settle down after massacring local Cathar landlords and enserfing the peasants; king Raymond II, after practically losing half his reign, abdicates in desperation in favor of his son, Raymond III. In Mauretania the Gadirote Cathar kingdom shatters into local tribal unities as king Jacob the Perfect is killed in the conquest of Murnathya (*OTL Marrakech) at the hands of Portuguese and Andalusian Crusaders led by the Templar dom Gualdim Pais.

Southern Europe: Taking part in the Second Cathar Crusade, the Hungarians overrun Bogomil Bosnia. Despite fierce massacres, heresy survives in the rugged Bosnian mountains. Kulin, a nominally Catholic Bosnian, is made the new ban (duke) under Hungarian authority, and will sucessfully protect his fellow countrymen from further persecution.

North Africa: Augustine IV the Desert Knight, a shrewd adventurer from the southern Atlas, establishes the Zatwili dynasty on the throne of Lesvallia (*OTL Kabylia).

Middle East: Count Bernat I of Tripoli conquers Damascus :) from local Muslim rulers and captures most of inner Lebanon.

ca. 1180

North Africa: The Kel Keris, a tribe dwelling in the Ahaggar mountains in the heart of the Zenete Desert (*OTL Sahara), to counter Banu Hilal slaving raids establish a strong military and build a Judeo-Christian theocratic State partly modeled on the earlier Zenete Compact.

Central Hesperia (*OTL America): The Alcohuan tribe, migrating from the north, settles into the Valley of Anahuac/Mexico and establishes the powerful city-state of Texcoco on the shores of the lake bearing the same name.

1181-1185
1181

Northern Europe: The duchy of (western) Pomerania/Mecklemburg, by now dotted with German-settled towns, is recognized as a German hereditary fiefdom under the Niklotowicz dynasty, though without the right of electing the new king, marking the end of the main German thrust against the Baltic Slavs. King Valdemar I the Great of Denmark crushes the rebels of Scania in the battle of Dysiaa. British Isles, Western Europe: William IV the Sturdy, emperor of Greater Normandy, dies, leaving the throne to his younger brother Amalric/Amaury the Great.

Western Europe: Roger II de Trencavel, count of Béziers and Carcassonne, is forced to renegade Catharism, of which he was the most eminent believer in Septimania, and to depart for the Holy Land as a crusader to do a penance pilgrimage-in-arms. The Navarrese conquer Barcelona from Septimania after a long siege, gaining a most important outlet on the Mediterranean and effective control over Catalonia north of the Ebro. The local infant heir to the ducal throne, Arnaut, is exiled to his family's holdings of Lebanon.

Southern Europe: Pope-king Alexander II (*OTL Alexander III) dies in Rome. After a disputed election partisans of Innocent III (Lanzone da Sezze) and Dominic II (*OTL Lucius III, Ubaldo Allucingoli from Lucca) begin to fight in the Urbs, with both rival Popes entrenching in the city and daily, bloody street battles among factions. Emperor Matthias of Sicily dies, leaving five daughters. The eldest, Alexandra, takes over as empress as different strongmen inside and outside the Ghiffiotto family vie for power. Duke 'Gennadio of Rossano', one of the empress's brothers-in-law, seizes Calabria starting a civil war. Stefan Nemanja, defeated, is forced to give back Naissos/Niš to the Byzantines and pay tribute.

Middle East: Baghdad falls to the armies of Abdullah Saif-ul-Islam of Arabia, and the Greater Seljuk empire is at any effect ended.

1181-1183

Northern Europe: Sverre Sigurdsson reenters Norway with Swedish allies and retakes Nidaros/Trondheim, as the Birkebeiner party erupts in revolt against the usurper Jon Halkelsson. After many skirmishes, land and naval battles, the usurper is driven from his bases in Bergen and Viken and exiled to Denmark, where he dies soon later leaving no legitimate heirs.

Middle East: Zengid power crumbles in Aleppo and northern Syria, as infighting between different Muslim strongmen leads to Aleppo's falls to the Templars, while the Ortoqids take over northern Syria fending off Mosul's Zengid line.

1181-1185

Southern Europe, Byzantine Empire: The Italo-Normans invade Albania and Dalmatia, ostensibly to carry on fighting against heretic Bogomils and schismatic Byzantines. That rallies both Venice and Byzantium against their dreams of conquest.

Middle East: William II, Viceroy of Jerusalem and marquis of the Levant, is defeated anmd captured by sultan al-Adil Saif-ad-Din (Saphadin) of Egypt at the battle of Rafa and held in honorable captivity in the following four years.

1182

British Isles, Western Europe: The Norman emperor Amaury the Great expels the Jews from his capital in Rouen and from Paris and London.

Southern Europe: A party of Templars on pilgrimage to Rome sides with Dominic II (*OTL Lucius III), winning control over the city; the ousted Innocent III dies soon later. Pope Dominic states that the Templars will be the Pope's personal guard, with right to support by force of arms the only true Pope :rolleyes: duly elected by the Conclave. Poliarch Jonathan of Catania, empress Alexandra's husband and her distant cousin, crosses the Messina Strait against the rebel Gennadio of Rossano but is poisoned to death in Reggio Calabria. King Béla III of Hungary sacks Belgrade, ousting the Byzantine garrison there; Stefan Nemanja rejects payment of tribute to Byzantium. Ragusa/Dubrovnik regains independence from Venice with Serbian help.

Central-Eastern Europe: The first Sejm (Parliament) of Poland convenes in ??czyca, representing both the Church and the nobility.

Byzantine Empire: The Genoese monopoly on trade with Constantinople is broken in the naval battle of Skyros by the Venetians, who establish a trading post at Pelagamborion (*OTL Seddülbahir) just outside the Dardanelles, so as to formally respect the last peace terms with Byzantium. To any effect, they still control a sizable share of the empire's foreign trade.

Middle East: Abdullah Saif-ul-Islam's forces overrun the Crusader fortress of Helim/Aqaba; the nearby island stronghold of Ile-de-Graye, defended by Templars, falls instead to the Egyptian navy after such a gallant defence that sultan al-Adil Saphadin, admired, paroles all captured survivors brought to him. The last Christian outposts on the Red Sea, however, are gone, and soon Egyptian and Arab forces begin to vie for supremacy in the Negev desert.

1183 Southern Europe: Zara/Zadar (Dalmatia) again rises in rebellion against Venice, accepting Hungarian “protection”, which precipitates a three-sided conflict in the region between Venetian, Norman and Hungarian forces.

Middle East: Saphadin (al-Adil Saif-ad-Din) of Egypt conquers Ashqelon, then invades Palestine but is repulsed by count Bernat I of Tripoli (Lebanon), and his siege of Jerusalem fails in a short time. Abdullah Saif-ul-Islam's Bedouin army storms and conquers the Crusader border fortress of al-Kerak (Jordan), beheading the defenders and the local lord, John the Saracen. Nur ad-Din Muhammad, the Ortoqid emir of Hisn Kayfa, conquers Amida/Diyarbakir ending the rival Inalid power in Kurdistan, and moves there his capital, gaining overall hegemony among the Ortoqid clan and proclaiming himself the new sultan of all Turkmen, in rivalry to the Danishmendids. Central Asia: Ala ud-Din Tukush Shah of Khorezm invades and conquers Khorassan. Far East: The Minamotos turn the tide of the Genpei War by scoring a major victory over the Taira army at the battle of Kurikara/Tonamiyama.

1183-1185

Southern Europe: Bolstered by Lesser Norman reinforcements, Gennadio of Rossano consolidates his grip over Calabria, even taking an oath of loyalty to king Tancredi I of Lesser Normandy. His final invasion of Sicily, though, ends in a disastrous defeat at the battle of Fiumara Rossa (*not existing OTL with this name) at the hands of loyalist general Bartholomew Ghiffiotto, a second-degree cousin of the Western Roman empress Alexandra of Sicily. Calabria is mostly gobbled up by the Italo-Normans, save the southern tip, firmly held by Bartholomew.

1183-1186

Southern Europe: Duklja/Zeta (later Melanoria, *OTL Montenegro) is conquered by Stefan Nemanja's Serbs, who enforce conversion to Orthodox Christianity upon the Catholic minority. Nemanja also begins a persecution of Bogomils, who are expelled to Bosnia.

1184

Northern Europe: Denmark enforces its suzerainty upon the Polish-Kashubian rulers of eastern Pomerania. King Frederick II of Germany (*OTL Barbarossa), yielding to Papal pressure, unleashes a fierce persecution against Cathars and Waldensians in Germany: the targeted groups, already modest in size in the country, are almost exterminated in a few years.

Western Europe: Aymeric II of Balz (*Baux), scion of an illegitimate branch of the royal family of Burgundy, is made prince of Orange/Arenjo (near Avignon) and Lord Marshall of Provence, establishing his family as one of the most powerful in Burgundy.

Southern Europe: In the Synod of Verona yet another inner Crusade is called upon to root out Arnaldism, strong particularly in Lombardy both within the peasantry and in the Communal free towns. Soon bloods flows, and stakes burn in the hundreds, as royal, feudal and Communal authorities persecute the heretics.

Byzantine Empire: The Italo-Norman admiral Margaritone da Brindisi takes the Ionian islands, making them an own possession and negotiating as an independent player in the war opposing Lesser Normandy to Venice and Byzantium. A new Danishmendid attempt to capture Trabzon ends in an utter failure.

India: Muhammad of Ghor invades Gujarat but is beaten back by its Solanki Chalukya rulers at the battle of Kayadara.

Far East: Minamoto no Yoshitaka kidnaps the cloistered emperor Go-Shirakawa from Kyoto, attempting to seize supremacy in the Minamoto clan froim his cousins Yoshitsune, Yoritomo and Noriyori, but is defeated at the second battle of Uji and killed in the battle of Awazu. A few weeks later also the Tairas are defeated at Ichi-no-Tani; the winners enthrone in Kyoto the infant Go-Toba as the new emperor of their liking.

1184-1185

Byzantine Empire: As the majority of the Byzantine army is in the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans) fighting skirmishes against Vlacho-Bulgarians, Serbs and Normans from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, general Andronicus Lapardas revolts in Asia Minor. His rebellion shakes the empire, as he manages to besiege Constantinople for several months with his improvised army, made up of peasant rebels, rogue bands of Batiturks and disgruntled tagmata (legions).

1184-1212

Caucasus: Under the glorious reign of queen Tamara the Georgians and their Christian Armenian allies retake several cities as Kars/Vannadopolis, Ani and Dvin, breaking the back of the Danishmendid state of Ahlat.

1185

Southern Europe: Pope Dominic II (*OTL Lucius III) dies, succeeded by Urban III, the archbishop of Milan Umberto Crivelli, a merciless persecutor of Cathars, Waldensians and Arnaldists.

Southern Europe, Byzantine Empire: Sensing a magnificent opportunity to crush the hated Greeks in a moment of weakness and division, king Tancredi I of Lesser Normandy leads his Italo-Norman armies in a daring invasion of the Byzantine Empire from his bridgehead in Albania. The invaders overrun the Vardariote guard of Macedonia at Kastoria and, just like a century before, Thessalonica is again mercilessly burnt and its people slain by the Normans, who march straight to Constantinople, still besieged by the rebel Andronicus Lapardas. But Lapardas is murdered by his very men and his ragtag army recrosses the Bosphorus sacking Bithynia. In hasty desperation, the Byzantines recognize George I of Silistra as Czar of of the Vlachs and Bulgarians, pay him tributes and arrange for a matrimonial alliance, requesting his help against the Normans. Then the Vlacho-Bulgarian generals Todor and Ivan Asen/Belgun, together with the Byzantine strategos Alexius Branas, slaughter the Italo-Normans at the battle of the Euros river in Thrace. Tancredi falls along with his first son and heir Roger and the creme of his army, inflicting a most severe blow to Lesser Normandy, where a regency must be put on for Tancredi' second son, William II.

Central-Eastern Europe: Prince Igor of Novgorod-Severskij is defeated in battle by the Kipchak/Cuman khans, Konchak and Kobyak.

India: The governor of Devagiri (*OTL Daulatabad, Maharashtra), Bhilama, founds the Yadava dynasty rejecting Chalukya suzerainty.

Far East: In Japan the naval battle of Dan-no-Ura terminates the Genpei war in a most decisive Minamoto victory: the Heike (Taira) fleet is annihilated, the infant emperor Antoku drowns together with his Taira grandmother. This marks the beginning of the so-called bakufu (tent-government) or Kamakura (from the Minamoto seat, in Kanto) era.

ca. 1185

North Africa: The Coghound pirate brotherhood, formed by a motley collection of Cathar Maurians, Italians, Andalusians, Guanches and even North African Jews, begins to monopolize the Atlantic routes from its remote bases in the Canary islands, beginning a reign of terror unknown of since Viking times, with fierce raids from Mauretania (*OTL Morocco) up to Iceland.

1186-1190
1185-1188 Northern Europe: The Kuvlungs insurgence in SW Norway, led by Jon Kuvlung, endagers king Sverre's power, but is eventually crushed.

1185-1193

British Isles: Madoc of Dublin and Leinster subdues in repeated campaigns the southwestern Irish kingdoms of Desmond and Thomond (Munster), then dies and his conquests mostly wane in a sweep of rebellion led by local Irish clans.

1186

British Isles: The High King of Ireland, Rory O'Connor, is overthrown by his son, Connor Maenmaige.

North Africa: The Maurian Catholic count Paul nicknamed Iron Cross, a remote descendant of the Rodrigo/Marmazon who conquered Spain, defeats the Cathar tribes of the Rawel (*OTL Rif) mountains at the battle of Baskara, then turns on the Andalusian and Spanish crusaders who subsequently tried to get rid of him; also the vanquished Cathars flock under his banner, now a rallying symbol of national pride.

Byzantine Empire: A bloodless coup deposes Basil I Vatatzes from the throne and makes the immensely popular Alexius Branas the new basileus. The deposed ruler retires as a monk in Bulgaria.

Middle East: Sultan Abdullah of Arabia's army captures Damascus from the Tripoline Crusaders and the Knights of St. John after a protracted siege, crushing three subsequent attempts to relieve the blockade of the city.

1187

Northern Europe: Finnic pirates from Courland and Estonia destroy the Swedish city of Sigtuna.

Southern Europe: Pope Urban III dies, succeeded by the Roman Leo IX (Giacinto Bobone, *OTL Celestine III), who finally settle disputes with the Urbs' populace by allowing the election of local magistrates representing the people. The Genoese wrest from the Pisans the almost impregnable Corsican port of Bonifacio, a town they had been claiming for decades.

North Africa: King Augustine IV of Lesvallia (*OTL Kabylia) conquers Tlemsen from the local duke, Mastanabal III the Cruel. Middle East: Baalbek and the Bekaa Valley fall in the hands of Mohammed Mansur Billah, sultan Abdullah of Arabia's cousin and best general; count Bernat I of Tripoli requests help from Europe against the renewed Muslim comeback. Sultan Al-Adil Saphadin of Egypt allies with the Crusaders of Jerusalem against the Arabian ruler, securing the right to enter the Holy City for Muslim unarmed pilgrims in exchange for the alliance and an annual tribute in Mameluk warriors.

India: The Ghorids liquidate the last Ghaznavid stronghold in Lahore, killing the last scion of the rival dynasty, Khusraw Malik.

1187-1190

Southern Europe: A major heretical revolt shakes Lombardy, as thousands of poors flock to the banners of Arnaldist preacher Ranieri da Parma. The movement, after sacking the countryside, burning to ashes some castles and minor towns and coming to besiege some cities, is finally crushed and annihilated and its leaders horribly tortured to death.

1188 Western Europe: Tournai becomes a free town, sparking the Communal movement in the active trade environment of Flanders.

Southern Europe: The rift between the Guidoni (Piedmontese) and Amedei (royal) branches of the Lombard Susa-Biandrate Anscarids is finally composed by two dynastical marriages; in the event of an extinction of one of the families, the other would inherit its lands.

Central-Eastern Europe: A Hungarian invasion of Galicia is defeated by the Pólacak/White Ruthenians at the battle of Sambor. The pagan Yotvingians of duke Mingayl kill in battle the king of Poland Casimir II the Just and establish at Grodno their independent duchy of Sudovia as an ally of the powerful Pólacak Empire of Polotsk/Palteskei. Mieszko III the Old regains the Polish crown and pays tribute to the White Ruthenians.

Middle East: The Knight Hospitalier of Saint John lead the legendary defence of Krak des Chevaliers againt the hordes of Sultan Abdullah Saif-ul-Islam of Arabia

1188-1202

Central-Eastern Europe: Mieszko III reigns in Poland, supported by his brother-in-law, the Ruthenian Czar Volodar of Polotsk; he is constantly fought by the nobility, supporting the cause of Leszek the White and Conrad of Mazovia, Casimir II's young sons, as the kingdom slips more and more into feudal anarchy.

1189 Central-Eastern Europe: Konchak Khan establishes the Khanate of Cumania in OTL Moldavia after defeating the Vlacho-Bulgarians at the Prut river and sacking Kiev. Middle East: Sultan Abdullah's forces crush the last Zengid emirate in Mosul, who was trying to put up a desperate alliance with the Crusaders against the new master came from the desert. A subsequent Arab invasion of Palestine to capture Jerusalem is halted in the bloody battle of Nablus by allied Crusader and Egyptian forces.

Arabia: Wali (*Sunni “Pope”) Abdussalam I of Mecca abolishes the title of Caliph, claiming it had a sense only till the creation of the Waliate; this fatwa (*decision) is supported by sultan Abdullah Saif-ul-Islam bin Yusuf an-Nafudi, a zealot partisan of Waliist Islam.

India: In reaction to the formal abolition of any Caliphate by the Meccan Waliate, the Ghorid Caliphist sultan Muhammad proclaims himself Caliph, sparking major Waliist and Ismaili revolts and a rivalry with his brothers that weaken his empire. Final fall of the Chalukyas of Kalyani (Karnataka); their ancient kingdom is carved between the Seunas/Yadavas in the north, the Kakatiyas and the Hoysalas in the remaining lands.

1189-1190

British Isles: The young Owain ap Iorwerth rebels against his uncle Dafydd I of Wales and secures the throne as king Owain III with the help of emperor Amaury the Great of Greater Normandy, renewing Welsh feudal submission and dynastical ties to the Normans. The defeated Dafydd will die as a monk in France.

1189-1191 Byzantine Empire: Basileus Alexius II Branas counterattacks the Turks in Anatolia by allying with the Danishmendids against the Ortoqids and their clients. Byzantine forces defeat and kill Alpay Yusuf of Iconium, enthroning there his Christian cousin Gregory as duke of Batiturkeia; Crusader strongholds in the Taurus are also eliminated or subdued, surviving only along the southern Anatolian coast.

1190 Southern Europe: The Serbs defeat the Byzantine army in the Morava valley, securing their independence from Constantinople.

Arabia: Sultan Abdullah Saif-ul-Islam conquers Aden from the Egyptians, then campaigns in Oman, completing his conquest of the Arabic peninsula. Actually, its southern fringes remain a hotbed of Zaydi (Yemen) and Ibadi-Khariji (Oman) rebellious tribes, being subjected only in name to the sultan, and, worst of all, firmly adverse to Waliism.

India: The Hoysala ruler, Ballala II, defeats his Seuna/Yadava rival Bhillama V at the battle of Sorituru, winning the struggle for the Chalukya legacy in southern India.

SE Asia: Anawratha's dynasty is restored in Pagan (Burma) with help from his Sri Lankan allies following a civil war. The Khmers capture Vijaya (*OTL Binh Dinh, Vietnam), again vassalizing their Cham rivals.