Certainty: 3 Manuel I granted tax exemptions & ordered praktikon for Theotokos Eleousa.
Certainty: 2 Manuel I & Eirene produced their first child, Maria Komnene.
Certainty: 2 Manuel arbitrated between Uros & Dese as rulers of Serbia.
Certainty: 3 Baldwin III was crowned on Easter Day without his mother's knowledge. Palestine was fairly peaceful and relations between the rulers, Melisende and her son Baldwin III, were harmonious. But the queen favoured her relative Manasses, whom she appointed constable and commander of the army. Secure in her support, Manasses, who had become very rich, began to give himself airs and stirred up hatred against himself, not least from Baldwin. The king loathed Manasses as causing the regime's unpopularity, and alienating Melisende from himself. Other enemies of Manasses urged Baldwin to cut his mother's apron strings and take a larger part in government. He agreed, and despite the advice of Fulcher the patriarch and others, he had himself (informally?) crowned, appearing in public on Easter Day, without telling Melisende. After coronation, he called an assembly of nobles, including Ivo of Nesle and Walter, castellan of St Omer, and demanded that Melisende divide the kingdom with him, thus giving him an area to rule. After negotiation, he chose the areas round Tyre and Acre, leaving Jerusalem and Nablus for her. He then appointed his own constable, the rich and powerful Humphrey of Toron
Certainty: 2 Divorce, marriage & succession among European royal houses. Shortly after return from the Second Crusade, Louis VII decided to divorce Eleanor of Aquitaine. The pretext was consanguineity, the real reason the hostility between the couple, which had been exacerbated during the crusade. [There was also the lack of a male heir.] An annulment was granted by the assembled bishops of France. Eleanor immediately married Henry, duke of Normandy and count of Anjou. Within two years there were two other developments: Stephen, king of England died without male children, so that Henry began to rule there as Henry II, with Eleanor as his queen; Louis too remarried, choosing Maria [in fact Constance], daughter of Alfonso VII, emperor (king) of Spain
Certainty: 2 Andronikos (I) was appointed supreme commander in Cilicia & Isauria: he attacked Mopsuestia.
Certainty: 2 Toros, besieged in Mopsuestia, made a sortie against Andronikos (I), who barely escaped to Antioch.
Certainty: 2 Theodoros Kontostephanos killed by an old enemy in the battle at Mopsuestia.
Certainty: 2 Usama's brother 'Ali killed at Gaza.
Certainty: 2 Andronikos (I) from Cilicia treacherously won over Baldwin III & Mas'ud of Ikonion.
Certainty: 2 Civil war in Jerusalem halted by a compromise from Melisende. The division of the kingdom made earlier in the year put Baldwin III and Melisende in different spheres, hopefully solving the tension. But the old friction points remained: Manasses was still in place and Baldwin, well past majority, was still less powerful than his mother. Pressured by the same agitators as before, Baldwin decided to attack Melisende's half of the kingdom. She realised his plans, arranged for the defence of Nablus, and retired to Jerusalem. Baldwin besieged Manasses in his castle of Mirabel, captured him and sent him into exile. After taking Nablus, he followed his mother to the capital. Most landowners in the area under her control disregarded loyalty to her and declared for the king. Exceptions who supported her were her son Amalric, count of Jaffa, who was still young, Philip of Nablus, Rohard the elder and a few more. As Baldwin approached Jerusalem, Melisende took refuge in the citadel, while Fulcher the patriarch intervened in favour of the status quo, but to no avail, condemning Baldwin's actions. The city of Jerusalem did not hold out long against its king; he entered and assaulted the citadel. After some days of fierce fighting on both sides, agreement was reached through envoys: Melisende ceded Jerusalem to Baldwin, while he guaranteed her safe enjoyment of Nablus
Certainty: 2 Unsuccessful pressure on princess Constance of Antioch to choose a prince. Baldwin III was deeply worried that Antioch, without a prince since the death of Raymond of Poitiers, would soon follow Edessa under Turkish rule, knowing that he himself had little time to spend there. Thus he repeatedly urged the princess Constance to choose one of her noble suitors from his army to rule the principality. Ivo of Nesle, Walter of Falquenberg or Radulf of Merle were well qualified to save the principality. But she was afraid of the bonds of marriage and preferred her freedom and desires to the needs of her people. When he realised this, Baldwin called a general assembly of the magnates of the kingdom and the principality at Tripoli, inviting from Antioch the patriarch Aimery of Limoges and his suffragans and Constance with her barons; also present were queen Melisende and the barons from Jerusalem. After some general issues, the agenda turned to Constance's marriage plans, but nobody succeeded in persuading her to wed, not her kinsmen Baldwin III or Raymond II, nor her maternal aunts Melisende or Hodierna. It was said that Aimery had influence over her, and supported her aberration of refusal to marry, since it helped him in his ambition to have a freer hand in control of the principality. The assembly ended in failure on this issue
Certainty: 2 Manuel sent the kaisar Ioannes to woo Constance, princess of Antioch, but in vain. Manuel sent the widower Ioannes Rogerios the kaisar as a suitor for the hand of Constance, princess of Antioch, widow of Raymond of Poitiers, but she refused him. It may have been because he was too old, or because the Antiochenes feared the imposition of Byzantine taxation. After he returned unsuccessfully to Constantinople, he fell ill and became a monk. Constance eventually married Reynaud of Chatillon
Certainty: 2 Failed attempt to heal the marriage of Raymond II: his assassination. Queen Melisande came to Tripoli not only to see her niece Constance, but also to heal a split which had occurred between her sister Hodierna and her husband Raymond II, which derived from matrimonial jealousy. Since Melisende had made little progress in this, she decided to take Hodierna home, and the two ladies had left Tripoli. Raymond II, meanwhile, accompanied Constance on the first stage of her journey back to Antioch, took his leave of her and returned to Tripoli. As he was entering the gate of the city, suspecting nothing, he was attacked by the swords of Assassins and died wretchedly. With him died Radulf of Merle and one of his knights, who happened by chance to have joined him in this excursion. Baldwin III was relaxing, playing dice, ignorant of the assassinations which had occurred, when the populace indiscriminately massacred all possible murderers, anyone whose dress or speech seemed different from the local norm. When he realised from the shouts what had happened, he ordered that Melisende and Hodierna be recalled. After much lamentation a fitting funeral was held to bury the dead. He then required all the magnates of the county of Tripoli to swear allegiance to Hodierna as countess and to her two children, the twelve-year-old Raymond and his younger sister Melisende. After that, the king returned to Jerusalem with his mother and barons
Certainty: 2 Illness & death of Anna Komnene. The narrative of the death of Anna Komnene began with two deaths in the family of her sister Maria, a daughter and a granddaughter, which plunged Maria into mourning. Anna, who was strongly oriented towards her family and especially Maria, with whom she had experienced the deaths of their parents, took on the role of comforter. At the same time she became very ill herself, but the role she had adopted made it impossible to concentrate on her own illness. She had to eat, drink and talk as if there was nothing wrong - and this made her much worse, leaving her unable to speak. She soon recovered her speech, but it was plain that her end was near. She bore this philosophically, without recriminations, and put her affairs in order. She prepared her children for her departure, especially her daughter Eirene. Georgios Tornikes too devoted a eulogy to Eirene at the end of his eulogy for Anna, suggesting that his work was sponsored by Eirene. As she died she prayed for every success for her imperial nephew Manuel I
Certainty: 3 Massacre near Jerusalem of Turks claiming the city by hereditary right. The leaders of a Turkish clan named Hiaroquin claimed Jerusalem as their hereditary right, and were accused of cowardice by the clan's matriarch for not putting this claim into action. So they gathered a large army and marched towards the city via Damscus. There they were urged not to go ahead with their plan, but decided to persist. They went straight to Jerusalem, while the defenders assembled at Nablus, which needed protection as it had no walls. The Turks approached Jerusalem up the narrow road from Jericho, where they were routed and massacred by the Jerusalem garrison, on terrain which favoured the defenders. They turned in flight, but those who escaped were cut off at the Jordan from Nablus as they passed. Few survived; as many as 5,000 were said to have been killed that day. There was much rejoicing in the city
Certainty: 2 Conrad III died at Bamberg without fulfilling promises made to Manuel I; Frederick I succeeded. Not long after returning from crusade, Conrad III died at Bamberg, and was magnificently buried in the cathedral there. He had not fulfilled any of the promises he had sworn to Manuel I. He was succeeded by Frederick of Swabia as Frederick I Barbarossa. Conrad III, in a disputed succession, had been forced to promise that his own successor would be Frederick, son of Conrad's one-eyed elder brother
Certainty: 1 Tzetzes wrote to Georgios Kladon, disturbed to discover that he was ill.