World

Topics represented

Roman Empire (81) · World history (71) · British Empire (59) · Politics (57) · Law & constitutions (48) · Culture (42) · Resistance & colonized agency (38) · Colonization & sovereignty (35) · Law & imperial government (33) · War & military technology (29) · Decolonization & independence (26) · Self-government & Commonwealth (17)

Records and sources

Ordered by start date. Long lives and processes may begin before the period you want to study.

1. 674–678

   First Arab siege of Constantinople

   Sources place a major Arab siege of Constantinople between 674 and 678. The capital’s resistance preserved the eastern political center without ending Arab-Byzantine raids and wars.

2. 697

   Cáin Adomnáin or Law of the Innocents

   Cáin Adomnáin was promulgated in 697 at the Synod of Birr according to the Annals of Ulster and related sources. It protected women, children, and clerics from specified violence, though the surviving treatise is later and not a copy of the original legislative text.

3. c. 700–c. 900

   Formation of fiqh and legal schools

   Between the eighth and ninth centuries, Qur’anic interpretation, hadith, local practice, and juristic debate contributed to the formation of fiqh disciplines and legal schools. They did not arise as one system or become fixed at once across the Islamic world.

4. c. 700–c. 1000

   Legal consolidation of waqf

   Waqf gradually consolidated as an endowment institution in diverse Islamic societies, with important doctrinal formulations in Abbasid times. Its roots, aims, and rules varied by school, region, and type of foundation.

5. 717–718

   Second Arab siege of Constantinople

   The second major Arab siege of Constantinople in 717–718 again endangered the capital. Its failure favored the survival of imperial government, though frontiers and regional relationships continued to change.

6. c. 726–c. 843

   Byzantine iconoclasm

   Iconoclastic controversies altered imperial and ecclesiastical politics between 726 and 843, with interruptions and regional variation. They should not be reduced to a universal ban or explained by a single cause.

7. 741

   Ecloga of Leo III and Constantine V

   The Ecloga, issued in 741, reworked Roman law for the Byzantine state and reflects the Christian language of its context. It was neither a simple copy of the Corpus Iuris nor identical legislation across all territories.

8. 751

   Battle of Talas

   Abbasid forces and a Tang expedition fought near the Talas River in 751. The clash mattered in a Central Asian frontier zone, but it does not by itself explain the later Tang withdrawal or the spread of paper: networks and papermaking existed in Central Asia before the battle.

9. 800

   Charlemagne’s imperial title seen from the East

   Charlemagne’s imperial coronation in 800 created a rivalry of legitimacy with the Roman emperor in Constantinople. From the eastern perspective, it did not annul the Roman continuity of its own state.

10. 800

    Charlemagne’s imperial coronation

    Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor in Rome in 800. The act reinforced a political alliance between the papacy and Frankish power and claimed Roman inheritance without restoring the Roman Empire or resolving coexistence with the Eastern Roman Empire.

11. 843

    Restoration of icon veneration

    In 843, icon veneration was officially restored in Constantinople. The outcome closed the second iconoclastic phase without retrospectively erasing debates, losses, and continuities of more than a century.

12. c. 850–c. 1100

    Transmission of Greek manuscripts

    Greek manuscript production and copying reached great intensity in the middle Byzantine period, preserving and reworking ancient and Christian texts. It was a practice of varied workshops, readers, and patrons, not passive or exclusive preservation.

13. c. 860–c. 988

    Relations with the Rus and Christianization

    Through raids, trade, diplomacy, and missions, Constantinople developed changing relations with the Rus. Vladimir’s adoption of Christianity in 988 expanded religious and political links without erasing local practices or turning the region into an extension of the empire.

14. c. 876–c. 892

    Basilika and Roman law in Greek

    Basil I began and Leo VI completed the Basilika, a major Greek reorganization of Roman law. The compilation facilitated its use in a Greek-speaking empire without uniformly replacing every local legal practice.

15. c. 960–c. 1279

    Economy, technology, and trade in Song China

    The Song dynasties reunited and ruled parts of China during a period of intensive agricultural production, trade, and technical specialization. Growth was uneven and coexisted with military rivalry and the loss of the north; it does not amount to linear modernization or universal prosperity.

16. 1054

    The 1054 legation in Constantinople

    The Latin legation of 1054 and excommunications between representatives of Rome and Constantinople aggravated ecclesial tensions. They do not by themselves amount to one single, definitive date of separation between all eastern and western churches.

17. 1071

    Battle of Manzikert and Anatolian crisis

    The imperial defeat at Manzikert in 1071, followed by civil wars and shifts in power, accelerated losses in Anatolia. It was not an instant imperial collapse and does not by itself explain later transformations.

18. 1081–1118

    Alexios I’s rule and Komnenian recovery

    Alexios I Komnenos’ reign organized a partial recovery after the crisis of 1071 through reforms, diplomacy, and shifting alliances. Improvement coexisted with reliance on external resources and new frontier pressures.

19. c. 1088–c. 1200

    Medieval studia and the rediscovery of Roman law

    In Bologna, masters and students organized advanced study around the Corpus Iuris Civilis and other disciplines. Legal teaching helped form European university and legal traditions, but it was not the single origin of universities or of all modern law.

20. 1095–1099

    First Crusade and relations with the Eastern Empire

    The First Crusade crossed Byzantine territories and reordered relations among Constantinople, crusader leaders, and neighboring states. Military cooperation coexisted with divergent objectives, jurisdictions, and mistrust.

21. c. 1100–c. 1200

    Bologna and the formation of ius commune

    At Bologna, the study and commentary of Roman and canon-law texts made law a university discipline and helped form the ius commune. Reference to Roman law was a medieval elaboration, not a literal restoration of Rome’s jurisdiction or a uniform code automatically displacing local laws.

22. c. 1140

    Gratian’s Decretum

    The Decretum, composed around 1140, organized and discussed apparently discordant canons and authorities. It became central to canon-law teaching and practice; it was not papal legislation promulgated as a state code and did not exhaust all sources of ecclesiastical law.

23. 1158

    Constitutio Habita and protection for scholars

    Frederick I issued the Constitutio Habita in 1158, an imperial privilege protecting traveling students and teachers and providing jurisdictional rules. It mattered to the legal status of communities of study; it should not be treated as the single founding act of a modern university.

24. c. 1160–c. 1216

    Royal itinerant justices and the formation of English common law

    From the mid-twelfth century, judges sent from royal courts traveled English counties and connected local litigation with Westminster courts. The practice contributed to common law, while coexisting with manorial, ecclesiastical, and local jurisdictions and not immediately creating a uniform system.

25. 1188

    Decreta of the Cortes of León

    The Decreta arose from a Curia Regia convened by Alfonso IX, with documented representatives of towns alongside king, Church, and nobility. UNESCO describes them as the oldest documentary manifestation of the European parliamentary system; that claim does not turn the assembly into a modern democracy or prove linear institutional continuity.

26. 1204

    Fourth Crusade and capture of Constantinople

    Armies of the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople in 1204 and established a Latin Empire. The result fragmented the Byzantine political space and displaced populations and elites; it did not end the continuity of eastern Roman states.

27. c. 1206–c. 1260

    Mongol operational logistics and integration of specialists

    The organization of the early Mongol empires linked herds, food, intelligence, security, and transport; riders rotated horses and forces incorporated siege specialists of diverse origins for operations against cities. This pattern does not mean an absence of logistics or an innate superiority: it depended on pasture, provisioning, information, coercion, climates, and local capacities, and changed across campaigns and khanates.

28. c. 1206–c. 1368

    Mongol Empire and “Pax Mongolica” networks

    Mongol conquests temporarily united vast regions of Eurasia and facilitated trade, the movement of artisans, and diplomatic contacts among several khanates. “Pax Mongolica” is a partial historiographical label: it coexisted with devastating invasions, shifting frontiers, and regional differences.

29. 1215

    Fourth Lateran Council and trial by ordeal

    Canon 18 of the Fourth Lateran Council barred clerics from blessing or participating in water- or hot-iron ordeals. By withdrawing ecclesiastical support, it altered an evidentiary mechanism in several jurisdictions; it did not by itself abolish every ordeal or every form of trial by combat.

30. 1215

    Magna Carta: settlement and reissues

    John sealed Magna Carta in 1215 amid conflict with barons; the initial text did not settle the dispute and was reissued, revised, and eventually incorporated into English statute law. Its mechanisms addressed royal government, lordship, and procedural guarantees in their context, not already-realized universal rights.