12th Century Timelines Episode Two: Century of the Axe 11001200

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12th Century TimelinesEpisode Two Century of
the Axe (1100-1200)

• http//www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/millennium/learni
  ng/timelines/

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The Larger Twelfth-Century World ContextLarger
and more fundamental global phenomena underlay
the boom of twelfth-century building. These
factors included a global population increase,
widespread land clearances, heightened trade
activity, rising populations of religious
observers, and growing urbanization.
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The Earth's PeoplesIn the second century of this
millennium, agricultural production increased. In
Europe, the population doubled. China's
population grew to 100 million out of a world
population of 330 million. Though cities were
increasing in importance, only a small percentage
of the earth's peoples lived in cities. Most of
the world's people were peasant farmers or
nomads. Some hunters and gatherers, like the
Aborigines, were so isolated from contact with
other societies, that they continued their rich
cultural traditions uninterrupted by other
twelfth-century changes.
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Clearing the LandWorldwide, more and more land
was cleared for agriculture. Chinese peasants
moved south where they constructed paddies and
planted a new, fast-ripening rice from Southeast
Asia that could be harvested twice a year.
Europeans cleared away much of their forests for
farms and drained swamps. They adopted the
moldboard plow and draft harnesses and thus could
use horses for agricultural labor. They molded
the heavy clay of Northern Europe into fields
suitable for planting.
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Clearing the LandAn unusually warm climate in
the far North insured that the harvests were
plentiful. Farther east, Islamic civilizations
planted Indian sugar, Chinese citrus and Indian
cotton in pioneering efforts that eventually led
to plantations and commercial agriculture. As
Islamic civilizations spread to span Africa, Asia
and Europe, crops like eggplant, mangoes,
plantains, sorghum were shuffled back and forth
across the continents. New ideas for irrigating,
producing, and processing crops passed from one
Islamic society to another
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Clearing the LandAs populations expanded around
the world, agriculturists developed new
irrigation systems to bring water to the land.
Islamic peoples in Spain adopted the underground
water canals used in Southwest Asia and the
Ancient Pueblo people diverted water to irrigate
thousands of acres in what is now the
Southwestern region of the United States.
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Trade and TravelFlourishing agriculture
bolstered local economies. As peasants produced
more crops than they needed, they were able to
trade whatever was extra. Changes in commercial
practices encouraged more trade. Villages became
trading centers and grew into cities. Just as
trade from Mexico expanded into North America,
overland trade routes linked markets across
Eurasia. Water routes connected ports along the
China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean
Sea, and Atlantic Europe. More people traveled
than had previously - some for profit, some for
adventure, and others as religious pilgrims.
Often traveling merchants converted their local
trading partners and new religions spread across
Africa and Eurasia.
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Religious ShrinesThe faithful traveled trade
routes to religious shrines beside merchants and
soldiers. Wealthy traders donated money to build
sanctuaries along the way. Suger's Abby of St.
Denis sanctified the route of pilgrims in France
in Cairo the al-Azhar Mosque and University
became an important stopping point for African
pilgrims to on their way to Mecca. Buddhists
constructed Angkor Wat in Southeast Asia as a
religious and political center. As trade routes
and pilgrims multiplied, Christianity, Buddhism,
and Islam spread far beyond the lands of their
origin.
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CitiesThe privileged lived comfortable,
cosmopolitan lives in cities like Hangchou,
Baghdad, Cairo, Delhi, and Cordoba. Hangzhou had
a million inhabitants, and its visitors were
amazed to find drinking water and pest control.
River water circulated through a city system that
constantly removed waste. Chinese cities had
theatres, restaurants, parks, bookstores, and
teahouses. The new Korean invention of moveable
type enabled Chinese to print books and then
paper money. In European cities like the Italian
city-states, newly-built town halls began to
replace palaces as symbols of civic pride for
merchants and bankers
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AMERICA - Summary In North America, a civilizati
on arose which transformed a
semi-desert into a cultivated landscape. The
Ancient Pueblo peoples of the Southwest imposed a
new geometry on the landscape.
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At Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico,
stand the ruins of what was once a complex of
structures with more than 800 rooms. The rooms
were stacked on top of one another in a huge
semi-circle, a plan that the Pueblo people
devised and kept to for 200 years.
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The timbers that supported the vast roofs of the
dwellings were brought by hand from forests over
60 miles away. Around the buildings lay carefully
cultivated fields with crops of maize and squash.
To allow crops to grow in such an arid
environment, the Pueblo people created an
ingenious system of irrigating channels.
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Dug deep into the rocks and dirt of the
surrounding mesa tops, these channels captured
droplets of rain from passing storms or melting
snow. The water then fed into fields where it was
retained by built-up earth around eachplant. This
"waffle" irrigation system sustained a growing
population for several hundred years.
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But after a series of persistent droughts towards
the end of the twelfth century, even these levels
of ingenuity could not help the settlement. It
was eventually abandoned.
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FRANCE - Summary In northern France, forests wer
e cleared at faster and faster rates. As the
population grew, the pressure for land increased.
Churches and houses were usually made of timber,
but as the number of suitable trees dwindled the
structures had to change.
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At St. Denis in Paris, Abbot Suger dreamed of
rebuilding the old abbey. His inspiration was a
mystical vision of heaven. He envisioned slender
stone columns, huge windows, and a mighty roof
that would draw the eye upward toward heaven.
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Skeptics told Abbot Suger he would never find
trees large enough to stretch across such an
expanse, but he persevered. He finally found
twelve trees tall enough to span the roof and
was able to build his dream cathedral. St. Denis,
a mixture of stone and wood, was completed in
Suger's lifetime.
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However,it would go through several renovations
as cathedrals continued to expand, more and more
stone was used. The construction of St. Denis
sparked the beginning of the new style of
"Gothic" architecture. Over the next 150 years,
cathedrals sprang up throughout Europe.
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ETHIOPIA - Summary While churches sought to rise
to the sky in Europe, in Africa they were being
carved out of the earth. In the highlands of
Ethiopia during twelfth century, a man called
Lalibela rose to
power, was crowned King, and went on to establish
a Christian empire spanning the highlands and
stretching to the sea.
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His ambition was to build a religious state and a
spiritual center to rival Jerusalem. He claimed
to have been shown - in a vision - the most holy
of churches in Heaven. He ordered
tools be made to carve temples out of
the rock like those he had seen.
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Craftsmen toiled in the stony mountains for over
twenty-fouryears to create these unique rock
churches. Some of Lalibela's motivation to build
these unusual structures stemmed from a desire
to claim legitimacy. He belonged to a dynasty
that had seized the throne and the churches
helped him gain acceptance.
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His efforts paid off today he is revered as a
saint and his shrine attracts a continuous flow
of pilgrims. While all religions at one time or
another have constructed shrines and physical
symbols to serve an ideological purpose, striking
awe into to the layman and establishing the
clergy's direct connection to the power of God,
Lalibela clearly lacked legitimacy and used these
temples to insure his leadership.
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ITALY - Summary In the twelfth century, cities g
rew worldwide. In Italy, a booming economy and
population explosion meant increased demand for
goods and space. People gathered in cities to
trade and settled in increasingly cramped spaces.
Despite feuding between factions within cities, a
spirit of citizenship emerged.
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In many towns and cities republics were
established, consuls were elected, and citizens
assigned rights. Residents were proud of their
cities and strove to make them more glorious than
their neighbors'. In Sienna, in Tuscany, an event
known as the Palio originated and became a
tradition.
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This bi-annual bareback horse race round the
central piazza celebrated the city spirit while
also serving as a peaceful outlet for the
rivalries among different quarters of the town.
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AUSTRALIA - Summary In Australia in the twelfth
century, the Aboriginal culture flourished.
Though they did not build, the Aboriginal'
creativity centered around art they endowed
every landmark with sacred significance and
celebrated it with rituals.
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The journeys of ancestors were retraced again
and again over centuries a physical pilgrimage
through artistic celebrations. The Aborigines'
universal language was art. For forty thousands
of years they created paintings in galleries of
rock intended to be overlaid by other artists
over time.
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Aborigines left their mark on the land in other
subtle ways. Fire was a core technology, and they
used it to modify the wilderness by burning
sections and clearing it for grazing animals.
Fire sticks were used to chase animals out of
their burrows.
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They did not cultivate crops, but instead
gathered foodstuffs offered up by the land.
Aboriginal culture developed a detailed and
crucial knowledge of what was edible and exactly
where it was to be found. Aboriginal society
survived in isolation until Europeans began to
colonize in the 18th century.
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Zhu Xi 1130 - 1200

• One of China's most influential philosophers, Zhu
  Xi recast Confucius's teachings in more than 100
  works, including commentaries on most of the
  Confucian classics. His teachings -- emphasizing
  morality and logic, condemning popular religion
  and denying the existence of a personal deity --
  were a challenge to the spread of Buddhism in
  China. Zhu's neo-Confucian writings became
  required reading for China's civil service exams
  for the next 600 years.

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12th Century Segments

• America
• France
• Ethiopia
• Italy
• Australia
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  .html