1054
Great Schism
Legates of Leo IX lay a bull of excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia and Patriarch Cerularius answers in kind; the mutual anathemas formalize the rupture between Rome and Constantinople.
One Axis: 1054 to 1517
Every tradition's events in the same span of years, on one axis.
1095
Council of Clermont; First Crusade Called
Urban II preaches at Clermont and calls the armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land; the crusading movement begins.
1099
Fall of Jerusalem
The First Crusade storms Jerusalem after a five-week siege and massacres its inhabitants; the Latin Kingdom is established.
1135–1204
Maimonides
Moses Maimonides, physician and philosopher in Fustat, codifies all of Jewish law in the Mishneh Torah and reconciles faith and Aristotelian philosophy in the Guide of the Perplexed; no medieval Jewish thinker shapes the tradition more.
1204
Fourth Crusade Sacks Constantinople
Diverted crusaders storm and sack Constantinople, enthroning a Latin emperor and patriarch; the outrage hardens the schism of 1054 into permanence.
1215
Fourth Lateran Council
Innocent III's council defines transubstantiation, requires annual confession and Easter communion, and legislates for the medieval church at its most confident.
1273
Aquinas Completes the Summa Theologiae
Thomas Aquinas leaves the Summa unfinished at his death the following year; the work becomes the standard synthesis of Catholic theology.
1309–1377
Avignon Papacy
Seven popes reign from Avignon under French influence; Catherine of Siena's pleading and Petrarch's scorn frame the period the Italians called a Babylonian captivity.
1378–1417
Western Schism
Rival popes at Rome and Avignon; and after Pisa, a third; divide Latin obedience for a generation, until the Council of Constance restores a single see.
1415
Jan Hus Burned at Constance
The Council of Constance condemns Jan Hus and burns him despite his safe-conduct; the Hussite wars follow in Bohemia, a century before Luther.
1453
Fall of Constantinople
Mehmed II takes Constantinople after a fifty-three-day siege; the Byzantine Empire ends, and the Orthodox world passes under Ottoman rule.
1492
Expulsion from Spain
The Alhambra Decree orders Spain's Jews to convert or leave; tens of thousands depart for Portugal, North Africa, Italy, and the Ottoman world, ending the great Sephardic civilization of Spain and scattering it across the Mediterranean.
1517
Luther's Ninety-Five Theses
Martin Luther publishes his theses against indulgences at Wittenberg; the Reformation begins.