by Jesse Potter aka Elkin Vanaeon
On this ninth
day of August in the year of our Lord and
Lady 2005 CE
700 to 800 CE - Buddhism spreads to Tibet and Nepal while Islam sweeps across North Africa; Islamic faith eventually extends into many areas of sub-Saharan African (to ca. 1500)
700 to 1900 CE - Africa and Arab States - The Arab Slave Trade becomes a thriving industry, later many of the civilized nations become major contributors. Estimates place the numbers of Africans sold in this 1200-year period to be somewhere around 14 million, at least 9.6 million were African women and 4.4 million were African men. Further estimates show that over 40,000,000 Africans died from disease and neglect due to the Slave Trade.
700 CE - Ireland - Irish monasteries are schooled in Druidic lore, since the little training many of the monks received was from poets [bards] and men of letters and native schools. "Bards continued long in Ireland as the performers of spoken prose and verse."
700 CE - Britain - The Psalms are translated into Anglo-Saxon and the Lindsisfarne Gospels are produced while Benedictine missionaries complete the conversion of England begun by St. Gregory the Great.
717 CE - Grail literature promotes the fervor of the mystical baptism of the Holy Spirit, the day of Pentecost and visions. Pentecost became King Arthur's holy day... The reward of [Grail] Questers was to experience, an 'open sight' of God... Both Perceval and Galahad...wore red to symbolize the fires of baptism, those flames always seen by witnesses and participants after full Grail Procession."
718 CE - Spain - Pelayo, a noble Visigoth who was elected king, defeats the Muslim Army in Alcama in the region of Covadonga, thus beginning the Christian conquest of Spain.
720 CE - North America - During this time the Athapaskan (Apache & Navajo) peoples thrived and were related to the Athapaskan - speaking peoples of Alaska, western Canada, and coastal California. The cataclysmic volcanic eruption of a volcano prompted a series of migrations of natives from the Yukon to drift westward or southward in small bands to become the Pacific Athapaskans in British Columbia and the Apache and Navajo of the southwestern United States. The Colorado Plateau Athapaskans, ancestors of the Navajo, "mixed racially and culturally with other groups of Indians, primarily the Pueblo, emerge as a distinctive culture in northwestern New Mexico in the 17th and 18th centuries.
They eventually became known as the Dine, who call their land the "Dinetah," or "old homeland." Their legends were of pantheistic deities and told of the Navajos' eternal search for harmony and beauty, the creation of Man and Woman, the medicine bundle, Changing Woman and her Twin sons, the Holy People, all life forms, the sun and moon, corn, and the four original Navajo clans.
726 CE - Byzantine - Emporer Leo III (c. 680 - 741) begins the "Iconoclastic Controversy" by banning the worship of religious images (icons).
735 CE - Britain - Venerable Bede, an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine scholar, writes in Latin the "History of the English Church and People."
740 CE - Africa and Spain - Islamic Africans (Moors) invade Spain, and rule until l492 CE. The Moors brought agriculture, architecture, and engineering skills of mining to Spain, developing it to become the center for culture and learning throughout Europe for almost 800 years until the fall of Granada in 1492.
751 CE - France and Rome - St. Boniface anoints Pepin as a divinely sanctioned king. Western Europeans establish cultural unity for a brief period through the joining of the Frankish monarchy with the Roman Papacy.
756 CE - France and Rome - Donation of Pepin provides that all papal domains in Italy are created as territory under the Sovereign-control of Popes.
766 CE - Britain - The Archbishop of York punished murder by incantation with seven year's fasting. He decreed fasting as the suitable penance for a woman who practiced the magic arts and used evil spells.
768 CE - Carolus Magnus (Charlemagne) builds the Carolingian dynasty, which eventually included much of central Europe, northern Italy and central Italy in addition to realms already conquered by Frankish rule. His system of government divided the realm into specific regions, each ruled by local "counts" overseen by representatives of Charlemagne's own court. Charlemagne begins the "Carolingian Renaissance," with Alcuin (Anglo-Saxon Benedictine student of the venerable Bede) placed in charge of setting up schools, the copying of classical Latin texts and developing a common form of handwriting.
787 CE - Nicaea - The Second Nicean Council meets - this is the last of the seven church councils commonly accepted as authoritative by both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The Council votes to allow the veneration but not the worship of icons.
778 CE - Rome - The army of Charlemagne suffers defeat at Roncesvalles by the hands of the Vascons. Pope Leo III crowns Charlemange as Emperor at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. This coronation marks the beginning of temporal authority of the state, depending upon the spiritual blessing of the Pope (joining of Church and State).
795 CE - Norway and Ireland - Norwegian 'Vikings' (or 'the Norse') raid the Irish foundation of Colum Cille on Iona, off the Scottish coast, and Lambay (off of what is known later as Dublin).
800 CE
800 CE - Denmark - The Sage of Oden appeared at Yule portrayed as an old man with long white beard and hair and dressed in a hooded cloak. He would sit and listen to his people and see whether or not they were content, he carried a bag full of bounty, which he distributed to the needy or worthy.
809 CE - Uzbekistan - Rebellion of the Samarqand. Manichaeans calling themselves Sabaeans, (the roots of their order went back to the Sabbaean Baptists sects of the Middle East) were forced to spit on an icon of Mani or be put to death. The Miqlasi Imam of that period was Iazdanbakht, known for his dreams and criticized for them in Mihrite Manichaean criticisms.
829 CE - Sweden - According to the writings of archbishop Rimbert of Hamburg-Bremen, the first Christian missionaries to reach the pagan kingdom of Sweden were Ansgar and Vitmar, who arrived in Sigtuna. One of their main objectives had been to convince the king to convert and have the pagan temple of Asatru burned down, but when Rimbert died in 888 the temple was still standing.
837 CE - Norway and Ireland - Several Norse fleets of ships appear in Irish waters, One fleet of sixty in the mouth of the Boyne, another fleet of sixty on the Liffey, several fleets also appear on the lakes of the Shannon. The Norse begins to set up permanent bases (longphorts in Gaelic) in Ireland, by 841 CE the fortified Norse settlements in Ireland become a small Norse kingdom with overseas connections, especially to York. This area will later be called the city of Dublin. Two rival dynasties rule Ireland at this time, comprised of:
Monks leave their monasteries and flee to the mainland taking manuscripts and other valuables with them for safekeeping in Europe. Warfare between these factions - involving various alliances with the Norse will continue until the later half of the ninth century.
843 CE - Empire of Nicaea - Byzantine Emporer Michael III (839 - 867) ends the "Iconclastic Controversy" by restoring the worship of icons in the East.
843 CE - Mongolia - The religion of the "Light of Mani" was declared totally forbidden, all her books and images were to be burned, her shrines closed, and her members property confiscated. The Manichaeans continued to meet at night in disguise. During the next seven years the Uighurs scatter to form the kingdoms of Khocho, Kantcheou, Khotan and Yurfan , all Manichaean states.
845 CE - China - The Imperial government of the Tang Dynasty suppresses Buddhism, concerned about the religion's growing power they destroy 4600 temples and persecute almost 300,000 monks and nuns.
850 CE - Mongolia - Manichaeanism becomes the state religion of the Kingdom centered in Kocho, it remains the official state religion for 400 years, until 1250. Christian, Buddhist and Manichaean texts exist side by side in this kingdom.
857 CE - Germany - Ergotism outbreak was recorded in the Rhine Valley having struck the peasants and killed thousands of people.
867 CE - The "Photian Schism" between Eastern and Western churches begins during the first patriarchy of Photius (c. 820 - 891). Photius excommunicates Pope Nicholas I (c.-800 - 867) during a dispute over the use in the Western church of the filoque clause in the Nicene Creed (meaning "and from the son"), which was added to the decree that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. This schism leads to the deposition of Photius, who had already been condemned and excommunicated without a hearing at a Roman synod. The result of these councils was to intensify the bitterness between East and West.
871 CE - The king of Wessex, Alfred the Great, constructs a system of government and education which allows for the unification of smaller Anglo-Saxon states by the ninth and tenth centuries. He was responsible for public interest in local government, reorganization of the army and the codification of English law, which is later posted in the Anglo Saxon Laws of 901-924 CE as the Laws of Alfred, Guthrum, and Edward the Elder, which prescribed death or banishment for witches. He founds schools and promotes Anglo-Saxon literacy and the establishment of a national culture. Alfred dies in 899 CE.
900 CE
It is within this period that many of the various Celtic cultures had been brutally warring over territorial disputes. These people had already established a variety of beliefs, languages, and traditional cultures, which were adapting to the changes produced by the introduction of Christian doctrines:
900 CE - Rome - The Canon Episcopi surfaced, which expressly forbids the belief in witchcraft. Regino of Prum, the Abbot of Treves, wrote the following passage:
"Bishops and their officials must labor with all their strength to uproot thoroughly from their parishes the pernicious art of sorcery and malefice invented by the devil, and if they find a man or woman follower of this wickedness to eject them foully disgraced from the parishes. For the Apostle says, "A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition avoid." Those are held captive by the Devil who, leaving their creator, seek the aid of the Devil. And so Holy Church must be cleansed of this pest. "It is also not to be omitted that some unconstrained women, perverted by Satan, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and openly profess that, in the dead of night, they ride upon certain beasts with the pagan goddess Diana, with a countless horde of women, and in the silence of the dead of the night to fly over vast tracts of country, and to obey her commands as their mistress, and to be summoned to her service on other nights. "But it were well if they alone perished in their infidelity and did not draw so many others into the pit of their faithlessness. For an innumberable multitude, deceived by this false opinion, believe this to be true and, so believing, wander from the right faith and relapse into pagan errors when they think that there is any divinity or power except the one God. "Wherefore the priests throughout their churches should preach with all insistence to the people that they may know this to be in every way false, and that such phantasms are sent by the devil who deludes them in dreams. Thus Satan himself, who transforms himself into an angel of light, when he has captured the mind of a miserable woman and has subjected her to himself by infidelity and incredulity, immediately changes himself into the likeness of different personages and deluding the mind which he holds captive and exhibiting things, both joyful and sorrowful, and persons, both known and unknown, and leads her faithless mind through devious ways. And while the spirit alone endures this, she thinks these things happen not in the spirit but in the body. "Who is there that is not led out of himself in dreams and nocturnal visions, and sees much sleeping that he had never seen waking? "Who is so stupid and foolish as to think that all these things that are done in the spirit are done in the body, when the Prophet Ezekiel saw visions of God in spirit and not in body, and the Apostle John saw and heard the mysteries of the Apocalypse in spirit and not in body, as he himself says "I was rapt in Spirit". And Paul does not dare to say that he was rapt in his body. "It is therefore to be publically proclaimed to all that whoever believes in such things, or similar things, loses the Faith, and he who has not the right faith of God is not of God, but of him in whom he believes, that is the devil. For of our Lord it is written, "All things were made by Him." Whoever therefore believes that anything can be made, or that any creature can be changed to better or worse, or transformed into another species or likeness, except by God Himself who made everything and through whom all things were made, is beyond a doubt an infidel."
The 12th century Gratian of Bologna later incorporated it into the Corpus Juris Canonici as the official and accepted Doctrine of the Church. The document stated that Witches were all illusions or fantasies of dreams and to believe in the actuality of witchcraft is pagan and heretical.
901 to 924 CE - Britain - The Laws of Alfred, Guthrum, and Edward the Elder are the dooms which King Alfred and King Guthrum chose. And this is the ordinance also which King Alfred and King Guthrum, and afterwards King Edward and King Guthrum, chose and ordained, when the English and Danes fully took to peace and to friendship; and the witan also, who were afterwards, oft and unseldom that same renewed and increased with good. This is the first, which they ordained: that they would love one God, and zealously renounce every kind of heathendom.
902 CE - Ireland - Dublin is attacked by the Irish of Brega and Leinster, and abandoned by the Norse.
910 CE - France - The Benedictine monastery of Cluny in Burgundy becomes a place of monastic reform. Two major innovations incorporated within those reforms were:
934 CE - Denmark and Norway - Pagan rituals are forbidden in Denmark and in Norway by 955 CE, pagans began holding rituals and meetings in private as Christianity was not completely accepted in Denmark.
944 CE - Southern France - 40,000 people die of the Holy Fire,which was later called St. Anthony's Fire (ergot poisoning).
950 CE - Catholicism is the prevalent and dominant religion throughout Europe by this time.
959 CE - Britain - King Edgar ordered all Christian priests to stamp out any lingering remnants of paganism. King Edgar forbade well worshipping, necromancy, divination and enchantment.
981 CE - Iceland - Eric the Red settles in Greenland.
988 CE - Russia - Vladimir I (c. 956 - 1015), grand duke of Kiev, declares Eastern Orthodox Christianity to be the official state religion of Russia.
1000 CE
1002 CE - Iceland - Leif Ericsson explores North American coast which he calls Vinland (Wine Land).
1002 CE - Aethelred commits the 'Dana Mord', the act where he killed almost all the Danes whom had moved to England. When Sven Tveskägg was elected to English king in 1013, Athelred fled to Normandy, but returned to England after Svens death in 1014. Athelred died in London while "Knut the Great" prepared his invasion of the city.
1006 CE - Germany - The Decretum (later referred to as the "Corrector") was written by Burchard, bishop of Worms. It was a compendium of "Canon Law" written to discourage pagan worship, which was common among the people. The nineteenth book provided the outline of questions to be asked by the priest during confession, responses to those questions, and penitence to those during confession. These were the "Fews" asked of women, especially if they were of Tuscan descent (Etruscan, Stregeria, or and the Romani) to discover if they retained or participated in pagan rituals.
1006 CE - Sweden - King Olof Skøtkonung, tattempted to have the pagan Asatru temple pulled down but his earls and chieftains would not allow him to perform such a blasphemy against the old gods.
1075 CE - Sweden - Bishop Adam of Bremen wrote descriptions of the Sigtuna rituals in Sweden that were still largely pagan.
1021 CE - Egypt - Sunni Muslims together with Shiites and the Mamlukis destroy the Druze (Gnostic) influence by killing every man, woman and child. Those who managed to escape go to Lebanon and Southern Syria to join with other existing Gnostic Communities. The Fatimid dynasty after El-Hakim falls into the hands of another Shiite groups under control of the Mamluki generals. The Fatimids continue in power, in name only, to rule Egypt without the backing of the Gnostic - Monotheism.
1022 CE - France - A group of pious and ascetic mystics who deny key tenets of Christianity are burned as witches in Orleans. They were accused of:
1030 to 1040 CE - Upper Italy - The Bishop of Asti attacks the Catharist community at the castle of Monteforte, near Asti in Piedmont, seizes its members and burns them to death when they refuse to retract their beliefs. The Cathars in Languedoc also flourished until 1207 CE, when Pope Innocent III encouraged members of the churches northern allies to wipe out the dangerous heresy of this rival religion. The principal Cathar stronghold of Montsegur fell in 1244.
1030 to 1244 CE - Records in Europe of this time exhibited instances of epidemics of apparent madness which afflicted people, of raving, jumping, dancing, visions, convulsions and prophesying, women and children were especially afflicted (possible ergot poisoning, but more than likely ecstatic fervor - perhaps a combination of both). Similar epidemics appeared in various parts of Europe following the Crusades and after the Black Death. The Cathars and the Templars rose to the pinnacle of their power. Bulgarian heretics called Bogomils (Cathars) professed Gnosticism. They believed:
1030 CE - "Manicheist missions found their way into Northern Italy and the southern part of France. The term Albigenses is derived from Albi, a town of the Languedoc, with many sects that included Manicheism, Arianism, as well as Jews and Judaised Christians. Both the Albigenses and Manicheists were similar in their philosophies and dualistic beliefs of explaining the existence of evil. They asserted the co-existence of two principles:
They both encouraged the use of women as concubines, as well as the desertion of husbands or wives as being praiseworthy. They condemned marriage and the procreation of children as both being demoniac in nature.
1038 CE - Britain - King Cnut (Canute), the younger son of Sweyn Forkbeard, decreed that paganism involved the worship of idols. His various campaigns included:
Henry of Huntingdon later wrote, "King Cnut boasted he could make the ocean tide recede, his failure demonstrated the frailty of earthly power when compared to the might of God.
1039 CE - Vienna - Through the efforts of Gaston de la Valloire the first hospital was dedicated to St. Anthony. Eventually, over 370 hospitals would be built for those ailing from the Holy Fire, dedicated to St. Anthony. Each hospital was painted red, for those unable to read, so people would understand that aide was available to help alleviate their pain. Over time the name Holy Fire was replace with St. Anthony's Fire. The cause of this strange disease was unknown in this time period, and attributed to the will of God.
1054 CE - Rome and Constantinople - The Great Schism occurs between the Western Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, long-standing disagreements between Pope Leo IX (1002 - 1054) and Patriarch Michael Cerularius forces them to exchange anathemas of excommunication.
1059 CE - Rome - The College of Cardinals is created as the liturgical body responsible for electing popes.
1066 CE - Britain and France- William the Conqueror invades England and claims the English throne at the Battle of Hastings. William is both the King of England and the Duke of Normandy. Languages meld between the French and English cultures, evolving into Middle English. William introduces the feudal system, which achieves political stability in England over the next two centuries.
1071 CE - Turkey - Turkish armies defeat Byzantine forces in the Battle of Manzikert, leading to the decline in the power of the Byzantine Empire.
1073 CE - Rome - Pope Gregory VII (c. 1020 - 1085) begins widespread reforms of church practice, liturgies and administration.
1075 CE - Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI (1050 - 1106) begin the Investiture fight, in which Gregory denies Henry the traditional right to appoint bishops. Henry is eventually excommunicated and deposed in 1077, which he does not accept. Henry returns with an army and supporters during 1081 - 1083 CE, and forces Gregory into exile.
1076 CE - Britain - England's Earl of Huntington is the first person recorded as executed by the axe.
1076 CE - Africa - The Berber army from Morocco, led by militant religious reformers called Almoravids, attack Ghana. This leads to a period of internal conflicts and disorganization in which, by 1087, the Almoravids lose control of the empire to the Soninkes. The empire disintegrates into smaller states, including Kangaba.
1084 CE - Sweden - Christian King Inge was deposed after refusing to officiate at the Dis Ting sacrifices. Stenkil's son-in-law Sven "the Sacrificer" is elected king of the Uppsala Swedes. But Inge gathered an army among the christianized Swedes and managed to kill king Sven in 1087. Immediately after that he burned down the Asatru temple in Sigtuna.
1085 CE - First Crusade (out of a total of eight official crusades) is called by Pope Urban II (c. 1035 - 1099) against Muslims in the Holy Lands.
1095 CE - France - The Council of Clermont forbids lay investures, decreeing that no priest should swear fealty to a layman for his lands. Henry I appoints several bishops and abbots but the Archbishop of Canterbury refuses to consecrate them. Henry I compromised to avert excommunication by surrendering his right to invest bishops, and they agreed to swear fealty for lands held from him.
1090 to 1155 CE - Italy - Arnold of Brescia becomes critical of the church, opposing the possession of property by the church. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, at the Synod of Sens in 1140, adjudged Arnold to be in error. Arnold of Brescia continues his opposition until Pope Innocent II orders him exiled and his books burned. He was later tried by the Roman Curia in 1155 CE as a political rebel (not a heretic) and executed by secular authorities.
1096 to 1099 CE - France and Germany - First Crusade is an effort to aid Byzantine Christians against Muslim invaders.