The Great Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc referred to the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries as the High Middle Ages; that is, until after the year 1300. This succeeding cross-phased period, Belloc said, lasted until the Renaissance, the fall of Constantinople, the revolution in the arts and general culture, the disaster of the Reformation, when what had so long been our united common heritage was broken and divided.

Hilaire Belloc also stated: “That these first three hundred years could have been called the True Middle Ages, because the virtues of medieval civilization were at their highest and its characteristics at their strongest and best, came to an end with the early fourteenth century. The remaining two hundred years, from the beginning at least of the Great Schism until the wild revolt of Luther and the anti-Catholic edifice of Calvin, had a very different savor.”

1001
Emperor Otto III handed the eight counties of the Pentapolis to Pope Sylvester II.

1002
Death of Muslim leader, Almanzor. He was the last Mohammedan leader to unite “All Moslem Spain.”

1003
King Robert II of France submitted to the Pope and dissolved his incestuous marriage to his cousin, Bertha. He then married Constance of Arles, the daughter of the Marquis of Provence.

Birth of St. Edward the Confessor.

1004
John XVIII becomes Pope. His name was John Fasanus, a Roman. He was a Cardinal priest of St. Peter’s when he was elected.

1009
Sergius IV becomes Pope. His father was Peter, the shoemaker. His name was also Peter. His parents called him “Os or Bucca Porci.” meaning, Pig’s snout. Pope Sergius is buried in the St. John Lateran Basilica.

1012
Benedict VIII becomes Pope.

Gregory is anti-Pope.

1016
Edmund II ascends to the English Throne. He was the son of King Ethelred and Queen Emma of Normandy. Upon the death of the King, Queen Emma married Canute. Canute, a foreign usurper, is the First of three Danes to become King of England. He was very short, almost a dwarf, and was very intelligent, almost a genius. Caunte married his sister to a Dane named Godwin.

1017
Olaf II establishes the Catholic Faith in Norway.

1018
The Abbey of Buckfast is founded at Devon, England.

1022
The Synod of Orleans. This marked the first time the Catholic Church had to deal with the Albigensian Heresy. This heresy, which I will speak more about later, was actually an extra Christian religion rather than a Christian heresy. Their dualistic beliefs disqualifies them as Christians.

1024
Conrad II becomes Holy Roman Emperor.

John XIX becomes Pope. He was the younger brother of Pope Benedict VIII. His name was Romanus.

Pope John XIX was the brother of Pope Benedict VIII. When his brother the Pope died: he was the Consul and Senator of Rome, Romanus. He was a layman and was hurried through Holy Orders. He decided he wanted to become Pope, and with a little intluence and judicious spending he won the election. He did little building as Pontiff, but he did summon to Pome Guide of Arezzol the famous monk who organized the Do-Re-Mi Scale. Pope John XIX encouraged the great music reformer and urged him to instruct the Roman clergy in Music.

1025
The Council of Arras. This local Council dealt with the Albigensian heresy.

1026
Conrad II suppresses the rebellions in northern Italy and is crowned King of the Lombards.

1027
Council of Elne. This was a Minor Council. The Bishops introduce “Truce with God.” This prohibited armed hostilities from the Saturday night Angelus to the Monday Morning Angelus.

Birth of William the Conqueror. He was the illegitimate son of Robert I, the Devil, Duke of Normandy and beautiful young French woman of the Bourgeois class, the daughter of a tanner, whose name was Harleva or Arletta.

Conrad II become Holy Roman Emperor

1028
The Council of Charroux. This local Council dealt with the Neo-Manichaean heresy of the Albigenses.

1031
St. Olave II, who was the King of Norway, becomes the country’s Patron Saint.

Henry I is crowned King of France.

1032
Benedict IX becomes Pope. On the death of Pope John XIX, his brother Alberic III, now the head of the Tusculan family, bribed the electorate and had his son Theophylact, the nephew of both Popes John XIX and Benedict VIII, elected an enthroned. (This sounds like Deja vu). This was the first of three Pontificates that will be served by Pope Benedict IX, he is the only Pope to ever do this. He was in his twenties at this time.

1034
Constantine Monomachus appointed Michael Cerularius as his successor. There was no election; “the Emperor went like an arrow to the target” (Psellus). It is from this moment the shameful story of the Greatest Schism the Church has ever seen, and is still continuing in our present day, unfolds.

1035
Harold I is crowned King of England. He was the son of Canute and Emma. He was called Harold Harefoot. He and his accomplice, Godwin, murdered the second son of Ethelred and Emma, the true heir to the Throne should have been the gentle Alfred. Godwin, Canute’s brother-in-law, was at this time, the most powerful man in England the moment Canute died. It was Godwin that received Alfred, who had received a forged letter he thought was from his mother, Queen Emma, to come to England on the chance of getting the Throne. Godwin brought Alfred to Kent, where he landed, to his town of Guildford, and there betrayed him to armed men who were followers of Canute’s son, Harold, the man who was Alfred’s rival for the Throne of England. Alfred was treated with cruelty for which the Scandinavian pirates were detested throughout Christendom. He was ridden through England, his eyes were torn out, and he died of mutilation, the more to confirm the son of Canute upon the coveted Throne. His death was the result of avarice, he wasn’t even the next one in line!

1037
Pope Benedict IX makes important changes in the Curia aimed at centralization, perhaps also getting rid of German control.

1038
The word for Christmas, “Mass of Christ, or Christ’s Mass” was first used.

1039
Henry III becomes King of Germany. He came from the Salian dynasty. He enforced German authority throughout the Holy Roman Empire.

Pope Benedict IX excommunicates the rebellious Archbishop of Milan, Aribert.

1040
Hardecanute, the last of the Danes, become King of England. He was the second son of Canute and Emma.

1041
Death of the deposed Eastern Emperor, Michael IV.

Constantine Monomachus becomes Eastern Emperor. He achieved this position peacefully by marrying Zoe, a descendant from Basil I, the Macedonian and widow of both Romanus III and Michael IV. He then named Michael Cerularius as Syncellus or secretary of the Patriarch, this position was always held by a Bishop.

1042
St. Edward the Confessor, a Saxon, becomes King of England. He should have been King after his father, Ethelred’s death. He was some forty years old at the time of his coronation.

St. Edward the Confessor

1043
Michael Cerularius becomes Patriarch of Constantinople. It was this man in would complete the Eastern Schism and the split from Rome. His church is known to us today as the Greek Orthodox.

1044
The Roman Synod. Pope Benedict IX abandoned the city of Rome due to bloody fighting caused by an Insurrection.

1045
Sylvester III becomes Pope. He was the local Bishop, John of Sabina.

Benedict IX returns to the Holy See and is Pope once again, only to abandon the Papacy a second time later on in this year. On the tenth of March, Pope Benedict IX excommunicated Pope Sylvester III and banished him from Rome. This second term as Pope lasted about two months.

Gregory VI is elected Pope to take the place of Benedict IX, who had made out a deed of abdication for his god-father, John Gratian. John Gratian, paid a large sum of money to his god-son, Benedict IX before becoming Gregory VI. He was a good man, and did abdicate later.

1046
King Henry III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.

Holy Roman Emperor, Henry III deposed Sylvester III and Gregory VI as Popes at Sutri. He appointed Suidger of Bamberg as Pope, taking the name of Clement II. Henry III then took control of the Papal elections. Clement II’s reign lasted just eight months, and Benedict IX was reinstated as reigning Pontiff for the third time, De Facto.

1047
Berangarius heresy begins. This was the first heresy to deny the Real Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in the Holy Eucharist. This heresy was quelled by another Eucharistic miracle later on.

The Val-Es-Dunes. This was a serious rebellion of the Nobles in France.

William of Falaise, the Duke of Normandy, with the aid of Henry I, the King of France, gained a great victory at Val-Es-Dunes, near Caen, which led, the following year to the capture of the two strong castles of Alencon and Domfort.

1048
In July of this year, Pope Benedict IX was formally deposed by Count Boniface of Tuscan. He reluctantly yielded to Emperor Henry’s orders.

Damasus II becomes Pope. He was Poppo of Brixen, he was the second of the German Popes nominated by Emperor Henry III.

1049
St. Leo IX becomes Pope. He was the son of Count Hugh of Egisheim. His name was Bruno. He was the third and greatest of the Pope nominated by Emperor Henry III. He was educated at Toul, and served under his relative, Conrad II in Lombardy.

Pope St. Leo IX begins reform of the Church.

The Council of Rhiems. This local Council dealt with the Albigensian heresy.

1050
The Council of Vercelli. At this local Council, Pope St. Leo IX condemned the teaching of Berengarius of Tours. Berengarius was the first to say that the bread and wine in the Eucharist become Christ’s body figuratively, essentially remaining what they were. This is present day Protestant teaching.

1052
William, Duke of Normandy, also called William of Falaise, and disreputably called William the Bastard, was the cousin of St. Edward the Confessor, the King of England, experienced his first sea-fearing. It was in this year that William of Falaise, the Duke of Normandy, was established as successor apparent of the English Throne.

1053
William of Falaise, the Duke of Normandy marries his cousin, Matilda, the daughter of Baldwin. This marriage took place in spite of Papal prohibition.

Michael Cerularius sent a letter to Pope St. Leo IX, declaring war against the Pope and Latins. His agent was Leo, Metropolitan of Achrida in Bulgaria. He then sent a letter to Bishop John of Tranum in Apulia, complaining of certain Latin customs, especially fasting on Saturday and the use of azyme (unleavened) bread for the Holy Eucharist. He said the letter was meant for all Bishops of the Franks and the most venerable Pope. There is no doubt this letter was dictated by Cerularius. Bishop John of Tranum sent the letter to Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, who showed it the Pope. Cerularius then sent the other Patriarchs a treatise written by Nicetas Pectoratus, a Studion monk, against azyme bread, fasting on Saturday, and celibacy. Nicetas said: “Because of these horrible infirmities, the Latins are dogs, bad workman, schismatics, hypocrites, and liars.” Cerularius’ Chancellor, broke into the Latin Tabernacles and trampled on the Blessed Sacrament because it was consecrated in azyme bread.

Pope St. Leo IX then answered the letter to Leo of Achrida. Knowing full well where this letter originated, the Pontiff addressed it to Cerularius. It was a dignified defense of the customs attacked and the rights of the Holy See. Pope St. Leo IX then sent three Legates to Constantinople, Cardinal Humbert, Cardinal Frederick, the Pope’s cousin and the future Pope Stephen IX, and Archbishop Peter of Amalfi. The Emperor, who was annoyed over the quarrel, house the three Papal Legates in his own home. Cerularius, became very indignant that the Legates did not give him precedence and prostrate before him. He wrote to Peter of Antioch that they “insolent, boastful, rash, arrogant, and stupid.” Cardinal Humbert converted Nicetas Pectoratus to the Latin Rite.

1054
The Eastern Schism. This was completed by Michael Cerularius. He was the Patriarch of Constantinople. After the first reconciliation with Photius, some one hundred and sixty years earlier, there remained an anti-Latin party that glorified the work of the avarice Patriarch, and waited for the opportunity of renewing his quarrel. The only explanation of Michael’s conduct was the he belonged to the extreme wing of that party, and had always meant to break with the Pope as soon as he could. He began his public career by plotting with Constantine Monomachus, the future Emperor, to depose Emperor Michael IV. Both conspirators were banished, and, in their exile, formed a friendship to which Cerularius owed his later advancement.

Michael Cerularius was well known as a dangerous person and the government tried to stop his political career by making him a monk. He refused this at first, but the suicide death of his brother changed his mind and he voluntarily entered the monastery.

After the schism Cerularius became the strongest man in Constantinople. He even quarreled with his former patron, Constantine IX.

William of Falaise, the Duke of Normandy made himself Master of the Province of Maine and thus became the most powerful vassal of the French Crown, able on occasion to bid defiance to the King himself.

1055
Death of Eastern Emperor, Constantine IX. He was succeeded by the Empress, Theodora.

Michael Cerularius tried to rule over the Empress.

Victor II becomes Pope.

1056
Michael VI becomes Eastern Emperor. He was not always submissive to the Patriarch, Michael Cerularius.

1057
Stephen IX becomes Pope.

Michael Cerularius started a revolution and deposed the Emperor, Michael VI.

Alberic of Monte Cassino was elevated to the Cardinalate. He successfully opposed the Berengarius heresy. In the future he will defend the measures of Pope St. Gregory VII, and composed several theological and scientific works, and lives of the Saints. He is the author of the earliest medieval treatise on letter-writing.

1058
Benedict X is anti-Pope.

1059
Nicholas II becomes Pope.

The election of Popes by Cardinals was decreed by Pope Nicholas II.

Through the mediation of the future Archbishop, Lanfranc, the marriage between William of Falaise, the Duke of Normandy, and Matilda of Flanders was legitimized. William and his wife consented to found two Abbeys at Caen, by way of penance for their contumacy.

1060
Philip I is crowned King of France.

1061
Alexander II becomes Pope.

Honorus II is anti-Pope.

Marian Apparition, Our Lady of Walsingham. Our Blessed Mother appeared to the widow, Lady Richeldis De Faverches, and showed the house in Nazareth where the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to the Son of the Most High. She asked a replica of her house to be built in Nazareth dedicated as a memorial to the Annunciation and the Incarnation.

1064
Harold, the son of Godwin, of England, standing on Norman soil, was constrained to take the oath of allegiance to William, Duke of Normandy.

1065
Godwin’s son, Harold II, usurped the English Crown. This act set up the Norman Conquest that is to follow the next year.

1066
The Battle of Hastings. William the Duke of Normandy, the rightful King of England, sailed across the English Channel and conquered his usurper, Harold. Harold was shot in the eye with an arrow. He fell over dead and that was it! That was the whole thing! His troops surrendered. Also killed in the battle was Hardrada, the King of Norway. He and Harold’s brother fought on the side of William. The two confronted Harold; Harold then tried to persuade his brother to join him. He asked what would he give to Hardrada, Harold replied: “Seven feet of land for a grave!” Hardrada was Scandinavian. Harold then shot an arrow through the neck of the tall King, killing him instantly.

This is a famous tapestry in England depicting the Battle of Hastings.

On October 14, 1066, St. Calixtus Day, William, Duke of Normandy heard Holy Mass very early, communicated, and sent out his orders for the advance in the last hours of darkness. By eight o'clock that morning he had arrived and was deploying before the summits ofthe slope called Telham. An hour later, William's force, all deployed, was set in motion down the slope towards the valley, and on the ridge beyond stood that immovable line, all on foot as the defensive demanded (the horses left behind, as was the universal rule on the defensive), ready to engage in battle when the shock should come and to discharge from the catapults their missiles against the feudal cavalry.-Hilaire Belloc, taken from his book William the Conqueror.

On Christmas Day in 1066, William the Conqueror was Crowned King at Westminster. eleven weeks after the Battle of Hastings.

William is now called the Conqueror and is King of England as well as Duke of Normandy. He was the first of four Norman Kings of England.

1071
The Christians were defeated by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert, Turkey.

Godfrey of Bouillon adopted the Blood-Red Cross as the insignia of the Equestrain Order of the Holy Sepulcher.

1073
St. Gregory VII becomes Pope. His name was Hildebrand, and has been acclaimed the greatest of the Popes.

1074
Pope St. Gregory VII addressed an Encyclical to all the Faithful, exhorting them to come to the rescue of their Eastern Brethren.

At the Pontiff’s first Lenten Synod, he enacted the following decrees:

1). That clerics who had obtained any grade or office of Sacred Orders by payment should cease to minister in the Church.

2). That no one who had purchased any Church should retain it, and that no one for the future should be permitted to buy or sell ecclesiastical rights.

3). That all who were guilty of incontinence should cease to exercise their sacred ministry.

4). That the people should reject the ministrations of clerics who failed to obey these injunctions.

1075
The Synod of Rome. This Synod was called by the Pope and Bishops agreed to excommunicate any person, weather Emperor of King, who should confer an investiture in connection with any Ecclesiastical office.

Pope St. Gregory VII deposed the simoniacle prelates appointed by Emperor Henry IV, whom succeeded his father at the age of six in 1056, anathematized several imperial councilors, and cited the Emperor himself to appear in Rome to answer before a Council.

1076
In Retaliation for the Pope’s ruling, Emperor Henry IV convoked a meeting at Worms on January 23 to depose the Pope. This diet defended the Emperor against the Papal charges of simony and incontinence, and accused the Pontiff of the most heinous crimes, and declared him deposed. These decisions were approved a few weeks later by two Synods of Lombard Bishops at Piacenza and Pavia. A letter was then sent to the Pope. The Pontiff immediately recognized that the Christian Faith must be preserved at all costs, and seeing that the conflict was forced on him by the Emperor’s schism and the violation of his solemn promises, excommunicated Henry and his ecclesiastical supporters, released his subjects from their oath of allegiance in accordance with the usual political procedure of the age.

1077
The Nobles formed a coalition, threatening not to recognize Henry IV unless he secured absolution from the Pope by February. Striped of his royal garments, and dressed as a penitent, Henry IV had come barefooted in the snow and ice, and begged an audience with the Pope. He remained at the citadel door all day, fasting and exposed to the inclemency of the wintry weather, but was refused admission. Finally on the 28th of January, after three days, he was received by Pope St. Gregory VII and absolved from censure, but only on the condition that he would appear at the proposed Council and submit himself to its decision. Henry returned to Germany, but his severe lesson failed to effect any radical improvement in his conduct. Disgusted by his inconsistencies and dishonesty, the German Princes elected Rudolph of Swabia to succeed him on March 15. The Pope remaining neutral in the affair, suggested a compromise between the two parties, but this was not to be.

1080
Henry IV, dissatisfied with being replaced, threatened to set up an anti-Pope. At Brixen in June, the King and his feudatory bishops, supported by the Lombards, carried out their threat and selected the excommunicated simoniacal Archbishop of Ravenna, Gilbert, who took the name Clement III, the anti-Pope.

Henry IV was excommunicated for the second time by Pope St. Gregory VII.

1081
Henry IV march on Rome, but failed to force his way into the city.

Alexius I becomes Emperor at Constantinople.

1082
St. Bruno founds the Carthusian Order.

1084
Henry IV finally entered Rome, but the Pope would not entertain him or his men.

1085
Death of Pope St. Gregory VII. The Holy See is vacant for one year.

1086
Victor III becomes Pope.

1087
William II becomes King of England. He was the third son of the Conqueror.

1088
Blessed Urban II becomes Pope.

Death of Berengarius of Tours. He was the first man in history to contest the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. He did recant his heretical views.

1089
King William II of England invades Normandy, winning land that belong to his brother, Robert II, Duke of Normandy.

1091
Death of Blessed William of Hirschau, Abbot.

King William II, also called Rufus, invaded Normandy again, and won more land.

1092
The Hospitaller Knights of St. John of Jerusalem were founded.

1094
William II invades Normandy a third time, winning again, his brother’s land.

1095
Pope Urban II promoted the First Crusade, preached by Peter the Hermit. The purpose of this Crusade was to take back the Holy City of Jerusalem, where the Moslems desecrated the Holy Sepulcher of the Lord. After hearing the preaching of Pope Urban II, the Faithful responded: “Dieux Le Volt!” Meaning: God Wills It!

Death of St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worchester. As a youth he loved purity.

1096
The First Crusade begins. This is called The Knights Crusade. It was led by Robert II, Duke of Normandy, the Conqueror’s son; at his side was his brother-in-law, Stephen of Blois; Godfrey of Boullion, Duke of Lorraine; his brother, Baldwin of Boulogne; Bohemond, and the major financier of the Crusade, Count Raymond IV of Toulouse.

The Battle of Dorylaeum. This marked the first time West met the East. The Norman Knights led by Robert, Duke of Normandy, were the heroes in this battle against the Seljuk Turks.

The Word Crusade means, "War for the Cross." The Crusades were wars between Christendom and Islam. To define it even more, they were a counter attack made by Christian civilization and the Islam as adopted by the Turk, those barbarous Mongol tribes from Asia.

After the horrid Christian defeat at Manzikert, Turkey in 1071, the Christian culture in the Holy Land and on the European continent itself was subject to mortal danger.

The Crusades were launched in an effort to re-take the Holy Land and the Sepulcher of our Blessed Lord. The Turks went about killing those Christians who did not convert to Islam.

It was the Norman Knights, under the leadership of Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror's son, who were the heroes in the fist battle at Dorylaeum in which East met West. It was this battle at Dorylaeum that had decided the Care of the Turkish occupation of Asia Minor. The Crusades ultimately failed because what began as a Religious thing. became a feudal thing, a matter of money.

1097
The Crusaders Battle for Antioch, passing the city of Aleppo, which left the communication lines open for Muslim foot trafficking. This is what led to the final failure of the Crusades ninety years later in Jerusalem. The Crusaders were successful in crippling the Seljuk army, but they had the time to rebuild thanks to Aleppo being open.

1098
The Crusaders take Antioch.

1099
The Crusaders achieve their objective and take Jerusalem. Godfrey of Boullion is named Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.

Paschal II becomes Pope.

1100
Theodoric is anti-pope.

Henry I is crowned King of England.

Baldwin is crowned King of Jerusalem.