 Eastern Hemisphere in early half of 11th century.  Eastern Hemisphere at the end of the 11th century. As a means of recording the passage of time, the 11th century is the period from 1001 to 1100 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/ Common Era. In the history of European culture, this period is considered the early part of the High Middle Ages. There was a sudden decline of Byzantine power and rise of Norman domination over much of Europe, along with the prominent role in Europe of notably influential popes. In what is now Northern Italy, a growth of population in urban centers gave rise to early organized capitalism and more sophisticated, commercialized culture by the late 11th century. In Song Dynasty China and the classical Islamic world, this century marked the high point for both classical Chinese civilization, science and technology, and classical Islamic science, philosophy, technology and literature. There was also a population explosion in China, doubling to the size of 100 million, and an economic revolution in China that spurred manufacture and production rates which rivaled even Great Britain's coal and iron output in the early Industrial Revolution. The Islamic world experienced a similar growth with the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, which led to greater mechanization and economic growth in the Islamic world. Rival political factions at the Song Dynasty court created strife amongst the leading statesmen and ministers of the empire. Chola-era India and Fatimid-era Egypt, had reached their zenith in military might and international influence. The Western Chalukya Empire (the Chola's rival) also rose to power by the end of the century. In this century the Turkish Seljuk dynasty comes to power in the Middle East over the now fragmented Abbasid realm, while the first of the Crusades were waged towards the close of the century. In Japan, the Fujiwara clan continued to dominate the affairs of state. In the Americas, the Toltec and Mixtec civilizations flourished in central America, along with the Huari Culture of South America and the Mississippian culture of North America. In Ukraine, there was the golden age for the principality of Kievan Rus. In Korea, the Goryeo Kingdom flourished and faced external threats from the Liao Dynasty ( Manchuria). In Vietnam, the Lý Dynasty began, while in Myanmar the Pagan Kingdom reached its height of political and military power. OverviewIn European history, the 11th century is regarded as the beginning of the High Middle Ages, an age subsequent to the Early Middle Ages. The century began while the translatio imperii of 962 was still somewhat novel and ended in the midst of the Investiture Controversy. It saw the final Christianisation of Scandinavia and the emergence of the Peace and Truce of God movements, the Gregorian Reforms, and the Crusades which revitalised a church and a papacy that had survived tarnished by the tumultuous tenth century. In 1054, the Great Schism rent the church in two, however. In Germany, the century was marked by the ascendancy of the Holy Roman Emperors, who hit their high watermark under the Salians. In Italy, it opened with the integration of the kingdom into the empire and the royal palace at Pavia was sacked in 1024. By the end of the century, Lombard and Byzantine rule in the Mezzogiorno had been usurped by the Normans and the power of the territorial magnates was being replaced by that of the citizens of the cities in the north. In Britain, it saw the transformation of Scotland into a single, more unified and centralised kingdom and the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The social transformations wrought in these lands brought them into the fuller orbit of European feudal politics. In France, it saw the nadir of the monarchy and the zenith of the great magnates, especially the dukes of Aquitaine and Normandy, who could thus foster such distinctive contributions of their lands as the pious warrior who conquered Britain, Italy, and the East and the impious peacelover, the troubadour, who crafted out of the European vernacular its first great literary themes. There were also the first figures of the intellectual movement known as Scholasticism, which emphasized dialectic arguments in disputes of Christian theology as well as classical philosophy. In Spain, the century opened with the successes of the last caliphs of Córdoba and ended in the successes of the Almoravids. In between was a period of Christian unification under Navarrese hegemony and success in the Reconquista against the taifa kingdoms that replaced the fallen caliphate. In China, there was a triangular affair of continued war and peace settlements between the Song Dynasty, the Tanguts-led Western Xia in the northwest, and the Khitans of the Liao Dynasty in the northeast. Meanwhile, opposing political factions evolved at the Song imperial court of Kaifeng. The political reformers at court, called the New Policies Group (新法, Xin Fa), were led by Emperor Shenzong of Song and the Chancellors Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi, while the political conservatives were led by Chancellor Sima Guang and Empress Dowager Gao, regent of the young Emperor Zhezong of Song. Heated political debate and sectarian intrigue followed, while political enemies were often dismissed from the capital to govern frontier regions in the deep south where malaria was known to be very fatal to northern Chinese people (see History of the Song Dynasty). This period also represents a high point in classical Chinese science and technology, with figures such as Su Song and Shen Kuo, as well as the age where the matured form of the Chinese pagoda was accomplished in Chinese architecture. In India, the Chola Dynasty reached its height of naval power under leaders such as Rajaraja Chola I and Rajendra Chola I, dominating southern India ( Tamil Nadu), Sri Lanka, and regions of South East Asia. They also sent raids into what is now modern-day Thailand. In Japan, the Fujiwara clan dominated central politics by acting as imperial regents, controlling the actions of the Emperor of Japan, who acted merely as a ' puppet monarch' during the Heian period. In the Middle East, the Fatimid Empire of Egypt reached its zenith only to face steep decline, much like the Byzantine Empire in the first half of the century. The Seljuks came to prominence while the Abbasid caliphs held traditional titles without real, tangible authority in state affairs. In Korea, the rulers of the Goryeo Kingdom were able to concentrate more central authority into their own hands than in that of the nobles, and were able to fend off two Khitan invasions with their armies. Events- 1001 ± 40 years: Baitoushan volcano on what would be the Chinese-Korean border, erupts with a force of 6.5, the fourth largest Holocene blast.
- 1030: the Battle of Stiklestad (Norway): Olav Haraldsson loses to his pagan vassals and is killed in the battle. He is later canonized and becomes the patron saint of Norway and Rex perpetuum Norvegiae ('the eternal king of Norway').
- 1035: Raoul Glaber chronicles a devastating three year famine induced by climatic changes in southern France
- 1035: Canute the Great dies, and his kingdom of present-day Norway, England, and Denmark was split amongst three rivals to his throne.
- 1042: the Normans establish Melfi as the capital of southern Italy.
- 1044: the Chinese Wujing Zongyao, written by Zeng Gongliang and Yang Weide, is the first book to describe gunpowder formulas;
[Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 120–124.] it also described their use in warfare, such as blackpowder-impregnated fuses for flamethrowers.[Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 81–84.] It also described an early form of the compass, a thermoremanence compass.[Needham, Volume 4, Part 1, 252.]
- 1073: the Seljuk Turks capture Ankara from the Byzantines.
- 1074: the Seljuk Turks capture Jerusalem from the Byzantines, and cut pilgrim transit.
- 1075: Chinese official and diplomat Shen Kuo asserts the Song Dynasty's rightful border lines by using court archives against the bold bluff of Emperor Daozong of Liao, who had asserted that Liao Dynasty territory exceeded its earlier-accepted bounds.
- 1076: the Song Chinese allied with southern Vietnamese Champa and Cambodian Chenla to conquer the Lý Dynasty, which was an unsuccessful campaign.
- 1080–1081: The Chinese statesman and scientist Shen Kuo is put in command of the campaign against the Western Xia, and although he successfully halts their invasion route to Yanzhou (modern Yan'an), another officer disobeys imperial orders and the campaign is ultimately a failure because of it.
- 1086: compilation of the Domesday Book by order of William I of England; it was similar to a modern day government census, as it was used by William to thoroughly document all the landholdings within the kingdom that could be properly taxed.
- 1087: a new office at the Chinese international seaport of Quanzhou is established to handle and regulate taxes and tariffs on all mercantile transactions of foreign goods coming from Africa, Arabia, India, Sri Lanka, Persia, and South East Asia.
- 1095: Pope Urban II calls upon Western Europeans to take up the cross and reclaim the Holy Lands, officially commencing the First Crusade.
Significant people Empress Agnes, German Queen who became regent of the Holy Roman Empire  The Atlantes – columns in the form of Toltec warriors in Tula. A- Abū ‘Alī al-Haṣan ibn al-Haytham (a.k.a. Alhazen or Alhacen), Iraqi polymath: scientist, physicist, optical researcher, astronomer, engineer, inventor, mathematician, physician, ophthalmologist, Islamic philosopher, psychologist and Islamic theologian
- Abū ‘Alī al-Husayn ibn Sīnā (a.k.a. Avicenna), Persian polymath: physician, philosopher, scientist, astronomer, chemist, geologist, Hafiz, logician, mathematician, physicist, poet, psychologist, Sheikh, soldier, statesman and Islamic theologian
- Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Persian polymath: scientist, anthropologist, historian, sociologist, astronomer, chemist, encyclopedist, geodesist, geographer, geologist, Islamic philosopher and theologian, mathematician, physicist, psychologist, pharmacist, teacher and traveller
- Al-Ghazali (a.k.a. Algazel), celebrated Muslim scholar
- Al-Karaji, Persian mathematician and engineer
- Al-Sijzi, Persian mathematician and astronomer
- Atisha, influential Buddhist teacher to Tibet
BC-D- Cai Jing, Chinese chancellor of the Song Dynasty
- Cai Xiang, Chinese poet, scholar, calligrapher, structural engineer, and official
E-FG- Guo Xi, a literati Chinese landscape painter
H- Harald Hardrada, king of Norway and claimnant to the thrones of Denmark and England
- Henry IV, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
I-K- Jōchō, famous Japanese sculptor
LM- Mi Fu, Chinese painter, poet, and calligrapher
N-P Lady Sei Shōnagon, wrote her Pillow Book about life in the Japanese court China. - Nasir Khusraw, Persian poet, theologian, philosopher, and traveler
- Omar Khayyám, Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer
R- Ramanuja, Chola Indian theologian, philosopher, and spiritual leader
S- Shao Yong, Chinese historian, poet, and philosopher
- Shen Kuo, Chinese polymath: official, mathematician, astronomer, encyclopedist, zoologist, geologist, botanist, pharmacologist, agronomist, ethnographer, inventor, hydraulic engineer, cartographer, general, diplomat, archaeologist, musician and poet
- Sima Guang, Song Chinese chancellor and court historian
- Sripati, Indian mathematician and astronomer
- Su Shi, famous Chinese poet, calligrapher, painter, travel writer, pharmacologist, and statesman
- Su Song, Chinese astronomer, horologist, mechanical engineer, zoologist, botanist, mineralogist, diplomat, cartographer, etc.
- Sylvester II, Pope, a French astronomer, mathematician, orator, musician, and philosopher.
T-X- Wei Pu, Chinese astronomer and mathematician
Y-Z- Zeng Gong, Chinese historian, travel writer, and poet
Architecture- The Kedareshwara Temple of Balligavi, India, is built in 1060 by the Western Chalukyas.
- The Chinese official Cai Xiang oversaw the construction of the Wanan Bridge in Fujian, and may have been the leading member of an engineering school due to many other bridges of similar construction built in Fujian.
- The Văn Miếu, or Temple of Literature, in Vietnam is established in 1070.
- The tallest pagoda tower in China's pre-modern history, the Liaodi Pagoda, is completed in 1055, standing at a height of 84 m (275 ft).
- Late 11th century – Crucifixion, mosaic in the north arm of the east wall, Church of the Dormition, Daphni, Greece, is made.
Inventions, discoveries, introductionsScience and technology- c. 1000–Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) of al-Andalus, considered a "father of modern surgery", publishes his influential 30-volume Arabic medical encyclopedia, the Al-Tasrif, which remains a standard textbook in the Islamic world and medieval Europe for centuries. He describes over 200 surgical instruments, many of which are his own inventions, including the ligature, adhesive plaster, lithotomy scalpel,
[Abdul Nasser Kaadan PhD, "Albucasis and Extraction of Bladder Stone", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2004 (3): 28–33.] curette, retractor, surgical catgut, surgical hook, surgical rod, surgical spoon,[Khaled al-Hadidi (1978), "The Role of Muslem Scholars in Oto-rhino-Laryngology", The Egyptian Journal of O.R.L. 4 (1), pp. 1–15. (cf. , Foundation for Science Technology and Civilization.)] Inhalational anaesthetic, oral anaesthesia, anaesthetic sponge,[Sigrid Hunke (1969), Allah Sonne Uber Abendland, Unser Arabische Erbe, Second Edition, pp. 279–280: ]
(cf. Prof. Dr. M. Taha Jasser, , Conference on Islamic Medicine) and cotton dressing.[Patricia Skinner (2001), , Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine]
- 1000–1048 – Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī of Persia writes more than a hundred books on many different topics. He theorizes that India was once covered by the Indian Ocean; and was the first to apply experimental scientific methods to mechanics, especially the fields of statics and dynamics, particularly for determining specific weights, such as those based on the theory of balances and weighing. He and other Muslim physicists unified statics and dynamics into the science of mechanics, and they combined the fields of hydrostatics with dynamics to give birth to hydrodynamics. They applied the mathematical theories of ratios and infinitesimal techniques, and introduced algebraic and fine calculation techniques into the field of statics. They were also generalized the theory of the centre of gravity and applied it to three-dimensional bodies. They also founded the theory of the ponderable lever and created the "science of gravity" which was later further developed in medieval Europe.
[Mariam Rozhanskaya and I. S. Levinova (1996), "Statics", p. 642, in ] Al-Biruni was also the first to realize that acceleration is connected with non-uniform motion,
- 1021 – Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) of Basra, Iraq writes his influential Book of Optics from 1011 to 1021 (while he was under house arrest in Egypt), which drastically transforms the understanding of light, optics, vision, psychology, and science in general. He is considered the father of optics, and the "first scientist" for his development of the scientific method. He also explained binocular vision and the moon illusion, speculated on the finite speed, rectilinear propagation and electromagnetic aspects of light, first stated Fermat's principle of least time, described an early version of Snell's law, and argued that rays of light are streams of energy particles travelling in straight lines. The book also contains the earliest discussions on experimental psychology,
[Omar Khaleefa (Summer 1999). "Who Is the Founder of Psychophysics and Experimental Psychology?", American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 16 (2).] and the psychology of visual perception. He is also credited with the discovery of the camera obscura and pinhole camera, His book was later translated from Arabic into Latin, and had an influence on the use of optical aids in Renaissance art and the development of the telescope and microscope. It has been ranked alongside Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica as one of the most influential books in the history of physics.
- 1024 – The world's first paper-printed money can be traced back to the year 1024, in Sichuan province of Song Dynasty China. The Chinese government would step in and overtake this trend, issuing the central government's official banknote in the 1120s.
- 1025 – Avicenna of Persia publishes his influential treatise, The Canon of Medicine, which remains the most influential medical text in both Islamic and Christian lands for over six centuries. It introduces experimentation and quantification into the study of physiology, and maintains that medicine should be known through either experimentation or reasoning. He first describes contagious diseases, the distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy, the contagious nature of phthisis, the distribution of diseases by water and soil, the first careful descriptions of skin troubles, sexually transmitted diseases, perversions and nervous ailments,
[George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science.]
(cf. Dr. A. Zahoor and Dr. Z. Haq (1997), , Cyberistan. the use of ice to treat fevers, the separation of medicine from pharmacology (important to the development of the pharmaceutical sciences),[Bashar Saad, Hassan Azaizeh, Omar Said (October 2005). "Tradition and Perspectives of Arab Herbal Medicine: A Review", Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2 (4), pp. 475–479 [476]. Oxford University Press.] the introduction of quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases, and the introduction of evidence-based medicine, experimental medicine,[David W. Tschanz, MSPH, PhD (August 2003). "Arab Roots of European Medicine", Heart Views 4 (2).] randomized controlled trials,[Jonathan D. Eldredge (2003), "The Randomised Controlled Trial design: unrecognized opportunities for health sciences librarianship", Health Information and Libraries Journal 20, pp. 34–44 [36].][Bernard S. Bloom, Aurelia Retbi, Sandrine Dahan, Egon Jonsson (2000), "Evaluation Of Randomized Controlled Trials On Complementary And Alternative Medicine", International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care 16 (1), pp. 13–21 [19].] efficacy tests,[D. Craig Brater and Walter J. Daly (2000), "Clinical pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Principles that presage the 21st century", Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 67 (5), pp. 447–450 [449].][Walter J. Daly and D. Craig Brater (2000), "Medieval contributions to the search for truth in clinical medicine", Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 43 (4), pp. 530–540 [536], Johns Hopkins University Press.] clinical pharmacology,[D. Craig Brater and Walter J. Daly (2000), "Clinical pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Principles that presage the 21st century", Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 67 (5), pp. 447–450 [448].] neuropsychiatry,[S. Safavi-Abbasi, L. B. C. Brasiliense, R. K. Workman (2007), "The fate of medical knowledge and the neurosciences during the time of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire", Neurosurgical Focus 23 (1), E13, p. 3.] physiological psychology,[Ibrahim B. Syed PhD, "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the Islamic Medical Association, 2002 (2), pp. 2–9 [7–8]] risk factor analysis, and the idea of a syndrome in the diagnosis of specific diseases.[Lenn Evan Goodman (2003), Islamic Humanism, p. 155, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195135806.] The Canon is also considered the first pharmacopoeia.
- 1027 – Avicenna of Persia publishes The Book of Healing, a scientific encyclopedia that discusses many different topics. Its contributions include nine volumes on Avicennian logic; eight on the natural sciences; four on the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry astronomy, and music; and a number of volumes on early Islamic philosophy, metaphysics and Islamic psychology. It also contains astronomical theory that Venus is closer to Earth than the Sun, and a geological hypothesis on two causes of mountains, introducing the law of superposition and concept of uniformitarianism in geology.
[Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield (1965), The Ancestry of Science: The Discovery of Time, p. 64, University of Chicago Press (cf. )]
- 1031 – Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī observes in his astronomy book Kitab al-qanun al-Mas’udi that the planets revolve in elliptical orbits rather than circular orbits as theorized by the ancient Greeks, and rejects theories which cannot be verified through experimentation.
- 1031–1095 – Chinese scientist Shen Kuo creates a theory for land formation, or geomorphology, theorized that climate change occurred over time, discovers the concept of true north, improves the design of the astronomical sighting tube to view the polestar indefinitely, hypothesizes the retrogradation theory of planetary motion, and by observing lunar eclipse and solar eclipse he hypothesized that the sun and moon were spherical.
[Sivin, III, 23.][Sivin, III, 16–19.][Needham, Volume 3, 415 – 416.] Shen Kuo also experimented with camera obscura just decades after Ibn al-Haitham, although Shen was the first to treat it with quantitative attributes.[Sivin, III, 34.] He also took an interdisciplinary approach to studies in archaeology.
- 1068 – First known use of the drydock in China.
[Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 660.]
- 1070 – With a team of scholars, the Chinese official Su Song also published the Ben Cao Tu Jing in 1070, a treatise on pharmacology, botany, zoology, metallurgy, and mineralogy.
[Wu (2005), 5.][Unschuld, 60.] Some of the drug concoctions in Su's book included ephedrine, mica minerals, and linaceae.[Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 446.][Needham, Volume 6, Part 1, 174, 175.][Needham, Volume 3, 648.]
- 1075 – the Song Chinese innovate a partial decarbonization method of repreated forging of cast iron under a cold blast that Hartwell and Needham consider to be a predecessor to the 18th century Bessemer process.
- 1088 – As written by Shen Kuo in his Dream Pool Essays, the earlier 10th century invention of the pound lock in China allows large ships to travel along canals without laborious hauling, thus allowing smooth travel of government ships holding cargo of up to 700 tan (49½ tons) and large privately owned-ships holding cargo of up to 1600 tan (113 tons).
[Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 352.]
- By the 11th century, every city in the Islamic world had Bimaristans, the first hospitals in the modern sense, after they began receiving funds from the Waqf instititions, the first charitable trusts.
- By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had industrial fulling mills, gristmills, hullers, paper mills, sawmills, shipmills, stamp mills, steel mills, sugar mills, tide mills and windmills in operation, from al-Andalus and North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia.
[Adam Robert Lucas (2005), "Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: A Survey of the Evidence for an Industrial Revolution in Medieval Europe", Technology and Culture 46 (1), pp. 1–30 [10].]
- In Europe, the introduction of the horizontal loom operated by foot-treadles makes weaving faster and more efficient.
- The first mechanical clocks to be driven by weights and gears are invented by medieval Muslim engineers.
[Al-Hassani, Salim (2006), 1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World, FSTC, ISBN 0955242606][, 1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World, 2006] The first geared mechanical clock is invented by the Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in Islamic Spain; and the first weight-driven mechanical clocks, employing a mercury escapement mechanism and a clock face similar to an astrolabe dial, are also invented by Muslim engineers in the 11th century.[Hassan, Ahmad Y, , History of Science and Technology in Islam.]
Literature- c. 1000 – The Zij al-Kabir al-Hakimi is written by the Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus.
- c. 1010 – The oldest known copy of the epic poem Beowulf was written around this year.
- 1044 – The Wujing Zongyao military manuscript is completed by Chinese scholars Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide.
Decades and years
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