The 1100s were filled with crusades, unusual royal decisions, strange customs, and stories that feel surprisingly vivid centuries later. These 25 facts offer a fascinating look at just how unpredictable life in the 12th century could be.
Blois and the Winchester Geese
1. In 1161, Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester, was the largest brothel owner in the UK, and his prostitutes were known as the Winchester Geese.
2. In 1123, the people of Greenland asked King Sigurd of Norway to send them a bishop, along with a polar bear as a gift to go with their request.
3. In 1193, King Philip II of France married Ingeborg of Denmark. On their wedding night, he chose not to allow her to be crowned the Queen of France after he learned that she had such a horrible breath.
4. By the 12th Century, 21 different churches claimed to possess Jesus Christ’s foreskin, and the Pope was eventually asked to decide which one was authentic.
5. Several 12th-century British historical sources describe the mysterious appearance of “The Green Children of Woolpit.” A brother and a sister were found to have green skin, spoke an unknown language, and could eat only green food.
6. In the 12th century, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem obtained a loan by putting up his beard as collateral.
7. In the 12th century, Bologna [Italy] had as many as 180 towers reaching heights of 97 meters [318 feet], which gave it the appearance of a medieval manhattan.
8. In 1107, King Sigurd I of Norway began a crusade that fought in Spain, the Mediterranean, and the Holy Land. They won every battle they took part in.
9. In 1191, King Richard I used chains made of silver to imprison the ruler of Cyprus because he had promised not to put him in irons.
10. In 1131, crown prince Philip of France died while riding through Paris when his horse stumbled over a black pig that ran out of a heap of dung.
1102 Defeat, Escape, Return
11. In 1102, Baldwin I was beaten in combat by an Egyptian army, was besieged at Ramla, escaped with 5 companions, was taken to Jaffa by an English pirate, and then went back to battle and defeated the Egyptians.
12. In 1162, as revenge for insulting his wife (Beatrice), Frederick I, the Holy Roman Emperor made every resident of Milan who wanted to stay alive pluck a fig that had been placed into the genitals of a female mule.
13. Martim Moniz was a knight who in 1147, during the Reconquista, gave his life by wedging himself in the doorway of the castle in Lisbon, stopping the moors from fully shutting the door. His sacrifice made it possible for the castle to be conquered.
14. In 1140, a German King named Konrad III seized a castle and commanded all the women in the castle to depart with whatever they could carry on their backs. Thinking fast, the women carried their men on their backs. The King honored his promise and allowed the men to survive.
15. Frederick I Barbarossa (1122 – 1190) was a German Holy Roman Emperor who assembled 100,000 men for a crusade to fight the Saracens, marched to Constantinople then rode his horse out of its depth in the Saleph River and drowned on the morning of the battle.
16. In 1183, while sultan Saladin was besieging a crusader castle in modern Jordan, he ordered his catapults not to strike the tower of the newlyweds after being given food from their feast.
17. In the 12th century China, court judges wore sunglasses with lenses made from smoky quartz to conceal their facial expressions and seem impartial.
18. The Leper King of Jerusalem, Baldwin the fourth, ruled Jerusalem from 1174-1185, did not hide his leprosy from his subjects, and remained active in the wars and crusades of that era until his illness advanced enough to leave him crippled and blind.
19. In 1120, revelers aboard the White Ship urged its captain to attempt to outrun another vessel carrying King Henry I. In the darkness, the ship struck a submerged rock and overturned, causing the death of Henry’s only heir, William Adelin, which resulted in a 20-year civil war.
20. In 1138, Lý Anh Tông was appointed emperor of the Lý Dynasty in Vietnam at the age of 2.
Baghdad’s Jewish Dress Law
21. A surviving text of an 1121 law in Baghdad required all Jewish women to wear at all times: 1 yellow star on their head, 1 yellow star on their neck, a necklace with a lead plaque that said “Dhimmi” (ie “non-Muslim”), 1 red shoe, 1 black shoe, and a bell on their neck or their shoes.
22. Roland the Farter was a 12th-century minstrel who received a manor house in Hemingstone, Suffolk, and more than 100 acres of land for performing a dance that ended with “one jump, one whistle, and one fart,” essentially for farting on cue.
23. In the 12th-century, women in Shanxi (a Chinese province) were regarded as a more desirable wife if they had already slept with a large number of men.
24. In 1187, King Philip II of France and King Richard I of England (whilst a prince), slept in the same bed overnight as a symbol of unity between the two countries.
25. The pood was a 12th century unit of mass equal to 40 funt (or 16.38 kg/36.11 lbs). Although it was abolished for use by the USSR in 1924, the term remains in situational cases, and an old Russian proverb says, “You know a man when you have eaten a pood of salt with him.”
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