The nephew of King Arduin of Italy, he was prior, then, abbot of Fecamp and succeeded of William of Volpiano in 1031. They actually came together from the St. Benignus monastery of Dijon. In 1080, with Richard of Chaumont, he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was captured but he escaped and came back to die in 1082 at the abbey.
The abbey of Montivilliers was a nunnery founded at the end of the 7th century and located in Normandy, France.
Destroyed by the Vikings invasions it was rebuilt in 1035 by the Duke of Normandy, Robert the Magnificent. The abbey was prosperous up until the Hundred Years’ war. Then its fortunes declined until the French revolution at the end of the 18th century when it was closed and sold. Fortunately it was not destroyed and was later bought back by the city of Montivilliers. An ambitious restoration program which was completed in 2000 gave back to the abbey its splendor. Besides the church, it now houses exhibition rooms and the cloister has regained its elegance.
More on MP3Travel
Also known as Malasgirt, it’s a city located in Eastern Turkey. In 1071, a battle resulted in one of the worst defeat for the Byzantine empire against the Seljuks Turks. The emperor was even captured and most of his army routed. It opened the doors for the Turk colonisation of Anatolia.
More on Wikipedia
Name given by the Normans to the place where they fought the battle of Hastings in 1066. The name derives from the English ‘Santlache’ from which the Normans made a pun by calling it ‘Sanguelac’, meaning ‘Blood lake’. It was then shortened to Senlac in Norman History books and in the Domesday book.
Born Bernard of Sedirac in Gascony (Southwest France) around 1050, he was a Cluniac monk first educated in St. Orens abbey near Auch (Southwest France) and then in Cluny where he became chamberlain. After a brief stint in 1078 as prior of St. Orens, he was sent to Spain by the abbot of Cluny Hugh the Great following a wish from Alfonso VI, King of León & Castile (Northeast Spain). More likely this wish came from his wife Constance of Burgundy who happened to be the niece of Hugh the Great.
There in 1080, Bernard was made abbot of St. Facundus at Sahagún in León and worked tirelessly to implement the Roman liturgy. King Alfonso VI, great benefactor of Cluny, named him archbishop of Toledo in 1080. He was present at the council of Clermont in 1095 when pope Urban II (a Cluniac monk himself) preached the First crusade.
Following the death of Alfonso VI in 1108 and the election of a new pope Calixtus II in 1119, Bernard lost some of his temporal powers to Diego Gelmírez, archbishop of Compostela in Galicia (Northeast Spain). Calixtus II, who was the brother in law of the new queen of Castile Urraca, with Diego and the queen strove to make Compostela a major pilgrimage destination taking away the luster of Toledo.
