Life in 12th Century: 20 Captivating Facts For the History Nerds

In 1162, in revenge for insulting his wife (Beatrice), Frederick I, the Holy Roman Emperor forced every resident of Milan who wished to live to pluck a fig placed into the genitals of a female mule.

In 1183, while sultan Saladin was laying siege to a crusader Castle in modern Jordan, he instructed his catapults to avoid the tower of the newlyweds after receiving food from their feast.

Frederick I Barbarossa (1122 – 1190) was a German Holy Roman Emperor who gathered 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.

Roland the Farter was a 12th-century minstrel who was gifted 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,” basically for farting on cue.

Martim Moniz was a knight who in 1147, during the Reconquista, sacrificed himself by lodging himself in the doorway of the castle in Lisbon, preventing the moors from fully closing the door. His sacrifice allowed the castle to be conquered.

The pood was a 12th century unit of mass equivalent to 40 funt (or 16.38 kg/36.11 lbs). While abolished for use by the USSR in 1924, the term remains in situational cases, and an old Russian proverb reads, “You know a man when you have eaten a pood of salt with him.”

In 1138, Lý Anh Tông was named emperor of Lý Dynasty in Vietnam at the age of 2.

In the 12th-century, women in Shanxi (a Chinese province) were considered more desirable as a wife if they had already slept with a large number of men.

In 1161, Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester was the largest brothel owner in the UK and his prostitutes were called the Winchester Geese.

By the 12th Century, 21 different churches claimed to possess Jesus Christ's foreskin. The Pope was eventually called upon to decide which one was authentic.