The Year 1021 (notes)

Introduction

These notes were compiled by Robert E. Howard while researching historical context for his story Hawks Over Egypt, set in the early 11th century.

Transcribed from typescript

The year 1021.

Egypt: large population of Sunnite Copts, with native Christians and Jews, ruled by the Fatimid caliph – Shia – al Hakim.

Barbary: ruled mainly by the family of Zeirites, feudal lords, but nominally subject to Egypt; actually independent; the Zeirites were Arabs.

Spain: in a state of turmoil, divided between the Christian kingdoms and the feudal lords of the Arabs and Moors; Sancho of Navarre apparently strongest.

France: divided into feudal states, torn with wars between the Capet kings and the Norman dukes; preserved from anarchy only by the priests.

England: a Saxon population, under the foreign rule of Canute of Denmark.

Germany: King Henry was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and busy trying to conciliate Germany and Italy, and fighting the Slavs.

Italy: was being fought over by Normans, Lombards, Byzantines and Germans.

Byzantium: reached its height under Basilius II, which extended to 1025.

Asia Minor: most was in the hands of the Greeks; Seljuks advancing from Bokhara.

Syria: under the rule of the Egyptian caliphs, but frequently in revolt.

Persia: the eastern part with Khorassan part of the empire of Mahmud the king of Ghazni.

India: mostly part of the empire of Ghazni.

Irak: in Bagdad the Shiite Buidees, temporal rulers of the waning caliphate, disputed with the Turkish mercenaries of the Abbasside caliph.

Arabia: apparently under the rule of the caliph of Egypt.

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