1061 Explained

Year 1061 (MLXI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Events

By place

Europe

• Spring  - Robert de Grandmesnil, his nephew Berengar, half-sister Judith (future wife of Roger I), and eleven monks of the Abbey of Saint-Evroul, are banished by Duke William II ("the Bastard") of Normandy for violence, and travel to Southern Italy.^[1]
• Summer  - Norman forces led by Duke Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger I invade Sicily. They land unseen during the night and surprise the Saracen army. Guiscard conquers Messina and marches into central Sicily.
• June 28  - Count Floris I is ambushed on a retreat from Zaltbommel and killed by German troops at Nederhemert. Most of West Frisia (later part of the County of Holland) is conquered and annexed by the Holy Roman Empire.
• Sosols (a tribe in Estonia) destroy the Kievan Rus' fortification of Yuryev in Tartu, and carry out a raid on Pskov.^[2]

Africa

• Sultan Yusuf ibn Tashfin succeeds to the throne of Morocco, following the Almoravid conquest.

By topic

Religion

• July 27  - Pope Nicholas II dies after a 2-year pontificate at Florence. He is succeeded by Alexander II as the 156th pope of the Catholic Church in Rome.
• The Speyer Cathedral is consecrated in Speyer (modern Germany).

Births

• Al-Maziri, Zirid imam, jurist and scholar (d. 1141)
• Al-Tughrai, Persian poet and alchemist (d. 1121)
• Roger Borsa, duke of Apulia and Calabria (or 1060)
• Wuyashu, chieftain of the Wanyan tribe (d. 1113)

Deaths

• January 28  - Spytihněv II, duke of Bohemia (b. 1031)
• May 5  - Humbert of Moyenmoutier, French cardinal
• June 28  - Floris I, count of Friesland (west of the Vlie)
• July 13  - Beatrice I, German abbess of Quedlinburg (b. 1037)
• July 27  - Nicholas II, pope of the Catholic Church
• Adelmann, bishop of Brescia (approximate date)
• Ali ibn Ridwan, Arab physician and astronomer (approximate date)
• Burgheard, English nobleman
• Burkhard I, Lord of Zollern (or Burchardus), German nobleman, killed
• Conrad III, Duke of Carinthia (or Konrad), German nobleman
• Gardizi, Persian geographer and historian
• Henry I, Count Palatine of Lotharingia (or Heinrich), German nobleman
• Rajaraja Narendra, Indian ruler (b. 1022)
• Rúaidhri Ua Flaithbheartaigh, Irish king of Iar Connacht, killed
• Song Qi (Zijing), Chinese statesman and historian (b. 998)

Notes and References

1. John Julius Norwich, The Normans in the South 1016–1130 (London: Solitaire Books, 1981), pp. 146–47.
2. Mäesalu. Ain. Could Kedipiv in East-Slavonic Chronicles be Keava hill fort?. Estonian Journal of Archaeology. 2012. 1. 199. https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.kirj.ee/public/Archaeology/2012/sup_vol_1/arhe-keava-2012-195-200.pdf . 2022-10-09 . live. 27 December 2016.