1020s

This is a list of events occurring in the 1020s, ordered by year.

1020

By place

Asia

• Goryeo and the Liao Dynasty exchange embassies following a seven-year territorial dispute.
• The massive Kandariya Mahadeva Hindu Temple is completed in the Chandela capital of Khajuraho.

Europe

• The city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye is founded.
• Henry II of Germany conducts his third Italian military campaign .
• Canute the Great codifies the laws of England.

1021

By place

Africa

• Last evidence of indigenous Christian and non-arabophone culture in Tripolitania, Libya.^[1]

Europe

• The Moorish kingdom of Valencia becomes independent from the Ummayyad Caliphate of Córdoba.

Asia

• Seneqerim-Hovhannes of Vaspurakan surrenders his kingdom to the Byzantine Empire.
• Mahmud appoints Ayaz to the throne, making Lahore the capital of the Ghaznavid Empire.
• A Khitan princess is sent to marry into the Goryeo royal family, securing ties between the Koreans and the Liao Dynasty.
• The Song Dynasty Chinese capital city of Kaifeng has some half a million residents by this year; including all those present in the nine designated suburbs, the population is over a million people.
• The Chola Empire invades Bengal.

1022

By place

Europe

• Upon the death of Olof Skötkonung, he is succeeded by his son Anund Jakob as king of Sweden.

Asia

• Al-Muizz ibn Badis begins to rule Ifriqiya in his own right.
• The Song Dynasty Chinese military has one million registered soldiers, an increase since the turn of the 11th century when the Song military only had nine hundred thousand soldiers.
• Byzantine emperor Basil II defeats George I of Georgia.
• Failed rebellion of Nikephoros Phokas Barytrachelos and Nikephoros Xiphias against Basil II.

By topic

Religion

• Aethelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, is received at Rome.
• Several Catharists are killed in Toulouse.
• The Synod of Pavia issues decrees against non-celibate clergy and against simony.
• Robert II the Pious burns some canons of St. Croix in Orléans, for holding that the world is inherently evil.

1023

By place

Europe

• The Judge-Governor of Seville takes advantage of the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, and seizes power as Abbad I, thus founding the Abbadid dynasty.
• Abd ar-Rahman V is proclaimed Caliph at Córdoba.

Asia

• The Ghaznavid Empire occupies Transoxiana.

Africa

• Soon after returning from Mecca, the Tarsina king of Zanata, a mountain kingdom between Algeria and Morocco, is killed in battle.

1024

By place

Europe

• The Salian Dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire is founded by Conrad II.
• April 19 – Pope John XIX succeeds Pope Benedict VIII (his brother) as the 144th pope.
• After several years in the Peninsula, Roger of Toeni, a Norman knight, leaves the battlefields of the Ebro Valley and heads back to France. It ends what historians have described as an early crusade.^[2]

Asia

• The world's first paper-printed money, which later greatly benefits the economy of the Song Dynasty, originates in the Sichuan province of China.
• Emperor Mahmud of Ghazni sacks the Hindu religious center of Somnath, slaughtering over 50,000 people and carrying off vast amounts of treasure.

1025

By place

Europe

• April 18 – Bolesław I Chrobry is crowned as the first king of Poland.
• Failure of the North African Zirid dynasty's attempts to retake Sicily.^[3]
• Byzantines abduct Arabs Messina before the death of Emperor Basil II.

Asia

• Srivijaya, a partly Buddhist kingdom based in Sumatra, is attacked by the Chola Empire of southern India in a dispute over trading rights in South-east Asia. It survives, but declines in importance.
• Constantine VIII succeeds his brother Basil II as Byzantine Emperor.

1026

By place

Europe

• Aribert (archbishop of Milan), crowns Conrad II King of Italy.
• Pietro Barbolano becomes Doge of Venice.
• Henry the black is made Henry VI, Duke of Bavaria by his father, Conrad II.
• The Battle of the Helgeå is fought off the coast of Sweden: naval forces of Cnut the Great's North Sea Empire defeat the combined Swedish and Norwegian royal fleets.^[4]

Asia

• A Zubu revolt against the Liao Dynasty is suppressed, with the Zubu forced to pay an annual tribute.

1027

By place

Europe

• March 26 – Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II Holy Roman Emperor.
• May 14 – Henry I is crowned king of France at Reims Cathedral.
• approx. date – Ealdred becomes abbot of Tavistock in England.

Asia

• August 16 – Bagrat IV becomes king of Georgia on the death of his father. He will hold the throne until his own death in 1072.
• Civil war begins in Japan.
• This is the first year of the first rabqung (60-year) cycle started in the Tibetan calendar.
• As recorded in the Song Shi, the Song Dynasty Chinese engineer Yan Su reinvents the 3rd-century south-pointing chariot, a mechanical-driven compass vehicle.
• Publication of The Book of Healing (Arabic: کتاب الشفاء Kitab Al-Shifaʾ, Latin: Sufficientia), a comprehensive scientific and philosophical encyclopedia written by the Persian polymath Avicenna (Abū ʿAlī ibn Sīnā).^[5]

1028

By place

Europe

• April 14 – Henry III, son of Conrad II, is elected king of the Germans.
• King Sancho III of Navarre conquers Castile.
• Cnut becomes King of Norway

Byzantine Empire

• November 12 – Dying Emperor Constantine VIII of the Byzantine Empire marries his daughter Zoe of Byzantium to his chosen heir Romanus Argyrus.
• November 15 – Romanus Argyrus becomes Eastern Roman Emperor as Romanus III.

1029

Significant people

Births

Deaths

References