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12th century in literature

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Through Nalanda mahavihara and Turkic peoples

Lab · Class 7–9Ancient Indian Empires

The 12th century in Western Europe saw an increase in the production of Latin texts and a proliferation of literate clerics from the multiplying cathedral schools. At the same time, vernacular literatures ranging from Provençal to Icelandic embodied in lyric and romance the values and worldview of an increasingly self-conscious and prosperous courtly aristocracy. These two trends contributed to a sweeping revival of letters with a lasting influence on the development of literature in the following centuries.

Events

  • 1104: September 3 – St. Cuthbert is reburied in Durham Cathedral (England) and the St. Cuthbert Gospel of St. John removed from his tomb.
  • 1170: Poet, politician and historian Lu You (陸游) travels on the Grand Canal (China) from Shaoxing to the river Yangtze, recording his progress in a diary.
  • Before 1173: Copenhagen Psalter produced in northern England
  • 1170: 29 December – Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket is assassinated in Canterbury Cathedral, an event that inspires several plays, notably: Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Becket (1884), T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral (1935), Jean Anouilh's Becket (Becket, ou l'honneur de Dieu, 1959) and Paul Webb's Four Nights in Knaresborough (1999). It also features in novels such as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Der Heilige ("The Saint", 1879), Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth (1989) and Sharon Kay Penman's Time and Chance (2002).
  • c. 1193: The university and its libraries at Nalanda in India are sacked and burned by Turkic invader Ikhtiyar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji; the burning of the library is said to have continued for several months.

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