THE NINTH CENTURY

Century of Change


800 AD
Charlemagne crowned.

Jabir ibn Hayyan improves the still

802
Byzantine Empress Irene deposed.

805
Tea introduced to Japan

809
Famine in Charlemagne's kingdom

810
Algebra invented by Muhammad ibn Musa al Chwarazmi

814
Charlemagne dies

817
Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious divides the Empire. Lothar (Louis II's father), is made
co-regent and receives Burgundy. Louis the German gets Bavaria. Pepin (Pippin) gets
Aquitane.

820
Byzantine Emperor Leo V is assassinated in the mosque of Santa Sophia.

822
Louis II, known as the Stammerer is believed to have been born

826
Islamic pirates conquer Crete

827
North African Arabs invade Sicily and introduce spinach

832
Byzantine Emperor Theophilus persecutes idolatry

837
Arabs from Sicily attack Naples unsuccessfully

838
Pippin dies

840
Emperor Louis the Pious dies. Lothar becomes Emperor and tries to unite the empire by
stealing his brothers' land.

842
Byzantine Emperor Theophilus dies and is succeeded by his son Michael III,
the Drunkard.

844
Louis II is crowned King of Italy by his father the Emperor Lothar.

846
Muslim forces attack Rome.

850
Astrolabe perfected by Arab astrologers.


An Arab goatherd, Kaidi, notices that his goats become more active after chewing
certain berries. COFFEE IS DISCOVERED!


Church mode is invented, the first step in the development of major and minor scales.

851
Danes sack Canterbury Cathedral

852
Coal first mentioned in Europe as a fuel

853
Charles the Bald and Louis the German (Louis II's uncles) fight each other

857
Ergot poisoning breaks out in the Rhine valley. Ergot, a hallucinogenic fungus that grows on
grain, is baked into bread, causing mass hysteria.

860
Hiragana phonetic script becomes popular among the ladies of the Japanese court, leading
to the development of the novel

861
Norsemen attack Cologne, Worms, Paris and Toulouse. Libera nos a furore
Normanorum. Deliver us from the fury of the Norsemen.

863
St. Cyril invents the Cyrillic alphabet. Pope Nicholas I excommunicates Photius, the
Patriarch of Constantinople, leading, eventually, to the Catholic/Orthodox schism.

865
Norsemen attack Constantinople

866
Emperor Louis II, at the suggestion of Landulf of Capua, drives Moslem
forces into southern Italy

868
The Chinese produce the first printed book, The Diamond Sutra

871
With aid from the Byzantine Navy, Louis II conquers the Arab's stronghold at Bari

874
Norsemen discover Iceland

875
Emperor Louis II dies without a male heir. Landalf of Capua is excommunicated by Pope
John VIII.

878
Alfred the Great defeats the Danes and converts them to Christianity

880
Hucbald's De Harmonica Institutione, the earliest known book showing a system of
musical theory, is published

882
Pope John VIII is believed to have been poisoned

884
Moslem forces are driven from the Italian peninsula.

886
Norsemen besiege Paris

894
Life of Alfred the Great written

899
Alfred the Great dies


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