Timeline

Breakup of al-Andalus (c. 1000-1031)

1024-1125 The Salian Dynasty

c. 1050 Papal Reform and Investiture Controversy

Schism of Catholic and Orthodox Churches (1054)

First Crusade (1096-1099)
Pope Urban II was responding to a request from the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus for aid against Muslim enemies. In calling for such aid, Urban ignited passions he could not have foreseen and initiated the Crusades. In 1099 the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in a bloody battle and established a Latin Christian presence there that lasted for almost 200 years.
Text: Urban II. Speech at Clermont 1095
Image: 1095 Pope Urban II Preaching at Clermont [BNF: Miniature of 1490]
Image: Crusaders Capturing Jerusalem [From MS illustration]
Weblink: Medieval Sourcebook: Crusades
Weblink: War Machines

1122 The Papacy Ascendant

1125-1152 Dynastic Struggler (in Holy Roman Empire)

1152-1190 The Empire Strikes Back (Reign of Frederick Barbarossa)

1190-1250 Struggle of Holy Roman Empire and Papacy

Sack of Constantinople (1204)
The diversion of the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople and the violent capture of the city by Latin Christians ended the Byzantine Empire as a great power and permanently embittered relations between Catholic and Orthodox churches. Although the Byzantines regained the city in 1261, the Byzantine Empire was reduced to a series of territories that could not resist the attacks of the Turks.
Text: The Fourth Crusade 1204: Collected Sources.

Fourth Lateran Council (1215)
Pope Innocent II called the Fourth Lateran Council, so-called because it met in the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome, and it was the most wide ranging Western church council during the Middle Ages. In addition to matters of church doctrine and organization, it addressed newer problems such as popular heresy. For lay Catholics, its greatest impact was its demand that all Catholics go to confession at least once each year.
Text: The Fourth Lateran Council: Selected Canons

Magna Carta (1215)
The "Great Charter" of 1215 represents the efforts of the English aristocracy to make the king deal with them according to agreed rules. Its significance is not so much in establishing "freedom" as in the fact that the barons presented themselves as "men of the realm" and acted as if the result of conflict with the king should be new rules for the entire kingdom, not more independence for individual lords.
Text: Magna Carta, 1215
Image/Weblink: British Library: Magna Carta

1250 Weakened Holy Roman Empire

Interregnum in the Holy Roman Empire (1254-1273)