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Tancred, Crusader

(Encyclopedia)Tancred, 1076–1112, Crusader. He became a Crusader in 1096 with his uncle Bohemond I. After distinguishing himself at Nicaea, he struck out into Cilicia and besieged Tarsus, but was deprived of the ...

Robert Guiscard

(Encyclopedia)Robert Guiscard gēskärˈ [key], c.1015–1085, Norman conqueror of S Italy, a son of Tancred de Hauteville (see Normans). Robert joined (c.1046) his brothers in S Italy and fought with them to expel...

Godfrey of Bouillon

(Encyclopedia)Godfrey of Bouillon bo͞oyôNˈ [key], c.1058–1100, Crusader, duke of Lower Lorraine. He fought for Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV against Pope Gregory VII and against Rudolf of Swabia and was rewarded...

Frederick William IV

(Encyclopedia)Frederick William IV, 1795–1861, king of Prussia (1840–61), son and successor of Frederick William III. A romanticist and a mystic, he conceived vague schemes of reform based on a revival of the m...

Clement IV, pope

(Encyclopedia)Clement IV, d. 1268, pope (1265–68), a Frenchman named Guy le gros Foulques; successor of Urban IV. He was a lay adviser of King Louis IX of France, but after his wife's death he entered the church....

Raymond Berengar IV

(Encyclopedia)Raymond Berengar IV bĕrˈəngär [key], d. 1162, count of Barcelona (1131–62). He married Petronilla, daughter and heir of King Ramiro II of Aragón, after whose abdication (1137) Raymond also rule...

Adrian IV, pope

(Encyclopedia)Adrian IV, d. 1159, pope (1154–59), an Englishman (the only English pope), b. Nicholas Breakspear at Langley, near St. Albans. He was successor of Anastasius IV. At an early age he went to France. T...

Ducas

(Encyclopedia)Ducas dyo͞oˈkəs [key], Greek family and dynasty of Constantinople. Some of its members were Byzantine emperors—Constantine X, Michael VII, Alexius V, and John III. ...

Comnenus

(Encyclopedia)Comnenus kŏmnēˈnəs [key], family name of several Byzantine emperors—Isaac I, Alexius I, John II, Manuel I, Alexius II, and Andronicus I—who reigned in the 11th and 12th cent., and of the histo...

John II, Byzantine emperor

(Encyclopedia)John II (John Comnenus) kŏmnēˈnəs [key], 1088–1143, Byzantine emperor (1118–43), son and successor of Alexius I. He was crowned despite the intrigues of his sister, Anna Comnena, and of his mo...