1228

By place

Sixth Crusade

• Summer - Emperor Frederick II sails from Brindisi with an expeditionary force and arrives in Acre in the Middle East on September 7. He disembarks a well-trained and equipped Crusader army. After his arrival in Palestine, Frederick is again excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, for setting out for the Crusade before he has obtained absolution from his previous ex-communication. Many of the local nobility, the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller deny him their support for the Crusade. Frederick can only rely on his own army and the Teutonic Knights, whose Grand Master, Hermann von Salza, is his friend.
• Autumn - Frederick II receives an embassy of Sultan Al-Kamil, including Fakhr al-Din ibn as-Shaikh, at the Hospitaller camp at Recordane, near Acre. Meanwhile, Al-Kamil is engaged in suppressing a rebellion in Syria and has concentrated his forces on a siege at Damascus. Frederick is pressed for time, because his army is not large enough for a major campaign. Al-Kamil, who has full control of Jerusalem, starts diplomatic negotiations.
• November - Frederick II puts pressure on the negotiations by a military display. He assembles his Crusader army and marches down the coast to Jaffa – which he proceeds to refortify. At the same moment, Ayyubid forces under An-Nasir Dawud, who are not participating in the revolt at Damascus, move to Nablus, to intercept Al-Kamil's supply lines. Al-Kamil breaks off the negotiations, saying that the Crusaders have pillaged several Muslim villages, and only resumes them again when Frederick pays out compensation to the victims.

  Europe

• April 25 - The 16-year-old Isabella II, Holy Roman Empress and wife of Frederick II, dies after giving birth to her second child, Conrad IV, at Andria. He receives the title King of Jerusalem – with Frederick as regent. By his father, Conrad is the grandson of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Henry VI and great-grandson of the late Emperor Frederick I.
• Emperor Robert I dies after a 7-year reign in Morea. He is succeeded by his 11-year-old brother, Baldwin II, as ruler of the Latin Empire in Constantinople, with John of Brienne as regent.
• King James I launches a major offensive against the Almohads in Majorca. At the same moment, Emir Ibn Hud al-Yamadi denounces Almohad rule in Murcia and acknowledges the Abbasid Caliphate as legitimate overlord, in effect declaring independence. Other notable Christian success: King Alfonso IX of León conquers Mérida.
• December 23 - Stephen of Anagni, Italian papal chaplain, is commissioned to collect a special tax in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales to finance Gregory X's War of the Keys against Frederick II.

  Asia

• Battle of Bolnisi: Khwarazmian forces led by Sultan Jalal al-Din Mangburni defeat a coalition of Georgians, Kipchaks, Alans, Vainakhs and Laks at Bolnisi.
• King Sukaphaa establishes the Ahom Dynasty and becomes the first Ahom ruler in Assam.

  By topic

Cities and Towns

• The Transylvanian town of Reghin is first mentioned, in a charter of King Andrew II of Hungary.

  Markets

• The city of Tournai emits its first recorded life annuity, thus confirming a trend of consolidation of public debts started ten years earlier, in Reims.
• The first evidence is uncovered of the use of the Knights Templar as cashiers by King Henry III of England, to safely transfer important sums to the continent, using letters of exchange. This shows that large transfers could take place across Europe, even before the emergence of important networks of Italian merchant-bankers.

  Religion

• July 16 - Saint Francis of Assisi is canonized by Gregory IX.