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* Saladin and his brother Safadin, who ruled Egypt, most of Israel and Lebanon, Syria, half Iraq and Yemen, had also conquered Mecca where they installed Qatada, a Hashemite descendant of Muhammad, as amir, controlling the revenues of the hajj pilgrimage. Using an army of Nubian slaves, navigating between Saladin’s successors and the Baghdad caliphs, Qatada took control of both holy places, founding the Hashemite family that, with short intervals, ruled Mecca until the 1920s and provided the kings of Hejaz, Syria, Jordan, Jerusalem and Iraq. They still rule Jordan. In 1221, an ailing Qatada was strangled by his son Hassan.

* After they had recognized the Greek emperors who retook Constantinople from the Latins, the emperors of Trebizond used the title Emperor and Autocrat of all the East, and survived by trading with Venice and Genoa and with Islamic rulers who were offered prestigious Trepuzuntine princesses. This kingdom lasted until 1461.

* Genghis distilled his tactics into three manoeuvres: first, the Thorny Sarayana Shrub, the march in which troops massed in close order; then the Lake, in which troops flowed over a wide area; and finally the Chisel, in which the horsemen were concentrated with devastating force.

* Genghis’s eldest son by a Merkit rapist, Jöchi, was treated as a Golden prince, receiving a vast appanage, but he was not considered for the succession. He may have fallen out with Genghis, but the son died first, his territories inherited by his able son, Batu.

* A Turkish Oghuz clan who had lived in Merv escaped the Mongols to seek refuge in the Seljuk sultanate of Rum where they were granted lands. They were led by a chieftain named Osman, the founder of the Osmanlik or Ottoman family who would rule a Eurasian empire until 1918.

Khmers, Hohenstaufen and Polos

JAYAVARMAN OF ANGKOR AND THE WONDER OF THE WORLD

Many children would have been overwhelmed by Frederick’s inheritance. He was the grandson of Roger II of Sicily and Frederick Barbarossa, half Hauteville, half Staufen – the Germanic rulers of Swabia, descended from Charlemagne. Frederick was singular first in his lineage then in his character. His mother Constance, intelligent, resilient and red-blonde, was the posthumously born daughter of Roger II, kept sequestered in the Hauteville court in Palermo until it became clear that she was the heiress to Sicily, whereupon in 1186 her nephew William the Good negotiated a peace crowned with the marriage of Constance, thirty, to Heinrich, son of Frederick Barbarossa. When her nephew died young, she and her husband, who was now German emperor Heinrich VI, had to fight for the kingdom.

Then came unlikely news: Constance was pregnant at forty. Their healthy son, named Frederick Roger after his two storied grandfathers, would be the key player in Europe for the fifty years that saw the rise of Genghis. After the death of her husband, Queen/Empress Constance devoted herself to protecting Sicily for her baby, whom she placed under the protection of the pope. Crowned king of Sicily at the age of three, he was educated by Islamic, Jewish and Greek tutors, guarded by Saracen bodyguards and liberated by a Sicilian informality that allowed him to play with his friends in the streets.

After the death of his mother, and now elected Roman emperor and king of Italy, Frederick, red-haired and green-eyed, grew up fluent in six languages including Arabic. He regarded himself as the universal emperor of Christendom, and he was flamboyant, talented and curious, with the acumen to rule his complex inheritance and fight for it. He wrote a guide to falconry and founded Naples university, but, irritated by Catholic piety, he enjoyed baiting popes and priests, making risqué jokes about Christ, keeping a harem of concubines and writing love poetry to many mistresses. He also relished debating with Arabic and Jewish astronomers and English magicians, and created an Arab town on the mainland where he settled Muslim rebels from Sicily.