1197

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The year 1197 is a common year starting on a Wednesday.

Events
Emperor Henry VI prepares for a crusade. The princes of Cyprus and Armenia recognize his suzerainety in exchange for royal crowns. Henry demands the participation of Byzantium, then the payment of a high annual tribute for which Emperor Alexis III Angel must raise an extraordinary tax (alamanikon) and strip the imperial tombs. Henri, who married his brother Philip of Swabia to Irene, daughter of Isaac Angel, poses as a avenger of the dethroned emperor. It takes the Byzantine payments and the Pope's opposition to divert the Crusade of Constantinople to the Holy Land.
August-September: Al-Adel recovers Jaffa.
September 10: Henry II of Champagne dies by accidentally falling from a window of his palace in Acre. Amaury II of Lusignan became king of Jerusalem (end 1205). He married Queen Isabelle, widow of Conrad de Montferrat (warning January 1198).
22 September: arrival of the first German contingents that preceded the emperor at Acre, led by the Duke of Brabant.

23 October: the German crusaders took over Sidon and Beirut and thus restored land communications between Acre and Tripoli.
November 26th: German crusaders sit in vain Toron (end of the year). They threaten Latakia and Jabala. Al-Adel appeals to the Sultan of Egypt al-Aziz who sends reinforcements to Toron and to Aleppo al-Zahir who destroys the two ports.

Qutub ad-Din Aibak attacked the Gujerat, seized the capital of the Solanki, and retired shortly thereafter.
In India, the Nalanda monastery, a Buddhist study centre, is destroyed by Muslims led by Ghuride General Muhammad ibn Bakhtiyar Khaldji. The Buddhist university is deserted and its artistic and cultural heritage is received by the upper Nepalese valley (Katmandu).

Europe
23 February: King Aragon, Peter II, grants a charter of freedoms to the city of Perpignan, guaranteeing him the right to self-administer through consuls elected from among the three major social classes of the city.
Spring:
Sanche of Portugal, with the help of a fleet of German and Dutch cruisers, takes back Silves, which is destroyed, and part of the Algarve to the Almohades.
Count Baudouin of Flanders invaded the Artois and placed the siege in front of Arras, causing the intervention of the king of France.
Summer: Philippe Auguste goes as far as Ypres, devastating the land of the Count of Flanders, but must retreat.
22 June: Vladislav Jindřich becomes Duke of Bohemia.
August 4: Saracens take Toulon. They slaughter the population or bring them into captivity.

28 September: Henry VI, the Roman emperor of Germany, dies in Messina as he prepares to go on a crusade; Minister Markward of Anweiler is responsible for executing his will, which plans to give the crown of Sicily and empire to his son Frédéric Roger (Frédéric II), four-year-old