The reign of Tangut Emperor Chongzong sees incursions by the surrounding Liao- and Sung-ruled nations, and a series of military defeats from 1114.

He establishes a Confucianist-led administration for several political quarters including civil and military, centralizing his power.

Buddhism is prevalent during his reign, and the scriptures are translated to the Tangut language.

The dynasty established by the Jurchen-speaking tribes controls all of southern Manchuria by 1116 and will soon effectively rule north China later directly as a Chinese dynastic state named Jin ("Gold", not to be confused with the several Jin Dynasties named after the region around Shanxi and Henan).

Alexios is able to personally take the field in 1116 and is engaged in defensive operations in northwest Anatolia.

Basing his army at Lopadion, and later at Nicomedia, he conducts a series of defensive operations in Bithynia and Mysia to defend his Anatolian territories against the inroads of Malik Shah.

He succeeds in defeating raiding Turks in a minor battle at Poemanenon and, after receiving reinforcements to his army, decides to move onto the offensive.

Alexios leads a sizable imperial army deep into the Anatolian interior in the campaign of Philomelion.

Anna Komnene, the primary source for the campaign, implies that the Seljuq capital of Iconium was the goal of the expedition, but evidently Alexios abandoned this plan and contented himself with staging a conspicuous show of force and evacuating the native Christian population from the Turkish dominated areas his army passed through.

The imperial forces are to employ a new battle formation of Alexios' devising, the parataxis.

Anna Komnene's description of this formation is so imprecise as to be useless.

However, from her account of the army in action, it is obvious that the parataxis was a defensive formation, a hollow square with the baggage in the center, infantry on the outside and cavalry in-between, from whence they could mount attacks.

This is an ideal formation for tackling the fluid Turkish battle tactics, reliant on swarm attacks by horse-archers.

A similar formation will later be employed by Richard I of England at the Battle of Arsuf.

The imperial army moves through Santabaris, sending detachments via Polybotos and Kedros, and, after dispersing Turkish resistance, takes Philomelion by assault.

Parties of scouts are then sent out to round up the local Christian population for evacuation to areas under firm imperial control.

Alexios becomes aware that a substantial Seljuq army is approaching from the north and begins his retreat to his own territory.

His army resumes its defensive formation with the civilians accompanying the baggage in the center.

The Turks, under an officer called Manalugh, are initially baffled by the imperial formation and do not attack with any vigor.

However, the following day Sultan Malik Shah arrives and the imperial army is attacked in earnest.

The Turks mount a simultaneous attack on the van and rear of the army.

The imperial cavalry makes two counterattacks: the first seems to have been unsuccessful, with Alexios' son Andronikos being killed.

A further counterattack is more fortunate, led by Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger (Anna Komnene's husband and Alexios' son-in-law) the leader of the imperial right wing, it breaks that part of the Turkish force led in person by the Sultan, which then turns to flight.

Malik Shah narrowly escapes capture.

The Seljuqs then make a night attack, but the imperial dispositions again frustrate them.

The following day, Malik Shah again attacks, his troops completely surrounding the Byzantine army on all sides.

The Turks are once more repulsed with loss, having achieved nothing.

The next day Malik-Shah sends to Alexios with proposals for peace.

Alexios and Malik Shah meet, Alexios throwing his own costly cloak around the sultan's shoulders.

A peace involving an undertaking by Malik Shah to stop Turkish raiding and an admission by the sultan of some measure of, largely theoretical, dependence on the emperor is made.

Anna Komnene records that the peace treaty involved an undertaking by Malik Shah to evacuate Anatolia, but this is unlikely in the extreme and must represent hyperbole on her part.

The campaign is remarkable for the high level of discipline shown by the imperial army.

Alexios has demonstrated that he can march his army with impunity through Turkish dominated territory.

The reverse suffered by Malik Shah at Philomelion has caused him to lose prestige.

Amir Gazi Gümüshtigin Danishmend, who had come to power in Sivas after the death of his father, intervenes in dynastic struggles among the sons of Qïlïj Arslan and helps his son-in-law Rukn al-Dīn Masud to seize power at Konya in 1116; Masud later blinds his brother and eventually murders him.

Arnulf of Chocques, archdeacon of Jerusalem, had officially became Patriarch in 1112, although many of the other clerics distrust him and find him unnecessarily harsh.

He is especially unpopular with the Orthodox and Syrian Christians when he prohibits non-Latin masses at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

He is accused of various crimes: sexual relations with a Muslim woman, simony, and most importantly condoning the bigamous marriage of King Baldwin I to Adelaide del Vasto while his first wife Arda of Armenia was still alive.

He had been briefly deposed in 1115 by a papal legate, but had appealed to Pope Paschal II and in 1116 is reinstated, provided that he annul Baldwin and Adelaide's marriage.

Ramon Berenguer III has also established relations with the Italian maritime republics of Pisa and Genoa and in 1114 and 1115 had attacked with Pisa the Muslim islands of Majorca and Ibiza.

The islands’ king has been severely weakened by the Pisan and Catalan raiders, and in 1116 Almoravid troops had conquered the islands.

The fierce Matilda of Tuscany had been the principal Italian supporter of Pope Gregory VII during the earlier phase of Investiture Controversy, bequeathing large donations of jewels and land to the papacy and sometimes leading her own troops against the imperial army in Italy.

The climax of this struggle, the confrontation of the emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII in 1077, had taken place at Matilda's castle of Canossa.

In 1089, at the age of forty-three, Matilda had married the seventeen-year-old Welf V, duke of Bavaria and Carinthia, a member of the Este family.

They had separated six years later, Henry IV taking the Este side in the resulting quarrel.

Matilda had encouraged Henry's son Conrad to rebel against his father in 1093 and seize the crown of Italy.

She had finally made peace with Henry IV's son and successor, Henry V, in 1110, willing her private territorial possessions to him, although she has already donated them to the papacy, an act that would provoke a quarrel between papacy and empire over the control of Tuscany after her death on July 24, 1115.

The emperor, turning his attentions back to Italy following his defeat by the rebels at Welfesholz, crosses the Alps in 1116 and wins the support of town and noble by granting privileges to the one and giving presents to the other, but the papist Jordan, Archbishop of Milan, excommunicates Henry at San Tecla.

Henry takes possession of Matilda's lands, and …

…is received gladly in Rome.

Paschal has by this time withdrawn his consent to lay investiture and the excommunication has been published in Rome; but the pope is compelled to flee from the city.

Some of the cardinals withstand the emperor, but by means of bribes he breaks down the opposition, and is crowned a second time by Burdinas, Archbishop of Braga.

Almoravid troops conquer the Balearic islands, whose Muslim king had been severely weakened by Pisan and Catalan raiders, in 1116.