1051

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Year 1051 (MLI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

• Spring – William of Normandy consolidates his power in Normandy. He fights over the control of Maine (after the death of Count Hugh IV), and lays siege to the fortresses of Alençon and Domfront (Western France).
• May 19 – King Henry I of France marries Anne of Kiev at the cathedral of Reims. William of Normandy marries Matilda of Flanders, daughter of Count Baldwin V, which Henry sees as a threat to his throne.^[1]
• Summer – Drogo of Hauteville, count of Apulia and Calabria, meets Pope Leo IX in southern Italy – who has been sent by Emperor Henry III (the Black) to re-establish the "freedom of the Catholic Church". Drogo is forced to promise Pope Leo to stop the Normans from pillaging the Lombard countryside. On his way back (August 10), Drogo is assassinated near Bovino by a Byzantine conspiracy.
• Autumn – Battle of Vértes: Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor invades the Kingdom of Hungary, and is utterly defeated by Andrew I of Hungary.

• Eustace II, count of Boulogne, visits England and is received with honour at the court by King Edward the Confessor. In Dover a fight breaks out between the Norman visitors and the locals, resulting in the deaths of several people. Edward blames the people of Dover and orders Godwin, earl of Wessex, to deal with them. Godwin refuses to obey Edward's order, and in response Edward raises an army and forces the Godwin family into exile.
• Edward the Confessor invites William of Normandy to England. It is at this point that it is thought that Edward promises the English throne to William in the event of his death.^[2]
• Heregeld, commonly known as Danegeld, is abolished by Edward the Confessor. It has been collected for many years to provide funds for defending the country from Viking raiders.^[3]

• Hilarion of Kiev (or Ilarion) becomes the first non-Greek metropolitan bishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church, in Kiev.^[4]

• September 21 – Bertha of Savoy, Holy Roman Empress consort (d. 1087)
• Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, Welsh prince of Powys (d. 1111)
• Mi Fu, Chinese painter, poet and calligrapher (d. 1107)^[5]
• Approximate date – Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy (d. 1134)^[6]

• January 22 – Ælfric Puttoc, archbishop of York
• February 28 – Humfrid, archbishop of Magdeburg
• March 14 – Gerard I, bishop of Cambrai
• March 25 – Hugh IV, count of Maine
• April 27 – Fulk Bertrand I, count of Provence
• June 10/11 – Bardo, German abbot and archbishop
• August 10 – Drogo of Hauteville, Norman nobleman, assassinated
• November 7 – Rotho, bishop of Paderborn
• Bernard, margrave of the Nordmark
• Bi Sheng, Chinese artisan and inventor (b. 990)
• Jordan of Laron, bishop of Limoges
• Kálfr Árnason, Norwegian chieftain
• Ralph de Gacé, Norman nobleman