← Fame through time1100-1199
The 12th century
Whose working lives fell in the 12th century. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 12th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Genghis Khan22 decades - 2
Saladin22 decades - 3
Richard I of England0 decades - 4
Hildegard of Bingen15 decades - 5
Henry II of England12 decades - 6
Maimonidesnot measured- - 7
Henry I of England6 decades - 8
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor20 decades - 9
Averroes22 decades - 10
Bernard of Clairvaux19 decades - 11
Pope Innocent III22 decades - 12
Adrian IV22 decades - 13
Eleanor of Aquitaine19 decades - 14
Stephen, King of England0 decades - 15
Thomas Becket22 decades - 16
Empress Matilda14 decades - 17
Peter Abelard20 decades - 18
Louis VII of France5 decades - 19
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem0 decades - 20
Zhu Xi8 decades - 21
Chrétien de Troyes21 decades - 22
Abdul Qadir Gilani0 decades - 23
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor22 decades - 24
Pope Alexander III22 decades - 25
Manuel I Komnenos0 decades
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.