Claim profile
1100–1199

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 Wikipedia coverage and readership agree.

CountryAll🇫🇷 France🇯🇵 Japan🇩🇪 Germany🇬🇧 United Kingdom🇳🇴 Norway🇮🇹 Italy🇪🇸 Spain🇸🇪 Sweden🇨🇳 China🇹🇷 Turkey
FieldAllHistorical FiguresWritersPoliticiansReligious FiguresAcademicsModelsActorsArtistsMusiciansDoctors
  1. 1Pope Innocent IIIPope Innocent III1160–1216 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  2. 2Pope Alexander IIIPope Alexander III1100–1181 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  3. 3Pope Honorius IIIPope Honorius III1148–1227 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures19 decades
  4. 4Pope Innocent IIPope Innocent II1100–1143 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures13 decades
  5. 5Pope Celestine IIIPope Celestine III1106–1198 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures2 decades
  6. 6Hugues de PayensHugues de Payens1074–1136 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  7. 7Pope Gregory VIIIPope Gregory VIII1100–1187 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  8. 8Pope Lucius IIIPope Lucius III1110–1185 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures3 decades
  9. 9Saint RosaliaSaint Rosalia1130–1170 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  10. 10Peter LombardPeter Lombard1100–1160 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  11. 11Pope Honorius IIPope Honorius II1100–1130 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  12. 12Pope Celestine IIPope Celestine IIdied 1144 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  13. 13Pope Anastasius IVPope Anastasius IVdied 1154 · 🇮🇹 Italy · Religious Figures0 decades

How this is measured

  • Placing people in time. Each person belongs to the century in which they were most active — around age 35, and never after their death.
  • Who ranks highest. Within a century, people are ranked where two independent signals agree: how many of the world’s Wikipedia language editions cover them, and how many people actually read about them. Article counts alone can be lifted by a person’s own circle; readers cannot.
  • Fame in print. The curves count how often a name appears in Google Books from 1800 to 2019, as a share of all the words printed each year, in the person’s own language wherever that corpus exists. Those decades are over, so each measurement is made once and kept.
  • What is left out. A lifetime is measured only from 1820, when there is enough print to judge; the five years after a death are skipped as obituaries; and a name shared with someone equally notable is credited to neither.