The oldest text in French is an oath sworn by a German.
In 842 Charlemagne's grandsons swore an alliance: Louis the German in Old French so his brother's soldiers understood, Charles the Bald in Old High German.
The event
More amazing facts
- 822 The three-course meal — soup, main, dessert — was reputedly brought to Europe by a Baghdad musician.
- 850 Hagia Sophia has Viking graffiti.
- 850 · 1044 Gunpowder was invented by people looking for the elixir of life.
- 859 · 1096 Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, the world's oldest operating place of learning, was founded by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri, 237 years before teaching began at Oxford.
- 862 · 863 According to the chronicle, the Varangians were invited to Rus' in 862, and in 863 Cyril and Methodius set out for Moravia with a Slavic alphabet.
- 868 · 1450 The oldest dated printed book, China's Diamond Sutra of 868, is almost 600 years older than the Gutenberg Bible.