1370s

Events

1370

January–December

• February 18 – The Battle of Rudau is fought between the Teutonic Knights and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania near Rudau village, north of Königsberg (now Melnikovo village in the Kaliningrad oblast). According to the Teutonic chronicler Wigand of Marburg and the Livonian chronicle of Hermann de Wartberge, the Lithuanians suffer a great defeat.
• April 9 – Timur becomes first Amir of the Timurid Empire, following the Siege of Balkh which establishes his rule over the Chagatai Khanate, completing his conquest of Central Asia and parts of Persia.
• May 24 – The Treaty of Stralsund ends the war between Denmark and the Hanseatic League.
• September 19 – Hundred Years' War: Siege of Limoges – The English led by Edward the Black Prince retake the city from the French by storm with wide destruction, effectively ending the Limoges enamel industry.
• October 20 – Philip of Anjou, Titular Emperor of Constantinople, marries as his second wife Elizabeth of Slavonia (daughter of Stephen of Anjou and Margaret of Bavaria).
• November 5 – Casimir III the Great, king of Poland, dies as the result of a hunting accident, and is succeeded jointly by his sister, Elizabeth of Kujavia, and her son, Louis I of Hungary, beginning the rule of the country by the Capet-Anjou family.
• November 15 – Trần Nghệ Tông deposes Dương Nhật Lễ as emperor of Đại Việt, modern-day Vietnam.
• December 4 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Pontvallain – A French army under Bertrand du Guesclin heavily defeats an English force in surprise attacks in northwest France.
• December 20 – Pope Gregory XI succeeds Pope Urban V, as the 201st pope.

Date unknown

• For the second time since 1368, the Grand Duchy of Moscow attacks Tver, which again counter-attacks, with the aid of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Blue Horde.
• Khun Luang Pa-Ngua, ruler of Suphanburi, marches and usurps the throne of the Ayutthaya Kingdom.
• The city of Xi'an in Ming dynasty China is given a new defensive city wall.
• Hugues Aubriot begins construction of the fortress of the Bastille in Paris.
• The steel crossbow is first used as a weapon of war.

1371

January–December

• January – Edward, the Black Prince, gives up the administration of Aquitaine and returns to England, because of his poor health and heavy debts.
• February 17 – Rival brothers Ivan Sratsimir and Ivan Shishman become co-Emperors of Bulgaria after the death of their father, Ivan Alexander. Bulgaria is weakened by the split.
• February 22 – Robert II becomes the first Stuart king of Scotland, after the death of his uncle, David II.
• March 28 – The London Charterhouse, a Carthusian monastery, is founded in Aldersgate.
• April 9 – Emperor Go-En'yu of Japan succeeds Emperor Go-Kōgon of Japan, becoming the 5th and last Emperor of the Northern Court.
• August 22 – Battle of Baesweiler: Brabant is unexpectedly defeated by the Duchy of Jülich.
• September 21 – John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III of England, marries Constance of Castile, daughter of King Pedro of Castile, giving John a claim to the throne of Castile.
• September 26 – Battle of Maritsa: Most of the nobility in Serbia are killed by the Ottomans.
• December – Lazar succeeds his distant cousin, Stefan Uroš V, as ruler of Serbia, but declines the title of Tsar.

Date unknown

• The first widely accepted historical reference is made to playing cards (in Spain).
• Polish priest Andrzej Jastrzębiec becomes the first bishop of Siret, thus bringing Catholicism to Moldavia.
• Zhao Bing Fa becomes King of Mong Mao (in modern-day south China/north Myanmar) after the death of his father, Si Kefa.
• Kalamegha claims the vacant title of King of Cambodia after the power of the Thai invaders from Ayutthaya begins to weaken. The Ayutthayans are finally expelled in 1375.
• Byzantine co-emperor John V Palaiologos pledges loyalty to the Ottoman Empire, to prevent the Turks from invading Constantinople.
• The Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty in China introduces the census registration system of lijia, or the hundreds-and-tithing system, throughout the Yangzi Valley. This system groups households into units of ten and groups of one hundred, whereupon their capacities for paying taxes and providing the state with corvée labor service can be assessed. The system becomes fully operational in 1381, when it counts 59,873,305 people living in China (the historian Timothy Brook asserts that the number was much higher, somewhere between 65 million and 75 million).

1372

January–December

• March 12 – Saint Bridget sets out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Staying in Cyprus until May 12. In August, she is in Bethlehem where she sees a vision of Jesus' birth. In September, she sets sail for Naples, where she arrives in December.
• May – Owain Lawgoch makes a second attempt to take the throne of Wales, sailing with French support from Harfleur. Whilst attacking the island of Guernsey, he abandons the invasion in order to fight for France at La Rochelle.
• June 22 – Battle of La Rochelle: The French and the Castilians defeat the English. The French gain control of the English Channel for the first time since 1340.
• July 10 – The Treaty of Tagilde is signed between Ferdinand I of Portugal and representatives of John of Gaunt of England, marking the beginning of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, which remains in effect into the 21st century.
• November 9 – Trần Duệ Tông succeeds his brother Trần Nghệ Tông as King of Vietnam.

Date unknown

• Encounter of Sintra: Twenty Portuguese knights rout four hundred Castilian infantrymen of the country.
• Peace is declared between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples.
• The Kingdom of Chūzan (in modern-day southern Japan) enters tributary relations with Ming dynasty China.
• Four-year-old Muhammad as-Said succeeds his father, Abu l-Fariz Abdul Aziz I, as Marinid Sultan of Morocco.
• Newaya Maryam succeeds his father, Newaya Krestos, as ruler of Ethiopia.
• The city of Aachen, Germany, begins adding a Roman numeral Anno Domini date to a few of its coins, the first city in the world to do so.

1373

January–December

• March 24 – The Treaty of Santarém is signed between Ferdinand I of Portugal and Henry II of Castile, ending the second war between the two countries.
• April 28 – Hundred Years' War: The French re-capture most of Brittany from the English, but are unable to take Brest.
• May 13 – English anchoress Dame Julian of Norwich receives the sixteen Revelations of Divine Love.
• June 16 – The Anglo-Portuguese Treaty is signed in London, and is the oldest active treaty in the world.
• August – Hundred Years' War: John of Gaunt launches a new invasion of France.
• November? – Philip II, Prince of Taranto hands over the rule of Achaea (modern-day southern Greece) to his cousin, Joanna I of Naples.

Date unknown

• Louis I of Hungary takes Severin again, but the Vlachs will recover it in 1376–1377.
• Byzantine co-emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos rebels against his father, John V Palaiologos, for agreeing to let Constantinople become a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. After the rebellion fails, Ottoman Emperor Murad I commands John V Palaiologos to blind his son.
• Constantine IV, ruler of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (modern-day southern Turkey), is assassinated; he is succeeded by his distant cousin Leo V.
• The death of Sultan Muhammad III ibn Abd al-Aziz begins a period of political instability in Morocco.
• The city of Phnom Penh (modern-day capital city of Cambodia) is founded.
• Bristol is made a county corporate, the first town in the Kingdom of England outside London to be granted this status.
• A city wall is built around Lisbon, Portugal to resist invasion by Castile.
• Merton College Library is built in Oxford, England.
• The Adina Mosque is built in Bengal.
• The Chinese emperor of the Ming dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor, suspends the traditional civil service examination system after complaining that the 120 new jinshi degree-holders are too incompetent to hold office; he instead relies solely upon a system of recommendations, until the civil service exams are reinstated in 1384.

1374

January–December

• April 23 – In recognition of his services, Edward III of England grants the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer a gallon of wine a day, for the rest of his life.
• June 24 – The illness dancing mania begins in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), possibly due to ergotism.
• October 27 – King Gongmin of Goryeo is assassinated and succeeded by U of Goryeo on the throne of Goryeo (in modern-day Korea).
• November 25 – James of Baux succeeds his uncle, Philip II, as Prince of Taranto (modern-day eastern Italy) and titular ruler of the Latin Empire (northern Greece and western Turkey).

Date unknown

• Rao Biram Dev succeeds Rao Kanhadev as ruler of Marwar (the modern-day Jodhpur district of India).
• Shaikh Hasan Jalayir succeeds his father, Shaykh Uways Jalayir, as ruler of the Jalayirid Sultanate in modern-day Iraq and western Iran. Hasan proves to be an unpopular ruler and is executed on October 9 and succeeded by his brother, Shaikh Hussain Jalayir.
• Musa II succeeds his father, Mari Djata II, as Mansa of the Mali Empire (modern-day Mali and Senegal).
• Robert de Juilly succeeds Raymond Berenger as Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller.
• Princes from the Kingdom of Granada choose Abu al-Abbas Ahmad to succeed Muhammad as-Said, as Sultan of the Marinid Empire in Morocco. The Empire is split into the Kingdom of Fez and the Kingdom of Marrakech.
• A form of the Great Plague returns to Europe.
• The Château de Compiègne royal residence is built in France.

1375

January–December

• April 14 – The Mamluks from Egypt complete their conquest of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Levon V Lusignan of Armenia is imprisoned for several years in Cairo, until a ransom is paid by King John I of Castile.
• April 21 – Mujahid Shah succeeds his father, Mohammed Shah I, as ruler of the Bahmani Sultanate in the Deccan Plateau of southern India.
• June 18 – The future King John I of Castile marries Eleanor of Aragon.
• June 27 – Hundred Years' War: The English, weakened by the plague, lose so much ground to the French that they agree to sign the Treaty of Bruges, leaving them with only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne.
• October 24 – Margaret I of Denmark becomes Regent of Denmark after the death of her father, Valdemar IV.

Date unknown

• The Grand Duchy of Moscow and Tver sign a truce. Tver agrees to help Moscow fight the Blue Horde.
• Presumed death of Tenoch, ruler of the Mexica; he is succeeded by Acamapichtli who becomes first tlatoani (ruler) of the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan and founder of the Aztec imperial dynasty.
• Petru succeeds as Voivode (ruler) of Moldavia (modern-day Moldova & eastern Romania). He is the first ruler from the dynastic House of Bogdan.
• Coluccio Salutati is appointed Chancellor of Florence.
• The Russian town of Kostroma is destroyed by the ushkuynik pirates from Novgorod.
• Heirin-ji Temple is founded near Tokyo.
• In Nanjing, capital of Ming dynasty China, a bureau secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Ru Taisu, sends a 17,000 character-long memorial to the throne, to be read aloud to the Hongwu Emperor. By the 16,370th character, the emperor has been offended by several passages, and has Ru Taisu summoned to court and flogged for the perceived insult. The next day, having had the remaining characters read to him, he likes four of Ru's recommendations, and instates these in reforms. Ru is nevertheless castigated for having forced the emperor to hear thousands of characters before getting to the part with true substance. The last 500 characters are elevated in court as the model-type memorial that all officials should aspire to create while writing their own.
• Approximate date – Battle of Gardiki: The Principality of Achaea defeats the Despotate of the Morea.

1376

January–December

• March – The peace treaty between England and France is extended until April, 1377.
• March 31 – Pope Gregory XI excommunicates all members of the government of Florence, and places the city under an interdict.
• April 28 – The Good Parliament begins in England (so called because its members attempted to reform the corrupt Royal Council on that date).
• May 3 – Olav IV Haakonsson is elected King Oluf II of Denmark, following the death of his grandfather, Valdemar IV, in 1375.
• June – Catherine of Siena visits Pope Gregory XI in Avignon, to attempt to persuade him to make peace with Florence, and move the Papacy back to Rome.
• June 7 – The dying Prince Edward summons his father, Edward III, and brother, John of Gaunt, and makes them swear to uphold the claim to the throne of his son Richard; Edward is the first "English" Prince of Wales not to become King of England.
• July 10 – The Good Parliament is dissolved (at that time, it was the longest Parliament to have sat in England).
• August 12 – With the help of the Genoese, Byzantine co-emperor Andronicus IV Palaeologus invades Constantinople and dethrones his father, John V Palaeologus, as co-emperor. John V Palaeologus is taken prisoner.
• September – John of Gaunt summons religious reformer John Wyclif to appear before the Royal Council.
• November 20 – Richard of Bordeaux, son of the Black Prince, is created Prince of Wales in succession to his father.
• December 25 – John of Gaunt presents his nephew, Richard of Bordeaux, to the feudatories of the realm and swears to uphold Richard's right to succeed Edward III.

Dates Unknown

• Acamapichtli becomes the first tlatoani of Tenochtitlan.

1377

January–December

• January – Battle of Đồ Bàn: Trần Duệ Tông, Trần dynasty Emperor of Đại Việt (Vietnam), is killed.
• January 17 – Pope Gregory XI moves the Papacy back from Avignon to Rome.
• January 27 – The Bad Parliament begins sitting in England. Influenced by John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, it undoes the work done by the Good Parliament, the previous year, to reduce corruption in the Royal Council. It also introduces a poll tax.
• February – The Pope's representative in northern Italy, Robert of Geneva (the future antipope Clement VII), pillages Cesena, and 4,000 antipapal rebels are massacred.
• March 2 – The Bad Parliament dissolves. First Speaker of the House of Commons of England appointed.
• March 13 – Trần Phế Đế succeeds his late father as ruler of Vietnam.
• May
  • Continuous riots in Rome induce Pope Gregory XI to move temporarily back to Avignon.
  • Władysław II Jagiełło succeeds his father, Algirdas, as Grand Duke of Lithuania. Jagiello removes his uncle, Kęstutis, as co-ruler.
• May 22 – Pope Gregory XI issues five Bulls condemning the opinion of John Wycliffe, that Catholic priests should live in poverty, like the twelve disciples of Jesus.
• July 16 – Richard II, the 10-year-old grandson of Edward III, is crowned king of England. A minority government is established, and a series of continual councils rule on his behalf until 1381.
• July 27 – Fourteen-year-old Maria of Sicily succeeds her father, Frederick the Simple.
• August – The Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty of China scraps the Office of Reports Inspection (established in 1370) for a new Office of Transmission, in his efforts to create a more efficient communicatory system in the empire. A month before this he noted that anyone could send memorials to the throne; commoners often did, although the only times their petitions were read aloud to the emperor were when they called for the impeachment of local officials who were not up to par with their official duties.
• August 2 – Battle on Pyana River: The Russians are defeated, while their commander drowns in the river.
• October 13 – Richard II of England's first parliament meets.
• October 26 – Tvrtko I of Bosnia is crowned.

Date unknown

• Sayf ad-Din Barquq leads a revolt against the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, Alah-ad-Din Ali.
• A rebellion against the Majapahit Empire is quashed in Sumatra.
• Informed that Khan Urus of the White Horde has died, Timur of the Timurid Empire sends Tokhtamysh to take the Horde throne, but is defeated by Urus' son, Timur Malik.
• Radu I succeeds Vladislav I as Prince of Wallachia (modern-day southern Romania).
• Harihara II succeeds Bukka Raya I, as ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire (in modern-day southern India).
• King U of Goryeo adopts the Ming calendar and begs to be invested by the Hongwu Emperor.
• The Trezzo sull'Adda Bridge is completed in Lombardy, and becomes the longest single-arch bridge in the world to be built for four centuries.
• A sermon by a German monk states "the game of cards has come to us this year", and prohibitions against cards are issued by Prince John of Castile, and the cities of Florence and Basel.

1378

January–December

• January – Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, visits his nephew Charles V of France in Paris, to celebrate publicly the friendship between their two nations.
• January 13 – Balša II succeeds his brother, Durađ I, as ruler of Lower Zeta (modern-day Montenegro).
• March – In England, John Wycliffe tries to promote his ideas for Catholic reform by laying his theses before Parliament, and making them public in a tract. He is subsequently summoned before the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury, at the episcopal palace at Lambeth, to defend his actions.
• April 9 – Following the death of Pope Gregory XI, and riots in Rome calling for a Roman pope, the cardinals, who are mostly French, elect Pope Urban VI (Bartolomeo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari) as the 202nd Pope.
• April 16 – Da'ud Shah succeeds his assassinated nephew, Aladdin Mujahid Shah, as ruler of the Bahmani Sultanate in modern-day southern India. Da'ud Shah is assassinated in the following month, and is succeeded by Mohammad Shah II.
• May – Uskhal Khan Tögüs Temür succeeds his father, Biligtü Khan Ayushiridara, as ruler of the Northern Yuan dynasty in Mongolia.
• July 21 – Ciompi Revolt: Discontented wool carders briefly take over the government of Florence.
• August 4 – Gian Galeazzo Visconti succeeds his father, Galeazzo II Visconti, as ruler of Milan.
• August 11 – Battle of the Vozha River: Prince Dmitri Ivanovich of Moscow resists a small invasion by the Mongol Blue Horde under Mamai.
• September – A contract is set up between Richard le Scrope, 1st Baron Scrope of Bolton and the mason Johan Lewyn, for the construction of Bolton Castle in the north of England.
• September 20 – Unhappy with Pope Urban's critical attitude towards them, the majority of the cardinals meet at Fondi, elect Clement VII as antipope, and establish a rival papal court at Avignon. This split within the Catholic Church becomes known as the Western Schism, also known as the Great Schism. France, Aragon, Castile and León, Cyprus, Burgundy, Savoy, Naples and Scotland choose to recognise Antipope Clement VII. Denmark, England, Flanders, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, northern Italy, Ireland, Norway, Poland and Sweden continue to recognise Pope Urban VI.
• November 10 – Estimated appearance date of Halley's Comet.
• November 29 – Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, dies in Prague. He is succeeded by his son, Wenceslaus, as King of Bohemia, but the office of Holy Roman Emperor falls into abeyance, until Charles's son Sigismund is crowned in 1433.

Date unknown

• The Raseborg Castle is mentioned for the first time in documents, but its actual date of foundation is unknown.
• Tokhtamysh dethrones Temur-Malik to become Khan of the White Horde.
• Uthman Beg establishes the Aq Qoyunlu (Turkomans of the White Sheep) dynasty at Diyarbakır, in modern-day southeast Turkey.
• Ottoman Turks capture the town of Ihtiman in west Bulgaria.
• Tai Bian succeeds Zhao Bing Fa as King of Mong Mao (modern-day northern Myanmar).
• Sa'im al-Dahr is hanged for blowing the nose off the Great Sphinx of Giza.

1379

January–December

• May 29 – John I succeeds his father, Henry II, as King of Castile and King of León.
• June 30 – New College, Oxford, is founded in England by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester.
• July 1 – Forces of the Republic of Venice and Ottoman Turks, having invaded Constantinople, restore John V Palaiologos as Byzantine co-emperor. Andronikos IV Palaiologos is allowed to remain as co-emperor, but is confined to the city of Silivri for the remainder of his life.
• September 9 – The Treaty of Neuberg is signed, splitting the Austrian Habsburg lands between brothers Albert III and Leopold III. Albert III retains the title of Duke of Austria.

Date unknown

• Bairam Khawaja establishes the independent principality of the Kara Koyunlu (Turkomans of the Black Sheep Empire), in modern-day Armenia.
• Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow raids Estonia.
• In the Hundred Years' War, the French lose control of most of Brittany to the English.
• Wisbech Grammar School is founded in England.
• Timur conquers the Sufid Dynasty of Khwarazm