1400s (decade)

Events

1400

January–March

• January 4 – The Epiphany Rising begins in England against King Henry IV by nobles planning to restore King Richard II to the throne, and is quickly crushed. Baron Lumley dies after attempting to seize Cirencester. The Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of Kent are captured and beheaded on January 7. Sir Thomas Blount is hanged, drawn and quartered at Oxford on January 12. Thomas le Despenser, 1st Earl of Gloucester is captured and executed by a mob in Bristol on January 13. The Earl of Huntingdon is beheaded at Pleshey on January 16.
• February 14 – The deposed Richard II of England dies by means unknown in Pontefract Castle. It is likely that King Henry IV ordered his death by starvation, to prevent further uprisings.
• February – Henry Percy (Hotspur) leads English incursions into Scotland.
• March 23 – Five-year-old Trần Thiếu Đế is forced to abdicate as ruler of Đại Việt (modern-day Vietnam), in favour of his maternal grandfather and court official Hồ Quý Ly, ending the Trần dynasty after 175 years and starting the Hồ dynasty. Hồ Quý Ly subsequently changes the country's name to Đại Ngu.

April–June

• April 21 – Sir Thomas Percy, 1st Earl of Worcester, resigns as England's Admiral of the North and West to join the resistance against King Henry IV. The office will remain vacant for more than six years. Percy will be beheaded in 1403 after his defeat in the Battle of Shrewsbury.
• April 23 – In what is now Romania, Alexandru cel Bun (Alexander the Good) is installed as the new Prince (Voivode) of Moldavia by Mircea the Elder, the Voivode of Wallachia, after Mircea removes the reigning monarch, Prince Iuga.
• April 25 – Jingnan campaign: In the Shandong province of Ming dynasty China, Zhu Di, Prince of Yan, defeats the Imperial forces of General Li Jinglong in the two-day Battle of Baigou River, by taking advantage of the chaos that results when a gust of wind breaks the staff of General Li's flag of battle. The Yan forces capture 100,000 of the Imperial soldiers as prisoners and Li and the others retreat to Jinan.
• April – King Swa Saw Ke, of Ava, the largest kingdom in Burma, dies after a reign of 33 years and is succeeded by his son, King Tarabya, who reigns less than seven months before being assassinated.
• May 22 – Meeting in Frankfurt, three of the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire (Rupert, elector of the Palatinate, Rudolf III, Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg, elector of Saxony, and Jobst of Moravia, elector of Brandenburg) meet in an attempt to replace the Emperor, Wenceslaus, King of the Romans because of his failure to stamp out civil unrest or to resolve the Western Schism. They select Frederick I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg as the replacement for Wenceslaus.
• June 5 – Duke Frederick I of Brunswick-Lüneburg is assassinated after being identified as a rival to Wenceslaus, Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick, on his way back from a May 22 meeting of the prince-electors, is ambushed by a party of men led by Count Henry of Waldeck while passing through the village of Kleinenglis in the Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont (now part of the German state of Hesse, near Borken).

July–September

• July 7 – Sir John Swinton, an envoy of King Robert III of Scotland, crosses the border into England along with 20 knights, after being given a writ of safe conduct by King Henry IV to allow their travel to negotiate during the standoff between the two British kingdoms between phases of the Hundred Years' War.
• July 26 – Jagiellonian University is re-established in Kraków by order of King Władysław II, with the creation of the Faculty of Theology at what is then called the Kraków Academy. The restoration is partially financed by the sale of jewelry owned by the King's late wife, Queen Jadwiga, who had died in 1399.
• August 6 – Writing from Newcastle upon Tyne to Scotland's King Robert III, England's King Henry IV sends a demand that King Robert meet him "on Monday the 23rd of this present month of August, at Edinburgh, where, for this reason and for the peace of tranquility of the realms of England and Scotland, we intend to be," for Robert "to perform the obligation which you owe us" as "overlords of Scotland and of its kings in all temporal matters pertaining to them..." King Henry warns that "considering the effusion of Christian blood and other dangers and losses which may occur if you do not comply with our wishes, you will be present to render us homage and take the oath of fealty."
• August 14 – King Henry IV leads the English Army into Scotland, after receiving no answer from Scotland's King Robert III to his August 6 demand. The troops reach Haddington, East Lothian the next day and at Leith, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, by August 18. As historian James Hamilton Wylie will note almost 500 years later, "the walls of Edinburgh did not fall before this ram's-horn blast, and August 23rd came and went without the required homage or recognition."
• August 20 – Meeting at the Lahneck Castle in what is now the German state Rhineland-Palatinate, the princes of the German states vote to depose the Holy Roman Emperor, Wenceslaus, due to his weak leadership and mental illnesses.
• August 21 – Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, is elected as King of the Romans.
• August 29 – Having failed in his expedition to receive a pledge of fealty from the King of Scotland, King Henry IV crosses back into England.
• September 16 – Owain Glyndŵr is proclaimed Prince of Wales by his followers, and begins attacking English strongholds in northeast Wales.

October–December

• October 7 – Tamerlane, the Mongol conqueror, stops between Malatya and Aleppo at the Turkish garrison in Behesna. According to author Peter Purton, the garrison "had the temerity to shoot a catapult ball at Timur which rolled into his tent. Setting up his own battery of 20 machines, it is said that the first shot hit and destroyed the offending weapon. Treating this as a good omen, the attack was launched, the towers mined... and the place surrendered."
• October 29 – Jingnan campaign: In China, Prince Zhu Di of Yan expands his conquests with the capture of Cangzhou in Heibei province.
• October 30 – (11 Rabi' I 803 AH) Tamerlane begins the destruction of the Syrian city of Aleppo overwhelming the Mamluk Sultanate defenders.
• November 2 – The Mamluk Sultanate surrenders the city of Aleppo and Tamerlane's Army massacres many of the inhabitants.
• November 25 – (9th waxing of Nadaw, 730 ME) Minkhaung I becomes the new King of Ava, the largest kingdom in what is now northern Myanmar, after a battle for power that follows the assassination of the erratic King Tarabya.
• December 21 – Manuel II Palaiologos becomes the only Byzantine Emperor ever to visit England, and is greeted at Blackheath by King Henry IV, who hosts the Emperor at Eltham Palace during the Christmas holiday.
• December 25 – In China, the Jingnan campaign of Prince Zhu Di of Yan suffers a serious reversal at the Battle of Dongchang as Imperial General Sheng Yong, replacement of Li Jinglong, encircles the Yan forces. Yan Army General Zhang Yu is killed, but Zhu Di is able to escape to the northern capital at Beijing and regroups his forces for a second attack to take place in February.

Date unknown

• Timur defeats both the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, to capture the city of Damascus in present-day Syria. Much of the city's inhabitants are subsequently massacred by Timur's troops.
• Timur conquers the Empire of The Black Sheep Turkomans, in present-day Azerbaijan, and the Jalayirid dynasty in present-day Iraq. Black Sheep ruler Qara Yusuf and Jalayirid Sultan Ahmad flee, and take refuge with the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I.
• In modern-day Korea, King Jeongjong of Joseon abdicates in fear of an attack by his ambitious younger brother, Taejong. Taejong succeeds to the throne.
• Prince Parameswara establishes the Malacca Sultanate, in present-day western Malaysia and northern Sumatra.
• Hananchi succeeds Min as King of Hokuzan, in modern-day north Okinawa, Japan.
• Wallachia (modern-day southern Romania) resists an invasion by the Ottomans.
• A Wallachian army captures Iuga, and makes Alexandru cel Bun the Prince of Moldavia.
• The Kingdom of Kongo begins.
• The Haast's eagle and Moa are both driven to extinction by Māori hunters.
• The Mississippian culture starts to decline.
• Europe is reported to have around 52 million inhabitants.
• The House of Medici becomes powerful in Florence.
• Newcastle upon Tyne is created a county corporate, by Henry IV of England.
• Jean Froissart completes his Chronicles, detailing the events of the 14th Century in France.

1401

January–December

• January 6 – Rupert, King of Germany, is crowned King of the Romans at Cologne.
• March 2 – William Sawtrey, a Lollard, is the first person to be burned at the stake at Smithfield, London.
• March 13 – The Samogitians, supported by Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania, rebel against the Teutonic knights and burn two castles. Vytautas is granted increased autonomy by King Jogaila of the Poland–Lithuania union.
• March 17 – Turko-Mongol emperor Timur sacks Damascus.
• June
  • The English Pale in Ireland is reduced to Dublin, County Kildare, County Louth, and County Meath.
  • Timur raids the city of Baghdad, in the Jalayirid Empire.
• October 14 – Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq of Delhi is restored to power.

Date unknown

• The De heretico comburendo Act is passed in England, as the Archbishop of Canterbury pressures King Henry IV of England into outlawing as heretics the Lollards, followers of John Wycliffe. Evidence of being a Lollard is having a copy of Wycliffe's translation of the Bible.
• Dilawar Khan establishes the Malwa Sultanate in present-day northern India.
• Emperor Hồ Quý Ly of Dai Ngu (now Vietnam) passes the throne to his son, Hồ Hán Thương.
• A civil war, lasting four years, breaks out in the Majapahit Empire in present-day Indonesia.
• The Joseon dynasty in present-day Korea officially enters into a tributary relationship with Ming dynasty China.
• Japan re-enters into a tributary relationship with China.

1402

January–December

• January 29 – King Jogaila of the Poland–Lithuania Union answers the rumblings against his rule of Poland, by marrying Anna of Celje, a granddaughter of Casimir III of Poland.
• March 26 – David Stewart, Duke of Rothesay, heir to the throne of Scotland, dies while being held captive by his uncle, Robert Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany.
• May 21 – Following the death of Queen Maria of Sicily, her husband Martin I of Sicily, now sole ruler, marries Blanche of Navarre.
• June 22
  • Battle of Nesbit Moor: An English force decisively defeats a returning Scottish raiding party.
  • Battle of Bryn Glas: Welsh rebels under Owain Glyndŵr defeat the English on the England/Wales border. The Welsh capture Edmund Mortimer, son of the 3rd Earl, who defects to the Welsh cause, on 30 November marrying Owain's daughter Catrin.
• June 26 – Battle of Casalecchio: Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan, crushes the forces of Bologna and Florence, but dies from a fever later this year and is succeeded by his son, Gian Maria Visconti.
• July 12 – The Ming dynasty prince Zhu Di and his army occupy the Ming capital, Nanjing. The Jianwen Emperor is either lost or killed and Zhu Di takes over the throne as the Yongle Emperor, marking the end of the Jingnan campaign.
• July 20 – Battle of Ankara: An invading Timurid Empire force defeats the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I, who is captured. A period of interregnum begins in the Ottoman Empire, with the future Mehmed I as one of the leading claimants to the throne. After Serbia is freed from Ottoman rule, Stefan Lazarević is crowned Despot of Serbia.
• September – The English Parliament passes penal Laws against Wales which stop the Welsh from gathering together, obtaining office, carrying arms and living in English towns. Any Englishman who marries a Welsh woman also comes under the laws.
• September 14 – Battle of Homildon Hill: Northern English nobles, led by Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur), and using longbows, decisively defeat a Scottish raiding army and capture their leader, the Earl of Douglas.

Date unknown

• The Malacca Sultanate is established at Melaka Darul Azim (modern-day Melaka Darul Azim, Malaysia).
• After the Christian Knights of Saint John, who are ruling Smyrna, refuse to convert to Islam or pay tribute, Timur has the entire population massacred. The Knights subsequently begin building Bodrum Castle in Bodrum, to defend against future attacks.
• Conquest of the Canary Islands: King Henry III of Castile sends French explorer Jean de Béthencourt to colonize the Canary Islands. Béthencourt receives the title King of the Canary Islands but recognizes Henry as his overlord.
• The Republic of Genoa regains control of Monaco.
• The Aq Qoyunlu ("White Sheep Turkmen") tribal confederation, in modern-day northern Iraq and Iran, moves its capital from Amida to Diyarbakır.
• Moldavia becomes a vassal of the Kingdom of Poland in order to protect itself from an invasion by Hungary.
• Maria II Zaccaria succeeds her husband, Pedro de San Superano, as regent of the Principality of Achaea (modern-day southern Greece).
• Conchobar an Abaidh mac Maelsechlainn O Cellaigh succeeds Maelsechlainn mac William Buidhe O Cellaigh, as King of Uí Maine in modern-day County Galway and County Roscommon in Ireland.
• The University of Würzburg is founded.
• The Gangnido map of the world is completed in Joseon dynasty Korea.
• A Great comet is sighted.
• A big fire in the city of Utrecht starts near the Jacobikerk.

1403

January–December

• January / February – Treaty of Gallipoli: Süleyman Çelebi makes wide-ranging concessions to the Byzantine Empire and other Christian powers, in the southern Balkans.
• February 7 – King Henry IV of England marries as his second wife Joan of Navarre, the daughter of King Charles II of Navarre and widow of John IV, Duke of Brittany, at Winchester Cathedral.
• March 12 – As King Martin I of Aragon helps to end the siege by the French of the papal palace in Avignon, Antipope Benedict XIII flees to Aragon.
• March 23 – Stříbrná Skalice in Central Bohemia is razed by Sigismund of Luxembourg.
• April – Balša III succeeds his father Đurađ II as ruler of the Principality of Zeta (now Montenegro).
• May 21 – Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, an ambassador from the king of Castile to Timur, leaves Cadiz; he arrives in Samarkand over a year later.
• Before July 21 – Henry 'Hotspur' Percy forms an alliance with Welsh rebel Owain Glyndŵr.
• July 21 – Battle of Shrewsbury: King Henry IV of England defeats a rebel army led by "Hotspur" Percy, who is killed in the battle.
• October 7 – Battle of Modon: The Genoese fleet under Jean Le Maingre (Marshal Boucicaut) is defeated by the Republic of Venice, at Modon in the Peloponnese.
• October – An English fleet organised by John Hawley of Dartmouth and Thomas Norton of Bristol seizes seven French merchant vessels in the English Channel.
• November – An English revenge raid on Brittany by Sir William Wilford captures 40 ships and causes considerable damage ashore.
• December – Local English forces defeat an attempted French raid on the Isle of Wight under Waleran III, Count of Ligny.

Date unknown

• Jan Hus begins preaching Wycliffite ideas in Bohemia.
• In China, the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty
  • moves the capital from Nanjing to Beijing.
  • commissions the Yongle Encyclopedia, one of the world's earliest and largest known general encyclopedias.
  • orders his coastal provinces to build a vast fleet of ships, with construction centered at Longjiang near Nanjing; the inland provinces are to provide wood and float it down the Yangtze River.
• The Temple of a City God is constructed in Shanghai.
• The Gur-e Amir Mausoleum is built in Samarkand by Timur, after the death of his grandson Muhammad Sultan, and eventually becomes the family mausoleum of the Timurid dynasty.
• Georgia makes peace with Timur, but has to recognise him as a suzerain and pay him tribute.
• The world's first quarantine station, the Lazzaretto Vecchio, is built in Venice, to protect against the Black Death.
• Grand Duke Vytautas ends his alliance with Muscovy, and captures Vyazma and Smolensk.
• Stefan Lazarević establishes Belgrade, as the capital of the Serbian Despotate.
• A guild of stationers is founded in the City of London. As the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (the "Stationers' Company"), it continues to be a livery company in the 21st century.
• In Ireland
  • Tadhg Ruadh mac Maelsechlainn O Cellaigh succeeds Conchobar an Abaidh mac Maelsechlainn O Cellaigh, as King of Hy-Many, in present-day counties Galway and Roscommon.
  • Maolmhordha mac Con Connacht succeeds Giolla Iosa mac Pilib, as King of East Breifne, in present-day counties Leitrim and Cavan.
• probable – Ououso becomes King of Nanzan, in present-day south Okinawa, Japan.

1404

January–December

• April or May – Battle of Blackpool Sands: Local English forces defeat an attempted raid from Saint-Malo on the port of Dartmouth, Devon; the French commander, William du Chastel, is killed.
• June 14 – Rebel leader Owain Glyndŵr, having declared himself Prince of Wales, allies with the French against the English. He later begins holding parliamentary assemblies.
• October 17 – Pope Innocent VII succeeds Pope Boniface IX, as the 204th pope.
• November 19 – St. Elizabeth's flood: A flood of the North Sea devastates parts of Flanders, Zeeland and Holland.

Date unknown

• Jean de Béthencourt becomes the first ruler of the Kingdom of the Canary Islands.
• Stephan Tvrtko II succeeds Stefan Ostoja as King of Bosnia.
• Peace is declared between Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights, after they agree to exchange land and form an alliance against Muscovy.
• Wallachia reaches its maximum extent under Mircea cel Bătrân.
• The University of Turin is founded.
• Timur is hit by a fever, while preparing to invade China.
• Centurione II Zaccaria succeeds Maria II Zaccaria, as ruler of the Principality of Achaea.
• Virupaksha Raya succeeds Harihara Raya II, as ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire in present-day southern India.
• Narayana Ramadhipati succeeds Ponthea Yat, as King of Cambodia.
• Ruaidri Caech MacDermot succeeds Conchobair Óg MacDermot, as King of Magh Luirg, in present-day northeast Connacht, Ireland.
• The city of Vicenza comes under the rule of the Venetians.

1405

January–December

• May 29 – In England, Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, meets Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York and Earl of Norfolk Thomas Mowbray in Shipton Moor, tricks them to send their rebellious army home, and then imprisons them.
• June 8 – Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, are executed in York on Henry IV's orders.
• July 11 – Ming Dynasty fleet commander Zheng He sets sail from Suzhou, to explore the world for the first time.
• October 5 – Christine de Pizan writes a letter to Queen Isabeau, urging her to intervene in the political struggle between the dukes of Burgundy and Orléans.
• November 17 – The Sultanate of Sulu is established on the Sulu Archipelago, off the coast of Mindanao in the Philippines.

Date unknown

• The first record is written of whiskey being consumed in Ireland, where it is distilled by Catholic monks.
• Bellifortis, a book on military technology, is published by Konrad Kyeser.
• Christine de Pizan writes The Book of the City of Ladies.

1406

January–December

• April 4 – James I becomes King of Scotland on the death of his father. He has been detained by Henry IV of England since March 30 and will remain at the English court for 18 years.
• October 7 – French troops comprising 1,000 men at arms land on the Channel Island of Jersey, and fight a battle against 3,000 defenders.
• October 13 – Richard Whittington is elected Lord Mayor of London for a second full term. He holds this office simultaneously, with that of Mayor of the Calais Staple.
• October 26 – Eric of Pomerania, ruler of the Kalmar Union, marries Philippa, daughter of Henry IV of England, in Lund Cathedral.
• November 30 – Pope Gregory XII succeeds Pope Innocent VII, as the 205th pope.
• December 25 – John II becomes King of Castile aged 21 months on the death of his father.

Date unknown

• Construction of the Forbidden City begins in Beijing during the Chinese Ming dynasty.
• Pisa is subjugated by Florence.

1407

January–December

• April 10 – After several invitations by the Yongle Emperor of China since 1403, the fifth Karmapa of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism, the lama Deshin Shekpa, finally visits the Ming dynasty capital, then at Nanjing. In his twenty-two-day visit, he thrills the Ming court with alleged miracles that are recorded in a gigantic scroll, translated into five different languages. In a show of mystical prowess, Deshin Shekpa adds legitimacy to a questionable succession to the throne by Yongle, who had killed his nephew the Jianwen Emperor in the culmination of a civil war. For his services to the Ming court, including his handling of the ceremonial rites of Yongle's deceased parents, Deshin Shekpa is awarded the title Great Treasure Prince of Dharma (大寶法王).
• June 16 – Ming–Hồ War: The Ming dynasty of China under the Yongle Emperor conquers Vietnam, capturing Hồ Quý Ly and his sons, ending the Vietnamese Hồ dynasty.
• November 20 – A solemn truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis I, Duke of Orléans is agreed under the auspicies of John, Duke of Berry.
• November 23 – The Duke of Orleans is assassinated; war breaks out again between the Burgundians and his followers.

Date unknown

• Rudolfo Belenzani leads a revolt against Bishop Georg von Liechtenstein in Trento, Bishopric of Trent.
• David Holbache founds Oswestry School, in the Welsh Marches.
• Mateu Texidor finishes the Puente de la Trinidad bridge in Valencia, Spain.

1408

January–December

• February 19 – Battle of Bramham Moor: A royalist army defeats the last remnants of the Percy Rebellion.
• September – Henry, Prince of Wales (later Henry V of England) retakes Aberystwyth from Owain Glyndŵr.
• September 16 – Thorstein Olafssøn marries Sigrid Bjørnsdatter in Hvalsey Church, in the last recorded event of the Norse history of Greenland.
• December 5 – Emir Edigu of the Golden Horde reaches Moscow.
• December 13 – The Order of the Dragon is founded under King Sigismund of Hungary.

Date unknown

• The Moldavian town of Iaşi is first mentioned.
• The Yongle Encyclopedia is completed.
• Gotland passes under Danish rule.
• Zheng He delivers 300 virgins from Korea to the Chinese emperor.
• Mihail I becomes co-ruler of Wallachia, with his father Mircea cel Bătrân.

1409

January–December

• January 1 – The Welsh surrender Harlech Castle to the English.
• January 18 – The Decree of Kutná Hora strengthens the Bohemian Nation at thee cost of foreign, mostly German speaking students at the University of Prague. Over a thousand students leave Prague as a consequence, choosing instead the universities of Heidelberg and the new University of Leipzig established later in the year.
• March 25 – The Council of Pisa opens. On June 5 it deposes Pope Gregory XII and Antipope Benedict XIII, and on June 26 crowns Petros Philargos as Pope Alexander V; he is subsequently regarded as an antipope.
• July – Martin I of Aragon succeeds his own son, as King of Sicily.
• August 7 – The Council of Pisa closes.
• December 2 – The University of Leipzig opens.
• December 9 – Louis II of Anjou founds the University of Aix-en-Provence.

Date unknown

• Ulugh Beg becomes governor of Samarkand.
• The Republic of Venice purchases the port of Zadar from Hungary.
• Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen of the Teutonic Knights guarantees peace with the Kalmar Union of Scandinavia, by selling the Baltic Sea island of Gotland to Queen Margaret of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
• Cheng Ho (or Zheng He), admiral of the Ming empire fleet, deposes the king of Sri Lanka.
• Mircea cel Bătrân successfully defends Silistra against the Ottomans.