540

The following events are associated with the year 540 AD:

Events

By place

Byzantine Empire

• General Belisarius conquers Milan and the Ostrogothic capital Ravenna.
• The Sassanids attack Dara and capture Antioch.
• The Huns and Bulgars raid Greece.

Europe

• Ostrogoth king Witiges is succeeded by Ildibad.
• High King Custennin ap Cado of Britain is deposed and returns to Dumnonia.

By topic

Religion

• Pope Vigilius rejects Monophysitism in letters to Emperor Justinian I and Patriarch Mennas of Constantinople.
• The former Roman senator Cassiodorus establishes a monastery, the Vivarium, on his estate in Italy. He enlists highly educated and sophisticated men to copy both sacred and secular manuscripts, intending this to be their sole occupation (approximate date).
• Benedict of Nursia writes his monastic laws.

Births

• Pope Gregory I (approximate date)
• Galswintha, wife of Chilperic I
• Myrddin Wyllt, later wild man of the woods and possible source for Merlin (approximate date)

Deaths

• Dionysius Exiguus (approximate date)
• Witiges, king of the Ostrogoths
• Empress Yifu
• Empress Yujiulü

Events

• Global environmental impact (comet?) ^[1][2]

References

1. ↑ "In 1986 I discovered that a series of Irish oaks exhibited their narrowest rings in the immediate vicinity of..". http://www.aryabhata.de/illig/baillie2.doc.  080205 aryabhata.de
2. ↑ Baillie, M.G.L. (2007). Tree-Rings Indicate Global Environmental Downturns that could have been Caused by Comet Debris, Chap. 5 in Bobrowsky, Peter T. and Hans Rickman (eds.), Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Springer-Verlag, Berlin. ISBN 3-540-32709-6, pp. 105–122.