1370s

This is a list of events occurring in the 1370s, ordered by year.

1370

January–December

• May 24 – The Treaty of Stralsund ends the war between Denmark and the Hanseatic League.
• October 20 – Philip of Anjou, Titular Emperor of Constantinople, marries Elisabeth of Slavonia, daughter of Stephen, duke of Transylvania and Slavonia, and Margareta of Bavaria.
• December 20 – Pope Gregory XI succeeds Pope Urban V as the 201st pope.

Date unknown

• The steel crossbow is first used as a weapon of war.
• Xian City (Chang'an) is fortified against invasion.
• Timur completes his conquest of Central Asia and parts of Persia, establishing the Timurid Empire.
• Tran Phu deposes Duong Nhat Le as King of Vietnam.
• For the second time since 1368, Moscow attacks Tver, which again counter-attacks with the aid of Lithuania and the Blue Horde.
• Casimir III of Poland is succeeded jointly by his sister, Elisabeth of Kujavia, and her son, Louis I of Hungary, beginning the rule of Poland by the Capet-Anjou family.
• The Siege of Limoges is launched.

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.
• April 9 – Emperor Go-En'yu of Japan succeeds Emperor Go-Kōgon of Japan, becoming the 5th and last of the Northern Ashikaga Pretenders.
• August 22 – At the 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 of Gaunt a claim to the throne of Castile.
• September 26 – At the 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

• Charterhouse Carthusian Monastery is founded in Aldersgate, London.
• The first widely accepted historical reference is made to playing cards (in Spain).
• Zhao Bing Fa becomes King of Mong Mao (in present day south China/north Myanmar) after the death of his father, Si Ke Fa.
• 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

• May – Owain Lawgoch makes a second attempt to take the throne of Wales. 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.

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 (now in 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 D. Fernando of Portugal and Henrique II of Castile, ending the second war between the two countries.
• May 13 – Julian of Norwich receives the sixteen Revelations of Divine Love.

Date unknown

• Bristol is made an independent county.
• The Anglo-Portuguese alliance is signed (currently the oldest active treaty in the world).
• The city of Phnom Penh (now the capital city of Cambodia) is founded.
• Philip II of Taranto hands over the rule of Achaea (now southern Greece) to his cousin, Joanna I of Naples.
• Leo VI succeeds his distant cousin, Constantine VI, as King of Armenian Cilicia (now southern Turkey).
• A city wall is built around Lisbon, Portugal to resist invasion by Castile.
• Tran Kinh succeeds Tran Phu as King of Vietnam.
• 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.
• The death of Sultan Muhammad as-Said begins a period of political instability in Morocco.
• 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.
• November 25 – James of Baux succeeds his uncle, Philip II, as Prince of Taranto (now eastern Italy) and titular ruler of the Latin Empire (now northern Greece and western Turkey).

Date unknown

• King U of Goryeo ascends to the throne of Goryeo (now in Korea) after the assassination of King Gongmin.
• Leu Thai becomes King of Sukhothai (now in northern Thailand) after the death of King Lithai.
• Rao Biram Dev succeeds Rao Kanhadev as ruler of Marwar (now the Jodhpur district of India).
• Hasan succeeds his father, Shaikh Uvais, as ruler of the Jalayirid sultanate in present-day Iraq and western Iran. Hasan proves to be an unpopular ruler and is executed in the same year. Hasan's brother, Husain, succeeds him as ruler.
• Musa II succeeds his father, Mari Djata II, as Mansa of the Mali Empire (now Mali & Senegal).
• Robert de Juilly succeeds Raymond Berenger as Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller.
• Princes from the Kingdom of Grenada 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.
• 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.
• 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.^[1]
• October – Margaret I of Denmark becomes Regent of Denmark after the death of her father Valdemar IV.

Date unknown

• Coluccio Salutati is appointed Chancellor of Florence.
• Heirin-ji Temple is built near Tokyo.
• Petru I succeeds his father, Costea, as ruler of Moldavia (now Moldova & eastern Romania).
• The Russian town of Kostroma is destroyed by the ushkuinik pirates from Novgorod.
• Mujahid Shah succeeds his father, Mohammad Shah I, as Sultan of the Bahmanid Empire in Deccan, southern India.
• Moscow & Tver sign a truce. Tver agrees to help Moscow fight the Blue Horde.
• In Nanjing, capital of the Ming Dynasty of 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.^[2]

1376

January–December

• March – The peace treaty between England and France is extended until April of 1377.
• March 31 – Pope Gregory XI excommunicates all members of the government of Florence and places the city under an interdict.
• April 28 – The start of Good Parliament in England, so called because its members attempted to reform the corrupt Royal Council.
• 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.

Date unknown

• The city of Sredets in Bulgaria is renamed Sofia after the Church of St Sophia
• Khan Qamar al-din of Mongolistan unsuccessfully invades Timur’s eastern province of Farghana.
• Timur leads his army against troops of the White Horde which have arrived at Sighnaq. However, winter sets in, preventing an immediate battle.
• Dmitri Donskoi of Moscow raids Mongol-ruled Volga Bulgaria (now in Russia).
• Acamapichtli is elected Tlatoani of the Aztec empire after the death of Tenoch, the first Aztec ruler.
• Mamluk Sultan of Egypt Nasir-ad-Din Shaban II is succeeded by Alah-ad-Din Ali.
• Qutbuddin succeeds his brother, Shahabuddin, as Sultan of Kashmir.

1377

January–December

• January 17 – Pope Gregory XI moves the Papacy back from Avignon to Rome.
• January 27
  • The Bad Parliament begins sitting in England. Influenced by Prince John of Gaunt, 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.
  • Fourteen-year-old Maria of Sicily succeeds her father, Frederick III the Simple.
• 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 dissolved.
• May
  • Continuous riots in Rome induce Pope Gregory XI to move temporarily back to Avignon.
  • Władysław II Jagiello 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 – Coronation of 10-year-old Richard II, grandson of Edward III. A minority government was established and a series of continual councils ruled on his behalf until 1381.
• 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 was when they called for the impeachment of local officials that 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’s first parliament meets.
• October 26 – Coronation of Tvrtko I of Bosnia.

Date unknown

• 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.
• Radu I succeeds Vladislav I as Prince of Wallachia (now southern Romania).
• The Trezzo sull'Adda Bridge is completed, and becomes the longest arch bridge in the world to be built for four centuries
• Sayf ad-Din Berkuk leads a revolt against the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt Alah-ad-Din Ali.
• Harihara II succeeds Bukka as ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire (now in southern India).
• 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.
• King U of Goryeo adopts the Ming calendar and begs to be invested by the Hongwu Emperor.
• Tran Hien succeeds Tran Kính as King of Vietnam.
• A rebellion against the Majapahit Empire is quashed in Sumatra.

1378

January–December

• 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 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.
• July – Revolt of the Ciompi – discontent wool carders briefly take over the government of Florence. For the first time, a European government represents all social classes.
• August 4 – Gian Galeazzo Visconti succeeds his father, Galeazzo II Visconti, as ruler of Milan.
• 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.
• September 20 – Unhappy with Pope Urban's critical attitude towards them, the majority of the cardinals meet at Fondi and 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.
• 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

• Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV visits his nephew Charles V of France to publicly celebrate the friendship between their two nations.
• 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.
• Dmitri Donskoi of Moscow & Vladimir resists a small invasion by the Mongol Blue Horde.
• Tokhtamysh dethrones Timur Malik as Khan of the White Horde.
• Kara Osman establishes the Turkomans of the White Sheep dynasty at Diyarbakır in present-day southeast Turkey.
• The Turks capture the town of Ihtiman in west Bulgaria.
• Uskhal Khan succeeds his father, Biligtü Khan, as ruler of the Yuan Dynasty in Mongolia.
• Balša II succeeds his father, Durađ I, as ruler of Zeta (now Montenegro).
• Tai Bian succeeds Zhao Bing Fa as King of Mong Mao (now northern Myanmar).
• Da'ud Shah succeeds his assassinated nephew, Aladdin Mujahid Shah, as Bahmani Sultan in present-day southern India. Da'ud Shah is assassinated in the same year and is succeeded by Mohammed Shah II.
• Sa'im al-Dahr is hanged for blowing the nose off the Sphinx.

1379

January–December

• May 29 – John I succeeds his father, Henry II, as King of Castile and King of León.
• September 9 – Treaty of Neuberg signed, splitting the Austrian Habsburg lands between brothers Albert III and Leopold III. Albert III retains the title of Duke of Austria.

Date unknown

• The Venetians and Ottomans invade Constantinople and restore John V Palaiologos as Byzantine co-emperor. Andronikos IV Palaiologos is allowed to remain as Byzantine co-emperor but is confined to the city of Silivri for the remainder of his life.
• Bairam Khawaja establishes the independent principality of the Turkomans of the Black Sheep Empire in present day Armenia.
• Dmitri Donskoi of Moscow raids Estonia.
• Foundation of New College, Oxford.
• Foundation of Wisbech Grammar School in England.

Significant people

Births

Deaths

References

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