Years 1300-1499

The Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance;

Shakespeare's history plays

• 1301 Osman I, Emir of the Seljuk Turks, declares himself Sultan and establishes the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor.
• 1304 Petrarch is born.
• 1307-27 Reign of Edward II.
• 1313 Boccaccio is born.
• 1314 Battle of Bannockburn; Robert Bruce obtains independence for Scotland. Robert II establishes the Stuart Dynasty (1371-1714).
• 1327-77 reign of Edward III.
• 1327 Justices of the Peace are appointed from the gentry to assist Sheriffs as local officials.
• 1328 Death of Charles IV of France, last of the Capetian Dynasty; he is succeeded by Edward III of the House of Valois.
• 1337 Edward III assumes the title "King of France," beginning the Hundred Years War (1337-1453).
• [1340] Geoffrey Chaucer is born.
• 1346 Battle of Crecy; victory of Edward III.
• 1347 Calais surrenders to the English.
• 1348-50 The Black Death first arrives in England, killing over a third of the population and helping the breakdown of the manorial and feudal systems.
• 1356 English victory at the battle of Poitiers and capture of King John II of France; England receives Aquitaine and Calais as ransom for the king.
• 1360 Peace of Bretigny: Edward III relinquishes claims to the French throne in return for sovereignty over south-west France.
• 1362 English becomes the official language in courts of law.
• 1370Juliana of Norwich writes Revelations of Divine Love; John Lydgate is born.
• 1374 Petrarch dies.
• 1375 Boccaccio dies.
• 1377-99 Reign of Richard II, later deposed by Henry Bolingbroke.
• 1377-84 John Wyclif begins the Lollard movement, precursor of the Protestant Reformation.
• 1380 The first English translation of the Bible (by Wyclif).
• 1381 Peasant's Rebellion led by Wat Tyler.
• [1386] Donatello is born.
• 1399 Richard II is deposed.
• 1399-1413 Reign of Henry IV of the House of Lancaster.
• 1400 Geoffrey Chaucer dies; a Revolt in Wales is aided by France.
• 1402 The Scots are decisively defeated at Homildon Hill.
• 1403 Battle of Shrewsbury; the rebellion of the Percys in alliance with Owen Glendower is crushed.
• 1405 defeat of the northern rebellion led by Richard le Scrope, archbishop of York.
• 1407 The Beaufort descendants of John of Gaunt are formally excluded from succession to the throne.
• 1408 Northumberland's rebellion is put down at Bramham Moor.
• 1411 The King's Bench upholds the right of laymen to establish schools.
• 1413 Henry V becomes king, has Richard II reburied with honors at Westminster Abbey
• 1413-22 reign of Henry V.
• 1414 A parliamentary statute is passed against Lollardry.
• 1415 Henry renews the Hundred Years War, capturing Harfleur and defeating a much larger French cavalry at Agincourt.
• 1416 Henry begins his second campaign in France.
• 1417 The Lollard Sir John Oldcastle is executed as a heretic.
• 1419 Rouen surrenders; England regains Normandy.
• 1420 The Treaty of Troyes; Henry becomes regent of France and successor to Charles VI, marrying Catherine of Valois.
• 1422-61 reign of Henry VI, beginning in infancy.
• 1429Joan of Arc defeats the English at Orleans; coronation of the Dauphin as Charles VII.
• 1431 Henry VI is crowned King of France in Paris; Joan of Arc is burned at the stake as a witch.
• 1435 Death of the Duke of Bedford, English regent in France; England fails to compromise at the Arras Peace Conference; Burgundy defects from the Anglo- Burgundian alliance.
• 1437 Henry VI takes personal control of English government.
• 1440 Gutenberg establishes the first printing press in Europe.
• 1445 Marriage of Henry VI with Margaret of Anjou; Botticelli is born.
• 1450 Normandy is lost to Charles VII; the duke of Suffolk is impeached and murdered; Cade's Rebellion and other uprisings reflect demands for political reform; John Lydgate dies.
• 1452 Leonardo da Vinci is born.
• 1453 Constantinople falls to the Turkish Sultan Muhammed II.
• 1453 Birth of Edward, Prince of Wales.
• 1453-54 during Henry VI's insanity, the duke of York is made Protector; York is opposed by Lancastrians led by the Queen.
• 1455-87 The Wars of the Roses.
• 1455 Yorkist victory at the battle of St. Albans.
• 1459 Yorkists are routed at Ludford Bridge.
• 1460 John Skelton and Thomas Linacre are born; The Castle of Perseverance is performed. Edward of March wins the Battle of Northampton and is given control of London; York lays claim to the throne, but is killed in the Battle of Wakefield.
• 1461 March is proclaimed King Edward IV; his victory over the Lancastrians at Towton ends the first phase of the wars.
• 1463 Pico della Mirandola is born.
• 1466 Donatello dies.
• [1467] John Colet, founder of Saint Paul's school, is born.
• 1469 Erasmus is born; Niccolò Machiavelli is born.
• 1469-70 Warwick and Clarence fail in an attempt to seize power. 1470 Warwick allies with Margaret of Anjou and Louis IX of France, invading England; Edward IV flees to Burgundy, and Henry VI is restored to the throne temporarily.
• 1470 William Caxton sets up the first press in England.
• 1471 Albrecht Dürer is born. Edward IV returns with Burgundian support and crushes the Lancastrians at Barnet and Tewkesbury; the Prince of Wales is killed and Henry VI is murdered in the Tower of London.
• 1471-83 Edward IV resumes his reign.
• 1474 Ariosto is born.
• 1475 Michaelangelo is born; Cardinal Wolsey is born.
• 1478 Sir Thomas More is born.
• 1479 The last regular occurence of bubonic plague; the population begins to recover from its decline in the Late Middle Ages.
• 1480 Magdalen College, Oxford, is established.
• 1483 Martin Luther is born; Raphael is born; Richard of Gloucester becomes Protector, then has himself proclaimed King as Richard III; he puts down a revolt led by Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, who is executed.
• 1484 Richard's kingship is confirmed by Parliament; Richard III has Henry VI's body moved from Chertsey to Windsor where pilgrimages nevertheless continued. All that's left now is inscription of "Henry VI" on the floor of St. George's Chapel, Windsor.
• 1485 The Battle of Bosworth; Henry Tudor defeats and kills Richard III, last of the Plantagenets; Caxton publishes Malory's Morte Darthur.
• 1485-1507 Reign of Henry VII, first of the Tudor Dynasty.
• 1486 Henry's marriage to Elizabeth of York unites the Houses of Lancaster and York.
• 1487 The Battle of Stoke; defeat of the Yorkist pretender John de la Pole ends the Wars of the Roses.
• 1489 Thomas Cranmer is born.
• 1490 Sir Thomas Elyot is born.
• 1493 Pico della Mirandola dies.
• 1494 François Rabelais is born; Henry VII asks papacy to begin canonization inquiry for Henry VI.
• 1496 Henry VII grants the Cabots letters patent to find a shorter sea route to the Orient.
• 1497 A truce is achieved between England and Scotland.