14th century

Centuries:	13th century - 14th century - 15th century
Decades:	1300s 1310s 1320s 1330s 1340s 1350s 1360s 1370s 1380s 1390s

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was that Century which lasted from 1301 to 1400.

Overview

Events

• The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age
• Beginning of the Ottoman Empire, early expansion into the Balkans
• The Avignon Papacy transfers the seat of the Popes from Italy to France
• The Great Famine of 1315-1317 kills millions of people in Europe
• Being forced out of previous locations, the Aztec found the city of Tenochtitlan in 1325
• The Hundred Year's War begins when Edward III of England lays claim to the French throne in 1337.
• Black Death kills about one third of European population (1347 - 1351)
• The end of Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368)
• The Heresy of Lollardy rises in England
• The Great Schism of the West begins in 1378, eventually leading to 3 simultaneous popes.
• An account of Buddha's life, translated earlier in to Greek by St John of Damascus and widely circulated to Christians as the story of Barlaam and Josaphat had become so popular that Buddha was made a Catholic saint (Josaphat).
• Singapore emerges for the first time as a fortified city and trading centre of some importance.
• Reunification of Poland under Ladislaus I of Poland
• Peasants' Revolt in England
• Islam reaches Terengganu, on the Malay Peninsula.
• The Hausa found several city-states in the south of modern Niger.
• The Mali Empire expands westward and conquers Tekrur.
• The poet Petrarch coins the term Dark Ages to describe the preceding 900 years in Europe, beginning with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 410 through to the renewal embodied in the Renaissance.
• The Scots win the Scottish Wars of Independence.
• Work begins on the Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe, built of uncemented, dressed stone. The city's population is now between 10 000 and 40 000.

Significant people

• Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian author
• Edward III, King of England
• Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet
• Don Juan Manuel, Spanish author
• Francesco Petrarch, Italian poet and writer
• William of Ockham, English Franciscan friar and philosopher
• Dante Alighieri, Italian poet and writer
• King Robert I of Scotland (Bruce)
• Charles Robert, knight king of Hungary

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

• The mechanical Clock
• The technique of Knitting

Decades and years