Chronology of Medieval Christianity
Christian History Timeline 1300 CE - 1400 CE
When did Pope Boniface VIII publish the bull "Unam Sanctam," decreeing that spiritual power was primary to temporal power? When did John Wycliffe begin the first English translation of the Bible? When did the "Great Schism of the West" begin? These are all important dates in the history of Christianity; not only are they presented here in this timeline, but they are presented in historical and religious context.
There are several different types of color-coded dates in this timeline of Medieval Christianity, explained in a color key at the bottom of the timeline.
| Timeline of Medieval Christianity: 1300 CE - 1400 CE | |
| 1299 - 1326 | Reign of Osman, founder of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. He defeated the Seljuks. |
| January 27, 1302 | Dante Alighieri is fined and exiled from Florence by the Catholic Church. |
| November 18, 1302 | Pope Boniface VIII published the bull "Unam Sanctam," decreeing that spiritual power was primary to temporal power and that submission to the pope was necessary to achieve salvation. |
| September 07, 1303 | Pope Boniface VIII was placed under arrest at Anagni, Italy by King Philip IV of France. |
| October 11, 1303 | Pope Boniface VIII died. |
| October 22, 1303 | Benedict XI was elected pope. |
| July 07, 1304 | Benedict XI died, possibly due to poison. |
| 1305 | The 70-year "Babylonian Captivity" of the papacy began when Pope Clement V moved the papal residence and administrative offices to Avignon in France in order to escape the political turmoil raging in Italy. |
| 1305 | First reported act of displaying a head on the London Bridge occurs: Sir William Wallace, Scottish patriot. |
| June 05, 1305 | Clement V is elected pope. |
| July 22, 1306 | King Phillip the Fair ordered the expulsion of Jews from France. |
| October 13, 1307 | Templars were arrested as part of the effort by King Philip IV "the Fair" of France and Pope Clement V to gain control of their wealth. |
| November 08, 1308 | John Duns Scotus, Franciscan theologian and philosopher, died in Cologne, Germany. |
| 1310 | First reported use of official torture in England occurs: against the Templars. |
| May 12, 1310 | On charges of heresy, fifty-four Knights Templars were burned at the stake in France. |
| October 16, 1311 | Council of Vienne (15th ecumenical council) was opened by Pope Clement V, primarily for the purpose of condemning the Knights Templar. |
| March 22, 1312 | The Order of the Knights Templar was officially suppressed |
| May 06, 1312 | Pope Clement V closed the Council of Vienne after the Knights Templar were found guilty of heresy and disbanded. |
| 1314 | Battle at Bannockburn: Robert Bruce defeats the armies of Edward II and gains Scottish independence. Edward I dies in 1307 during a march north to defeat Bruce. |
| March 18, 1314 | Thirty-Nine French Knights Templars were burned at the stake. |
| April 20, 1314 | Pope Clement V died. |
| 1315 | Bad weather and crop failures result in famines across northwestern Europe. Unsanitary conditions and malnutrition increase the death rate. Even after the revival of agricultural conditions, weather disasters reappear. A mixture of war, famine and plague in the Late Middle Ages reduce the population by half. |
| 1316 | Eight Dominican monks are sent to Ethiopia in search of Prester John, a legendary Christian emperor. |
| August 07, 1316 | John XXII was elected pope. John is known for centralizing church power (through the appointment of bishops) and centralizing church finances (through the imposition of papal taxes). |
| April 08, 1318 | Pope Urban VI was born. |
| 1320 | In a trial held at Pamiers in southern France, Baruch, a converted Jew who is accused of having relapsed into Judaism, argues that he had been forced to submit to baptism under the threat of death. His arguments, however, are rejected by the inquisitorial tribunal on the grounds that Baruch had not been subjected to "absolute coercion," which appears to mean forcible immersion in the baptismal font accompanied by protests on the part of the defendant. Baruch's response that he had not been forcibly held at the font and that he did not protest at the time because he had been told that to protest meant death does not satisfy the inquisitors who argue that only in such circumstances as they had specified could a defense of coerced baptism be recognized. |
| 1322 | Pope John XXIII prohibits the playing of contrapuntal music in churches. |
| 1325 | Aztecs found Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). |
| 1327 | Born in 1260, German Dominican Master Eckhart defines the individual soul as a "spark" of the divine at its most basic element. Two forms of mysticism develop from Eckhart's theories: heterodox, the belief in the unification of God and man on earth without the aid of priests as intermediaries, and orthodox, the belief in the possibility of joining the soul with God and the awareness of divine presence in everyday life. |
| 1328 | England recognizes Scottish independence, with Robert Bruce as King. |
| May 26, 1328 | William of Ockham was forced to flee Avignon by Pope John XXII. |
| December 04, 1334 | Pope John XXII died. |
| December 20, 1334 | Benedict XII was elected pope. |
| 1335 | Pope Benedict XIII issues sweeping reforms of the monastic orders. |
| 1335 - 1355 | Inquisitor Havel of Hradec tries over 4,400 people, condemning about 5 percent to be burned at the stake. |
| 1336 | The Hundred Years' War between France and England begins. |
| 1343 | William of Ockham's "Dialogues" argues for separation of church and state. |
| January 27, 1343 | Pope Clement VI's bull Unigenitus ("Unbegotten") declared that the accumulated merit of the Catholic Church, won by Christ and the Saints, could be drawn upon by the faithful through something known as Indulgences. This doctrine was later challenged by Martin Luther and was an important factor in causing the Protestant Reformation. |
| 1345 | Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, is completed. |
| 1347 | The Black Death (bubonic plague) reaches Cyprus from eastern Asia. |
| 1348 | Jews are blamed for Black Death and are systematically persecuted. |
| September 21, 1348 | The Jews of Zurich, Switzerland were accused of poisoning the wells. |
| 1349 | A new period of persecution of Jews sweeps across Germany. |
| January 09, 1349 | Christians rioted in Basel, Switzerland, and 700 Jews were burned alive in their houses. |
| February 13, 1349 | Jews were expelled from Burgsordf, Switzerland. |
| February 14, 1349 | In Strasbourg, France, about 2,000 Jews were burned at the stake. |
| February 22, 1349 | Jews were ordered out of Zurich, Switzerland. |
| March 21, 1349 | Three thousand Jews were massacred in riots in Germany over losses from the Black Death. |
| April 09, 1349 | Philosopher and theologian William of Ockham died. |
| August 24, 1349 | Jews in Mainz were blamed for an outbreak of the bubonic plague. As a result, 6,000 Jews are killed. |
| September 10, 1349 | Jews who survived a massacre in Constance Germany were burned to death. |
| December 05, 1349 | Five hundred Jews were accused of spreading the plagues were massacred at Nuremberg when Christians rioted against them. |
| c. 1350 | The Renaissance begins in Italy. |
| December 06, 1352 | Pope Clement VI died. |
| December 18, 1352 | Innocent VI was elected pope. |
| 1354 | Earliest documented evidence of the existence of the Shroud of Turin is dated to this year. |
| May 07, 1355 | More than one thousand Jews in Toledo, Spain were killed by Count Henry of Trastamara. |
| September 12, 1362 | Pope Innocent VI died. |
| September 28, 1362 | Urban V was elected pope. |
| 1368 | The Ming Dynasty is established in China by a peasant's son who had become a monk but later led a 13-year long rebellion against corrupt and ineffectual Mongol rulers. Ming means "brightness." |
| May 22, 1370 | Jews were expelled from Brussels, Belgium. |
| December 19, 1370 | Pope Urban V died. |
| December 30, 1370 | Gregory XI was elected pope. |
| 1376 | John Wycliffe, an Oxford don, writes "Civil Dominion," a book calling for reforms in the Church. |
| January 17, 1377 | Over the protest of powerful French cardinals, Pope Gregory XI returned papacy to Rome from its 70-year stay in Avignon. |
| February 03, 1377 | Cardinal Robert of Geneva was elected as an antipope, adopting the name Clement VII. |
| March 27, 1378 | Pope Gregory XI, the last French pope, died |
| September 20, 1378 | The "Great Schism of the West" begins when the election of Pope Urban VI to the papacy is challenged by French cardinals, who in turn elect Clement VII to the same office. Clement becomes known as the "antipope" and resides in Avignon. Both Rome and Avignon would have rival popes for the next 40 years. |
| December 31, 1378 | Pope Callistus III was born |
| 1380 | John Wycliffe begins the first English translation of the Bible. |
| 1382 | John Wycliffe is expelled from Oxford University because of his opposition to traditional Church doctrines. |
| 1384 | John Purvey, follower ofJohn Wycliffe, revises Wycliffe's translation of the Bible. |
| December 28, 1384 | Religious reformer John Wycliffe died. |
| 1387 | Poet Geoffrey Chaucer begins work on his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales. |
| October 15, 1389 | Pope Urban VI died. |
| November 02, 1389 | Boniface IX was elected pope. |
| 1391 | The Jewish community of Barcelona is decimated and hundreds of thousands of Jews are either massacred or forced into baptism in Aragon and Castille. From then on into the fifteenth century, Jews continue to be forcefully baptized. Although the Church frowned upon this type of mass compulsory conversion, once the person was converted, any deviation from the true faith on the part of the convert constituted "heresy." |
| 1391 | Spanish Jews are forced to convert to Catholicism for the sake of "social and sectarian uniformity." |
| August 24, 1391 | Jews were massacred in Palma de Mallorca. |
| 1394 - 1423 | Pope Benedict XIII is antipope at Avignon. |
| September 16, 1394 | Antipope Clement VII died. |
| September 17, 1394 | Jews were expelled from France by order of King Charles VI. |
| November 03, 1394 | Jews were expelled from France by Charles VI. |
| November 15, 1397 | Pope Nicholas V was born. |
| 1399 | In England, the death penalty becomes the punishment for heresy and many Lollards, John Wycliffe's lay followers, are converted. |
| January 04, 1399 | Grand Inquisitor Nicolas Eymeric died. |
| 1400 | Holy Roman Emperor Wenceslas IV is deposed on account of drunkenness. |
| 1400 | Czech students of John Wycliffe bring Wycliffism to the Bohemian capital of Prague. Preacher John Hus adopts Wycliffe's theories to support his own claims against ecclesiastical extravagance. |
| 1400 | The Northern provinces of Italy devise their own systems of government. The government of Venice becomes a merchant oligarchy; Milan is ruled by dynastic despotism; and Florence becomes a republic, ruled by the rich. The three cities expand and conquer most of Northern Italy. |
Color Key: This chart explains which sorts of topics are given which colors in the chronologies.
| Color | Topic |
| Blue | Councils, Synods, Bulls, and other official church decisions. |
| Yellow | Violence: Crusades, wars, insurrections, and other acts of violence. |
| Green | Popes: births, deaths, elections, and other actions important to the papacy. |
| Orange | Heresies, schisms, and the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation. |
| Purple | Jews: acts of antisemitism and persecution against the Jews |
| Red | Other: various events important to the development of medieval Christianity. |
| Grey | Miscellaneous events to provide historical context and comparison |
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