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Contents: political eventsmedicine literature |
German electors choose the landgrave of Thuringia Henry Raspe as king May 22 to replace the deposed Friedrich II. Hungary's Béla IV defeats the last Austrian Babenberg duke Friedrich II of Austria in battle near the Leitha River June 15 and Friedrich dies on the battlefield, ending a 16-year reign and ending the dynasty that began in 976. The deposed emperor seizes the vacant dukedom of Austria and Styria, using ruthless measures to suppress a formidable conspiracy of discontented Apulian barons (see 1278). Henry Raspe defeats Friedrich's 18-year-old son Conrad August 5 at the Battle of Nidda near Frankfurt, but Conrad obtains help from the towns and from his Wittelsbach father-in-law, Otto II, duke of Bavaria, and drives Henry Raspe out of Thuringia (see 1247). Bohemia's Wenceslas I secures the hand of the late Austrian duke's daughter for his son Ladislas, but Ladislas will soon die and Wenceslas will lose Austria.
The Welsh prince David ap Llywelyn dies after a 6-year reign in which the northern state of Gwynedd has nearly collapsed; his nephews Llywelyn and Owain divide what remains of his territory between them (see 1255).
The Turkish Seljuk sultan Kay-Khusraw dies and his Anatolian realm is divided among his three sons, the eldest inheriting the area west of the Kizil River and beginning a 14-year reign as Izz ad-Din Kay-Kaus II. He gains support from local Byzantine lords and from Turkmen chiefs on his borders; one of his brothers will gain backing from Mongol brothers and Persian bureaucrats in 1248 and reign until 1265 as Rukn ad-Din Qilch Arslan IV, the other will gain similar backing and reign from 1249 until 1257 as Ala ad-Din Kay-Qubadh II, but all three brothers are mere figureheads, with the real power residing in the hands of administrators such as Shams ad-Din Isfahani (the administrator Jalal ad-Din Qaratay will rule in eastern Anatolia beginning in 1249, and Muin ad-Din Suleiman Parvana will exercise the strongest control from 1261 to 1277; see 1256).
Mongols at Karakorum elect the eldest son of the late Ughedai (Ogödei) as great khan: now 40, Kuyuk (Güyük) owes his election partly to the wiles of his mother and the political skills of his Christian advisers (he subscribes to the heretical Christian faith of Nestorianism), Batu Khan of the Golden Horde is also a grandson of the late Genghis Khan and resents being passed over, but Kuyuk's early death in 1248 will keep the dispute from tearing the empire apart.
Yaroslav II, grand prince of Vladimir, travels to Mongolia, meets with the new great khan Kuyuk (Güyük), agrees to serve Russia's new Mongol rulers, returns home, but is poisoned to death in September, leaving his son Aleksandr Nevski to contend with his younger brother Andrew for the right to succeed. Andrew appeals to Batu Khan of the Golden Horde, who sends them to the great khan; but Batu is out of favor with the great khan, who knows that Aleksandr is Batu's favorite and violates Russian custom of primogeniture by appointing Andrew grand prince of Vladimir while making Aleksandr prince of Kiev.
Franciscan monk Bartholomaeus Anglicus says that leprosy comes from eating hot food, pepper, garlic, and the meat of diseased dogs, but he also says that it is both contagious and hereditary. Prevalent since ancient times, the disfiguring disease will persist throughout this millennium and into the next (see Hansen, 1874).
Poetry: Meier Helmbrecht by German aphoristic poet Wernher der Gertenaere is the earliest German peasant romance. Wernher is one of the 12 founders of the Meistersinger guild.
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