1344

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political events

The Spanish Moors lose the southern port of Algeciras to Castile's Alfonso XI.

commerce

Florence's Bardi banking house fails in January, going the way of the Scali, Peruzzi, Acciauoli, and Frescobaldi houses (see 1343). The Bardis have had to keep loaning funds to England in order to assure continued supplies of raw wool for their textile industry, and Florentine banking prestige plummets as England's Edward III repudiates his debts (see 1340). Civil war begins in Florence, the commune is restored under the sway of a businessmen's oligarchy, the smaller guilds lose power, and workers who belong to no guild are further exploited as the Florentine oligarchy seeks access to the sea, expansion in Tuscany to dominate trade routes, and support of the popes in order to retain papal banking business.

Spanish olive oil, fruit, and fine manufactured goods are exported from the South, wool and hides from the North as Castile and Aragon increase their commerce.

The term Hanseatic League is used for the first time to denote the confederation of Baltic traders now so prominent in fish export (see 1300; 1360).

religion

Swedish provincial governor Ulf Gudmarsson dies, and his widow, Birgit, or Birgitta (Brigid, or Bridget) retires to a life of penance and prayer near the Cistercian monastery of Alvastra on Lake Vetter. Now 41, she began having visions of the Virgin Mary at age 7, married Gudmarsson at age 13, has borne eight children and been a proper wife, and has made pilgrimages to Norway and Spain (see 1345).

Summa doctoris profundi (or De causa Dei contra Pelagium e devirtute causarum ad suos Mertonenses by Thomas of Bradwardine places so much emphasis on divine concurrence with all human volition that his followers interpret Bradwardine's treatise on grace and free will to mean that there is a universal determinism. The mathematician-philosopher was summoned to London 9 years ago by Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, who obtained for him the chancellorship of St. Paul's Cathedral.

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