1351
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Contents: political eventscommerce religion |
The Battle of the Thirty (Combat des Trentes) March 27 pits 30 hand-picked French knights and squires against an equal number of hand-picked English knights and squires, all armed with lances, swords, daggers, and maces to contest the succession to the duchy of Brittany. Although the English and French have declared a truce in the conflict, the captain of Ploërmel, one John Bramborough, has continued to ravage the countryside around Josselin, whose captain, Jean de Beaumanoir, is marshal of Brittany and has issued a challenge to Bramborough, who supplements his 20 Englishmen with six German mercenaries and four Brabançons. When Beaumanoir is wounded and asks for water, Geoffrey du Bois tells him, "Drink your blood, Beaumanoir, that will quench your thirst!" But Guillaume de Montauban wins the day, overthrowing seven of the English champions and forcing the rest to surrender. All of the participants on both sides are either killed (like Bramborough) or seriously wounded, but the French treat their prisoners well and release them on payment of a small ransom.
The Order of the Star that will be replaced by the Order of St. Michael in 1469 is founded in France.
Zürich enters into a permanent alliance May 1 with Waldstätten as the city's burgomaster (and virtual dictator) Rudolf Brun brings it into the growing Helvetic Confederation (see 1350). Now 49, Brun seeks support for his military efforts against the counts of Rapperswil and the Hapsburgs.
Florence goes to war with Milan, whose archbishop and political leader Giovanni Visconti tries to gain control of Tuscany (see 1349). Florence permits her citizens to buy commutation of military service and employs mercenary captains (condottieri) to resist the Milanese (see 1353).
Bolognese forces conquer Pepoli.
Hungary's Louis I confirms the Golden Bull of 1222, modifying it by the law of entail that provides for the estate of a nobleman to pass to his oldest male survivor; it may not be given away or divided (if a line dies out completely, the family's estate shall pass to the crown, a provision that gives Louis almost complete financial freedom from the Diet). Serfs are to pay their lords one-ninth of their produce.
The Indian sultan Muhammad ibn Tughluk dies at Sonda March 20 at age 60 (approximate) after a 26-year reign that has earlier extended the power of the Delhi sultanate over most of the subcontinent. He has been on a campaign against the rebel Taghi in an effort to prevent further erosion of Tughluk prestige and sovereignty.
An English Statute of Labourers fixes wages at their 1346 levels and attempts to compel able-bodied men to accept work when it is offered. The shortage of workers resulting from the Black Death has combined with prosperity produced by the Hundred Years' War to create an economic and social crisis in England. The new law helps keep wages within bounds as England adjusts to the fact that she no longer has a glut of labor, but while Parliament also orders victualers and other tradesmen to sell their goods at reasonable prices, the Statute of Labourers destroys the country's social unity without resolving its problems.
English landholders enclose common lands for sheep raising and begin to develop great fortunes while unrest spreads through the English yeomanry that has emerged from its traditional passivity as it has shared in the plunder of war and in the higher wages paid to survivors of the plague.
Parliament enacts a Statute of Provisors setting up statutory procedures against the unpopular papal practice of making appointments to English Church benefices (see Statute of Praemunire, 1353).
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