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Venice's Council of Ten convicts the condottiere Carmagnola, conte di Castelnuovo, of treason after he leads an unsuccessful campaign against the Visconti forces of Milan, whose duke he served from 1416 to 1423. The doge intercedes in his behalf, but Carmagnola is beheaded April 5 at age 41.
Cosimo de' Medici returns in triumph to his native Florence after his family rigs the city elections to regain control of the governing council (signoria) (see 1431). His enemies go into exile and will not return (see 1433).
The German king Sigismund gives Mantua's Francesco II the hereditary title marquess of Mantua as a reward for his military services; the investiture legitimizes the Gonzaga family's usurpation of the Mantuan throne that began in 1328.
Powerful interests at Naples make offers to Aragon's Alfonso V that tempt him to intervene in the city-state's affairs (see 1423). He will spend the next few years preparing a fleet and army in Sicily (see 1435).
Philippe le Bon, duc de Burgundy, imprisons Jacoba of Bavaria's husband, Franz, in October and will force her to abdicate her countships next year (see 1430). Now 31, she will become duchess of Bavaria and countess of Ostrevant (in Bohemia), and will be permitted to remarry Franz in 1434.
French troops under the command of Jean d'Orléans capture Chartres and Lagny from the English.
Yolande of Anjou visits her daughter, Marie, and Charles VII at Chinon, bringing along her companion Agnès Sorel, 22, who is widely considered the most beautiful woman in France. Her beauty and wit have graced the luxurious court at Nancy of Yolande's son, René, who remains a prisoner of war (the duke of Burgundy will eventually pay his ransom) while Yolande's daughter-in-law, Isabelle, rules. Agnès charms not only the king but also his wife, Marie, and when it comes time for Yolande to leave, the king insists that Agnès remain. His impoverished court is full of rough soldiers, with none of the intellectual stimulation that Agnès knew at Nancy, but her heart is touched by Charles's need for companionship and she soon responds to his passion for her. Yolande sees an opportunity to attain her ambitions for Charles by means of Agnès's diplomatic skills (see 1433).
Constantinople withstands a siege by the Ottoman sultan Murad II, who withdraws to Adrianople after a stubborn defense by the Byzantine emperor John VII Palaeologus (but see 1453).
The Azores are discovered off the west coast of Portugal by Portuguese mariner Gonzalo Cabral.
English mystic Margery Kempe (née Brunham), 65, begins dictating her autobiography to two Lancashire scribes, recounting her life beginning with her childhood as the daughter in a prosperous East Anglian family in Lynn (her father was the mayor) who married a local merchant, thought she was near death as she gave birth to her first child, had a vision of Christ, recovered, and felt that she was "bound to God and would be his servant." Failing as a brewer after 3 years, she failed again as a miller; bore 14 children; persuaded her husband, John, to go on a pilgrimage with her; and after 8 weeks of voluntary chastity told him that she would rather he were dead than to have sex with him ever again. He agreed not to "meddle with" her thereafter on condition that they continue to lie in the same bed and that she stop fasting on Fridays. For most of her ascetic life thereafter she went on pilgrimages alone to various German duchies and principalities, Rome, and Jerusalem, dressed always in white, defying those, including the Archbishop of York, who accused her of heresy and tried to stop her from preaching. Having sought out the anchoress Julian of Norwich for long conversations, she will finish dictating in 1436 but her manuscript, in which she claims to have performed miracles, will not be discovered until 1934.
Painting: Reform of the Carmelite Rule (fresco) by Italian painter Fra Filippo Lippi, 26, who leaves the Florentine monastery in which he has lived since being orphaned in childhood and goes to Padua; The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (24 panels) by Jan van Eyck, who completes a work begun in 1420 by his late brother Hubert, who died in 1426.
Madeira produces more sugar cane, which is refined there for the first time (see 1425). The industry employs more than 1,000 men—including convicts, debtors, and Jews who have refused to accept conversion to Christianity—who have been brought from Portugal for the purpose (see 1456). By 1510 the islands will have about a dozen estates, using imported horses and workers.
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