1449
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Contents: political eventsscience food and drink |
English forces break the truce in the Hundred Years' War and capture the French town of Fougères in March; Parliament blames William de la Pole, 1st duke of Suffolk, for reopening hostilities, and French forces respond by retaking almost all of Normandy (see 1450).
Court favorites of Portugal's Afonso V persuade him to make war against his uncle Pedro, duc de Coimbra. The regent has given the country able and enlightened rule since 1438, but a stray crossbow shot kills him in May at the Battle of Alfarrobeira; Pedro's son is also killed, and his illegitimate half brother Afonso, count of Barcelos, gains power at the court.
France's Charles VII departs from Chinon August 14 in full armor, leaving behind his mâitresse-en-titre Agnès Sorel, who is once again with child. In large part through her efforts (and those of merchant Jacques Coeur), Charles has built the world's first regular army, making treaties with the Swiss and Scots to supply troops who are dependent not on feudal lords but on the king himself. Coeur this year loans the king 200,000 ecus—nearly a ton of gold; Charles succeeds rapidly in his reconquest of Normandy and enters Rouen November 10.
The grand prince of Muscovy Basil (Vasily) II concludes a non-aggression treaty with Lithuania.
The Turkestan prince Mohammed Taragai Ulugh-Beg is assassinated at age 55 by a Muslim religious fanatic hired by his son Abd al Latif, who ends the 2-year reign of Tamerlane's grandson.
The chief of a new Mongol federation captures the Chinese emperor Ying Zong (Cheng t'ung) in battle and puts an end to his 13-year reign. Ying's powerful eunuch courtier Wang Zhen (Wang Chen) has dismissed the advice of the emperor's military leaders and persuaded Ying to make war against the Oyrat tribesmen on his northwestern frontier, where Esen Taiji became chief 10 years ago, has stopped paying tribute to the Chinese, mobilizes his forces along the border, and ambushes the imperial army about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Beijing (Peking); the Mongols kill Wang along with all the leading Chinese generals. When they try to attack Beijing a few months later, the 51-year-old defense minister Yu Qian (Yü Ch'ien) places Ying's 21-year-old brother on the throne and drives the Mongols back into Mongolia. The new emperor Jingtai (Ching-t'ai) makes no effort to ransom Ying, and although the Mongols will hold Ying prisoner until he falls ill next year Jingtai will reign until 1457.
The Japanese shōgun Yoshimasa assumes power at age 14 to usher in a second period of Ashikaga art that will rival that of his grandfather Yoshimitsu, but Yoshimasa's 25-year shōgunate will be marked by uprisings, civil war, plague, and famine.
The late Turkestan prince Mohammed Taragai Ulugh-Beg leaves behind a curved device more than 130 feet long set on iron rails which he has used to catalog at least 1,018 stars in the constellations, the first such undertaking since the work of Ptolemy in the 2nd century. His tables are so precise that his calculations of the annual movements of Mars and Venus will differ from modern figures by only a few seconds. The Muslims have feared his learning.
The tea ceremony will gain popularity in the reign of the Japanese shōgun Yoshimasa through his patronage among the samurai and noble classes. Yoshimasa will encourage painting and drama. While his reign will otherwise be disastrous, the tea ceremony, standardized by the priest Shuko, now 27, will remain for centuries a cherished part of Japanese culture (see Rikyu Sen, 1591). The tea ceremony had its origin in an 8th century Chinese Tang dynasty book, Classic of Tea, by Lu Yü, a purist who called spiced tea and such no more than "the swill of gutters and ditches," but jasmine tea will become the most popular drink of northern China. The Japanese devotion to tea has gone far beyond anything in China, culminating in the hyper-aesthetic tea ceremony.
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