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Contents: political eventsart architecture, real estate |
A Swedish army headed by Karl Knutsson enters the Danish town of Fagerhult in February, spreads out through Skania in the following 3 weeks (see 1448). The Swedes set fires as they go, burning the city of Helsingborg along with all the ships in its harbor, destroying Lund and several towns the same way, massacring a large levy of peasants at the town of Dalby, plundering the counties of Gärd and Villand, burning the old market town of Wä and the city of Sölvesburg to the ground, and laying waste part of Bleckinge before ravaging Halland (see 1457).
Scotland's James II invites the 26-year-old William Douglas, 8th earl of Douglas, to Stirling Castle under a safe-conduct pass; he demands that the earl dissolve his league with Alexander Lindsay, 4th earl of Crawford, and when Douglas refuses the king murders him with his own hands, being helped by his courtiers. Douglas has recovered Galloway and Wigtown by marrying his cousin, Margaret Douglas, the "Fair Maid of Galloway," and the king has granted him the estate of Bothwell, but James now tries to confiscate the earl's lands. The earl's 25-year-old brother James inherits the title and tries to avenge William's murder, but his allies desert him, he submits to the homicidal king in August, and he marries his brother's widow in order to keep the family estates together (see 1454).
The German king Friedrich of Hapsburg makes Austria an archduchy January 9, marries Leonora of Portugal March 16 (her uncle Henrique [Henry the Navigator] has helped arrange the marriage), and is crowned Holy Roman Emperor March 19 by Pope Nicholas V, the last emperor to be crowned at Rome. Now 36, Friedrich will reign until 1493 as Friedrich III, but his countrymen are indignant at his capitulation to the pope; their indignation will grow as they witness his apathy toward Ottoman aggression.
France's dauphin Louis strengthens ties with the Swiss cantons, making treaties also with Trier, Cologne, and other towns and with Saxony as part of an anti-Burgundian policy.
War begins in June between the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI and the new Ottoman sultan Mehmet II as the sultan completes fortifications that control the flow of supplies to Constantinople. The sultan's Castle of Europe (Rumili Hisar) opposite the older Castle of Asia (Anadoli Hisar) at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus has alarmed the Byzantines.
Painting: The Braque Triptych by Rogier van der Weyden.
Sculpture: The tomb of Villana delle Botte is completed by architect-sculptor Bernardo Rossellino in Florence's Church of Santa Maria Novella.
Florence's Medici Palace is completed on the Via de Ginori by architect Michelozzo di Bartolommeo for Cosimo de' Medici, whose family will occupy the palazzo for 100 years (the Riccardi family will later acquire it).
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