1522
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The uncrowned Holy Roman Emperor Carlos I (Charles V) expels French forces from Milan with help from Florence, Mantua, and the papacy. Former Florentine gonfalonier Piero di Tommaso Soderini dies at Rome June 13 at age 70. England's Henry VIII joins the war against France.
Henry VIII makes Piers Butler his lord deputy of Ireland. A cousin of Thomas Butler, 7th earl of Ormonde, who died childless, Butler seized the family estates and claimed the earldom in 1515 and has fought for the English against the rebel Irish lords, who have called him "The Red Earl." Now 55, Butler will renounce his claim to the earldom of Ormonde in 1528 and be made earl of Ossory but will be made earl of Ormonde 10 years later.
The Knights of St. John defend the island of Rhodes against the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I, who triumphs December 21 after a 6-month siege, taking the island from the order that has held it since 1306 (see Malta, 1530; Mohács, 1526).
The Ming emperor Jia Qing comes to power and expels the Portuguese for acts of piracy by Simao d'Andrade and others; he will reign until 1566.
Hispaniola has a large-scale slave rebellion that will be followed in the next 31 years by at least 10 such uprisings in the Spanish possessions.
Ferdinand Magellan's lieutenant Juan Sebastián de Elcano returns to Seville in September aboard the Vittoria with 17 other European survivors of the Magellan expedition plus four Indians (see 1521). Elcano has survived scurvy, starvation, and harassment by the Portuguese, but more than 250 men of Magellan's original complement have either perished or been taken prisoner, and although Carlos I heaps honors on the scurvy-ridden survivors and hails their achievement, the Vittoria's cargo of valuable spices scarcely pays for the expedition that has accomplished the first circumnavigation of the world (see 1525).
France incurs her first national debt as the government borrows money to support the lavish expenditures of François I for his court (which comprises several thousand civil servants, personal servants, princes of the blood, musicians, poets, cooks, and others), construction of castles, and military adventures.
Martin Luther returns to Wittenberg while Carlos I is distracted with his war against France and initiates public worship with the liturgy in German. Two German knights help spread the Reformation. Franz von Sickengen, 41, fails in a siege of Trier, is himself besieged at Landstuhl, and falls in battle; Ulrich von Hutten, 33, flees to an island in the Zürichsee and will die there next year after a dispute with Desiderius Erasmus. Von Hutten has joined with Luther in criticizing the Augsburg merchant Jakob Fugger II for urging the pope to amend or even rescind the medieval prohibition against charging interest on loans.
Huldreich Zwingli condemns celibacy and Lenten fasting, calls on the bishop of Constance to permit priests to marry (or at least wink at their marriages), and will himself marry in 1524.
Poetry: Colin Clout and Why Come Ye Nat to Courte? by John Skelton are clerical satires directed against the rising power of Cardinal Wolsey.
Painting: The Resurrection altar by Titian.
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