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François de Lorraine, 2nd duc de Guise, is murdered by a Huguenot at Orléans February 24 (his 44th birthday), leaving Catherine de' Medici in control of Catholic forces in France (see 1562). The Peace of Amboise signed by Catherine March 19 is an edict ending the year-long conflict between French Catholics and Huguenots. Military leader Jacques de Savoie, 32, duc de Nemours, has had his eye on Anne d'Este, widow of the duc de Guise, and repudiates his promise to marry Françoise de Rohan, Mlle. de La Garnache, who has borne him a son (he will marry Anne in 1566). Catherine grants limited toleration, but the peace will not be lasting (see 1567).
Mary, Queen of Scots, sends her secretary William Maitland of Lethington, 35, to England to claim the right of succession to Elizabeth (see 1560), but she receives no declaration from her cousin. Mary's maids of honor discover Pierre de Bocosel de Chastelard hiding under her bed at Holyroodhouse. She forgives him for violating her privacy, but when he repeats the offense he is seized, sentenced, and promptly hanged (see Poetry, 1865).
Sweden's Erik XIV invades Denmark, ravaging the southern part of Halland and plundering the region surrounding the city of Halmstad (see 1535; 1564).
Burma's king Braginoco begins a war against Siam, which has refused to recognize his suzerainty (see 1555; 1564).
China's Ming generals overcome Japanese pirates on the country's south coast (see 1555).
John Hawkins sells a cargo of 105 African slaves in Hispaniola (300 by some accounts) (see 1562).
"If any African were carried away without his free consent," says Queen Elizabeth, "it would be detestable and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertaking" (but see 1564).
De Praestigiis Daemonum by Flemish physician Johann Wier, 47, maintains that witches are merely miserable people with distorted minds. "Since witches are usually old women of melancholic nature and small brains (women who get easily depressed and have little trust in God) there is no doubt that the devil easily affects and deceives their minds by illusions and apparitions that so bewilder them that they confess to actions that they are very far from having committed." But much of the world will for centuries remain under the influence of the 1489 handbook on witch-hunting Malleus Maleficarum (see Loudon, 1634; Salem, 1692).
Parliament enacts a Statute of Apprentices.
Parliament enacts a Statute of Artificers that regulates trade and employment contracts, gives justices of the peace responsibility for fixing wages in their counties, and sets women's wages at one-third to one-half those of men, even though the women work the same number of hours and often perform tasks just as difficult.
A sixth (and final) epidemic of the sweating sickness devastates London, killing more than 17,000 in a population of 66,000. Most believe the mysterious plague to be God's punishment for man's sins.
The Anglican Church (Church of England, or Episcopal Church) is established by the adoption of the Thirty-Nine Articles, a modification of the 42 articles published by Thomas Cranmer in 1551. The Church is largely Protestant in dogma but has a liturgy reminiscent of the Tridentine liturgy established by the Council of Trent convened in 1545 and a hierarchy similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church.
Queen Elizabeth tolerates English dissenters but persecutes Catholics, Unitarians (who deny the Trinity), and Puritan extremists known as Brownists who will form the nucleus of the Congregational Church.
Russians drown Jews in the Dvina River by order of the czar Ivan IV (the Terrible).
Nonfiction: De re militari et de bello by former Piedmontese army commander Pierino Belli, 61, is an examination of military law and the rules for conducting war. Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, recognized Belli's talents as a jurist and appointed him a councillor of state 3 years ago.
Painting: Landscape with the Flight into Egypt and The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel; Milanese artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 36, personifies Summer in a painting that includes an ear of maize (the "turkey corn" is familiar throughout much of the Mediterranean).
The Tuileries Palace goes up at Paris for the queen mother Catherine de' Medici (see 1792).
An official English document is published under the title "Arguments in favour of establishing Wednesday as an additional fish day," based on the need "for the restoring of the Navye for England to have more fish eaten and therefor one daye more in the weeke ordeyned to be a fysshe daye, and that to be Wednesdaye, rather than any other" (see 1554). Spurred on by Queen Elizabeth's desire to assist the nation's shipbuilding industry, develop a fishing fleet from which to draw naval recruits, and drive down the price of meat, Parliament enacts legislation giving England more meatless days (Fridays and Saturdays as well as Wednesdays) than any other country in Europe. Violations of the new law are punishable by 3 months' imprisonment or a £3 fine. Eating meat during Lent is also forbidden. A London woman is pilloried for having meat in her tavern during Lent (see 1595).
Portuguese traveler Antonio Galvano writes about the island of Ternate in the Moluccas, where "from its highest place, flakes and streams like unto fire flow continually into the sea." Dense forests of clove trees and towering, evergreen nutmeg trees more than 80 feet high make the island a rich source of spices.
Sir John Hawkins by some accounts brings the potato to England aboard one of his slave ships returning from New Castile, but the potato from Bogotá may be a sweet potato. Farmers plant the tubers to end England's reliance on imports for her sweet potato pies (see Hakluyt, 1584).
France has a famine that will be exacerbated by the country's religious wars.
Japan has rice riots at Mikawa following requisition of crops by the Tokugawa family and imposition of heavy taxes. Buddhist temples of the Ikko sect are burnt in retaliation by the daimyo Ieyasu.
The Portuguese missionary Luis Frois arrives in Japan and gives the Taira clan general Nobunaga Oda, 29, a velvet hat and sugar confections (confeitos) in a glass jar as a gesture of friendship. Frois will write home describing Japanese cuisine and eating habits, which do not yet include eating in company at common tables (each diner now has his own small table, a practice that will continue until the 18th century and—for ceremonial occasions—even to the final years of the 20th century).
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