The agreement reorganizing the Byzantine Empire's affairs is finalized, asAnna of Savoy's sonJohn V Palaiologos marries Kantakouzenos' 15-year-old daughterHelena.
Genoese ships fleeing the1331Black Death plague inTheodosia stop in Constantinople, contaminating the city.
May 20 –Cola di Rienzo, a Roman commoner, declares himself Emperor of Rome, in response to years of baronial power struggles.
December 27 – To fund military operations in Corsica, the Republic of Genoa has to borrow at 20%, from an association of creditors known as theCompera nuova acquisitionis Corsicæ.[4]
After years of resistance against the Delhi SultanMuhammad bin Tughluq, theBahmani Kingdom, a Muslim Sultanate in theDeccan, was established on August 3, when King Ala-ud-din Hasan Bahman Shah was crowned in a mosque inDaulatabad.[7] Later in the year, the Kingdom's capital was moved from Daulatabad to the more centralGulbarga.[8][9] Southeast Asia suffered a drought which dried up an important river which ran through the capital city of the Kingdom of Ayodhya, forcing the King to move the capital to a new location on theLop Buri River.[10]
Citizens ofTournai bury plague victims. Miniature from "The Chronicles of Gilles Li Muisis" (1272-1352). Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, MS 13076-77, f. 24v.
On February 2 theByzantine Empire'scivil war betweenJohn VI Kantakouzenos and the regency ended with John VI entering Constantinople. On February 8, an agreement was concluded with the empressAnna of Savoy, whereby he andJohn V Palaiologos would rule jointly. The agreement was finalized in May when John V married Kantakouzenos' 15-year-old daughter. The war had come at a high cost economically and territorially, and much of the Empire was in need of rebuilding.[11] To make matters worse, in May Genoese ships fleeing theBlack Death in Kaffa stopped in Constantinople. The plague soon spread from their ships to the city.[12] By autumn, the epidemic had spread throughout theBalkans, possibly through contact with Venetian ports along the Adriatic Sea.[13] Specific cases were recorded in the northern Balkans on December 25, in the city ofSplit.[14]
On May 20Cola di Rienzo, a Roman commoner, declared himself Emperor of Rome in front of a huge crowd in response to what had been several years of power struggles among the upper-class barony. PopeClement VI, along with several of Rome's upper-class nobility, united to drive him out of the city in November.[15] In October, Genoese ships arrived in southern Italy with the Black Plague, beginning the spread of the disease in the region.[12][16]Jews were first accused of ritual murders in Poland in 1347.[17]Casimir III of Poland issues Poland's first codified collection of laws after the diet ofWiślica. Separate laws are codified for greater and lesser Poland.[18][19]
In the continuingHundred Years' War, the English won the city ofCalais in a treaty signed in September. In a meeting with theEstates General in November, the French King Phillip was told that in the recent war efforts they had "lost all and gained nothing."[20] Phillip, however, was granted a portion of the money he requested and was able to continue his war effort.[21] The English King Edward offered Calais a package of economic boosts which would make Calais the key city connecting England with France economically.[22] Edward returned to England at that height of his popularity and power and for six months celebrated his successes with others in the English nobility. Although the Kingdom's funds were largely pushed towards the war, building projects among the more wealthy continued, with, for example, the completion ofPembroke College in this year.[21]
The French city ofMarseille recognized the plague on September 1 and by November 1 it had spread toAix-en-Provence. The earliest recorded invasion of the plague into Spanish territory was inMajorca in December 1347, probably through commercial ships.[14] Three years of plague began in England.[23]
^Setton, Kenneth M. (1976).The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), Volume I: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. p. 207.ISBN0-87169-114-0.
