CHRONOLOGY
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A.D. 410 |
Visigoths sack Rome |
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426 |
St. Augustine’s De civitate Dei |
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476 |
Fall of Rome, end of Western Roman Empire |
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493 |
Barbarian Clovis accepts Christ |
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539 |
Arthur of Britain slain |
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800 |
Charlemagne crowned in St. Peter’s |
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A.D. 1000 |
Leif Erikson reaches America |
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1100 |
200 years of crusades begin |
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1123 |
Future priests must be celibates |
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1215 |
Medieval papacy reaches culmination 1218–1224 Genghis Khan extends empire in west |
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1247 |
Robin Hood dies |
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1296 |
Marco Polo dictates memoirs |
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1347 |
First Black Death pandemic |
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1381 |
Oxford expels Wyclif |
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A.D. 1400 |
First stirrings of Renaissance |
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1414 |
Jan Hus betrayed |
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1433 |
Prince Henry the Navigator flourishes |
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1453 |
Constantinople falls |
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1458 |
Gutenberg’s Bible |
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1475 |
Birth of Cesare, Cardinal Borgia’s son |
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1477 |
Canterbury Tales |
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1478 |
Pope Sixtus IV conspires to slay Medicis during High Mass in Florence Cathedral |
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1480 |
Birth of Lucrezia, Cesare’s sister |
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1486 |
Dias rounds the tip of Africa |
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1484 |
Pied Piper murders 130 German children |
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1485 |
Le morte d’Arthur |
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1487 |
Torquemada named Grand Inquisitor Star Chamber in England |
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1488 |
King James III of Scotland murdered |
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1490 |
Savonarola’s first Bonfire of the Vanities |
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1492 |
Cardinal Borgia buys the papacy, becomes Pope Alexander VI Columbus discovers the Bahamas |
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1495 |
Vatican revels with naked prostitutes |
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First syphilis outbreak ravages Naples |
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1497? Amerigo Vespucci in the New World |
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1497 |
Lucrezia Borgia’s triple incest |
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The pope’s eldest son, Juan, is murdered |
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1498 |
Manutius’s five-volume Aristotle published |
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Rise of humanism |
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Savonarola burned at the stake |
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Lucrezia gives birth to the Infans Romanus |
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A.D. 1500 |
Michelangelo: Madonna and Child |
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1501 |
Over 1,000 printing shops now in Europe |
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Pope acknowledges paternity of his daughter’s child |
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1502 |
All books challenging papal authority ordered burned |
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1503 |
Julius II: the Warrior Pope |
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New universities include Wittenberg and Frankfurt an der Oder |
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Leonardo da Vinci: Mona Lisa |
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1505 |
Death of Russia’s Ivan the Great |
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1506 |
First stone of St. Peter’s Basilica laid |
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1507 |
Violent death of Cesare Borgia |
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Waldseemüller christens “America” |
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Martin Luther ordained a Catholic priest |
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1508 |
First English translation of Thomas à Kempis’s De imitatione Christi |
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1509 |
Aged 18, Henry VIII becomes England’s king |
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Humanist Erasmus: Encomium moriae |
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His books encourage critics of Rome |
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Beginnings of slave trade in America |
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Judenspiegel: an eruption of anti-Semitism |
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1510 |
Da Vinci discovers principle of water turbine |
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Two speakers of the House of Commons beheaded |
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Da Vinci’s Anatomy |
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1512 |
Michelangelo completes Sistine Chapel ceiling |
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1513 |
Balboa sights the Pacific |
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Ponce de Leon reaches Florida |
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Machiavelli’s Il principe, inspired by Cesare Borgia |
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1514 |
Copernicus postulates the solar system in De hypothesibus … commentariolus |
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Heroides Christianae: humanist blasphemy |
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1515 |
Raphael named chief architect of St. Peter’s |
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England’s Thomas Wolsey made cardinal and lord chancellor |
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1516 |
More’s Utopia |
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Birth of the future Bloody Mary |
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Raphael: The Sistine Madonna |
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1517 |
Wolsey hangs 60 May Day rioters |
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Strangling of Cardinal Petrucci |
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Turks sack Cairo |
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Pope Leo X’s jubilee sale of indulgences |
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Martin Luther brands Tetzel a fraud |
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Luther posts Ninety-five Theses on church door |
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1518 |
He defies Cardinal Cajetan |
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Titian: The Assumption |
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1519 |
Luther vs. Eck |
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Erasmus refuses to support Luther |
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Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian dies |
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Spain’s King Carlos becomes Emperor Charles V |
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Magellan leaves to sail around the world |
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1520 |
San Julián mutiny against Magellan |
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He finds and negotiates Strait of Magellan |
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Rome hurls Exsurge Domine at Luther |
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He publishes Adel deutscher Nation |
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The pope excommunicates him |
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Aleandro’s witchhunt of Erasmus begins |
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Henry VIII and France’s Francis I meet on Field of the Cloth of Gold |
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Erasmus is Europe’s most popular author |
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German gunsmith invents the rifle |
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Scipione del Ferro solves cubic equation |
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1521 |
Diet of Worms; Luther becomes a fugitive |
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Germany rises in support of him |
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Magellan crosses the Pacific |
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He dies in Philippines |
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1522 |
The voyage of circumnavigation ends, vindicating Copernicus |
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Protestantism sweeps northern Europe |
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Archbishop slays Von Sickingen in battle |
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1524 |
Peasants’ revolt in Germany |
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1525 |
Tyndale’s translation of New Testament |
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Jakob Fugger II dies worth 6 million guilders |
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1527 |
Second sack of Rome; end of Renaissance |
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1528 |
Plague sweeps England |
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1529 |
Fall of Wolsey; More made lord chancellor |
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1533 |
Henry VIII divorces Catherine, marries pregnant Anne Boleyn; she gives birth to the future Elizabeth I |
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1534 |
Rabelais: Gargantua |
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Defiant Luther translates Bible into German |
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1535 |
Sir Thomas More beheaded for treason |
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1536 |
Pietro Aretino’s pornographic Ragionamenti |
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Queen Anne Boleyn found guilty of adultery and incest and beheaded |
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Tyndale burned at the stake |
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Death of Erasmus; his books banned |
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Calvin: Christianae religionis institutio |