14th century
(13th century - 14th century - 15th century - more centuries)
As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was that century which lasted from 1301 to 1400.
Events
- The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age
- Beginning of the Ottoman Empire
- The Avignon papacy transfers the seat of the Popes from Italy to France
- Black Death kills about one third of European population (1347 - 1351)
- the end of Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368)
- The heresy of Lollardy rises in England
- The Great Schism of the West begins in 1378, eventually leading to 3 simultaneous popes.
- An account of Buddha's life, translated earlier in to Greek by St John of Damascus and widely circulated to Christians as the story of Barlaam and Josaphat had become so popular that Buddha was made a Catholic saint (Josaphat).
- Singapore emerges for the first time as a fortified city and trading centre of some importance.
- Peasants' Revolt in England
Significant people
- Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian author
- Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet
- Francesco Petrarch, Italian poet and writer
- William of Ockham, English Franciscan friar and philosopher
Inventions, discoveries, introductions
- The mechanical clock