14th century

Tamerlane The Conqueror, the founder of the Timurid Empire.

Mansa Musa I of Mali, described as the wealthiest individual in history

Europe in 1328

Timur defeats the Sultan of Delhi, Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq, in the winter of 1397–1398, painting dated 1595–1600.

The successor states of the Mongol Empire in 1335: the Ilkhanate, Golden Horde, Yuan dynasty and Chagatai Khanate.

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was a century lasting from 1 January 1301 (MCCCI), to 31 December 1400 (MCD). It is estimated that the century witnessed the death of more than 45 million lives from political and natural disasters in both Europe and the Mongol Empire. West Africa and the Indian Subcontinent experienced economic growth and prosperity.

In Europe, the Black Death claimed 25 million lives – wiping out one third of the European population – while the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France fought in the protracted Hundred Years' War after the death of Charles IV, King of France led to a claim to the French throne by Edward III, King of England. This period is considered the height of chivalry and marks the beginning of strong separate identities for both England and France as well as the foundation of the Italian Renaissance and Ottoman Empire.

In Asia, Tamerlane (Timur), established the Timurid Empire, history's third largest empire to have been ever established by a single conqueror. Scholars estimate that Timur's military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population at the time. Synchronously, the Timurid Renaissance emerged. In the Arab world, historian and political scientist Ibn Khaldun and explorer Ibn Battuta made significant contributions. In India, the Bengal Sultanate got divided from the Delhi Sultanate, a major trading nation in the world. The sultanate described by the Europeans as the richest country to trade with. The Mongol court was driven out of China and retreated to Mongolia, the Ilkhanate collapsed, the Chaghatayid dissolved and broke into two parts, and the Golden Horde lost its position as a great power in Eastern Europe.

In Africa, the wealthy Mali Empire, a global leader of gold production, reached its territorial and economic height under the reign of Mansa Musa I of Mali, the wealthiest individual of the medieval times, and according to various sources as history's ever.

Events

Sheikh Ibn Taymiyyah's script

Silver taka with a lion symbol

This 14th-century statue from Tamil Nadu, present day India depicts the gods Shiva (on the left) and Uma (on the right). It is housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

• The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age.
• Beginning of the Ottoman Empire, early expansion into the Balkans.
• Early 14th century: Attributed to Kao Ninga Monk Sewing is made. Kamakura period. It is now kept at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
• An account of Buddha's life, translated earlier into Greek by Saint John of Damascus and widely circulated to Christians as the story of Barlaam and Josaphat, became so popular that the two were venerated as saints.
• Singapore emerges for the first time as a fortified city and trading centre of some importance.
• Islam reaches Terengganu, on the Malay Peninsula.
• The Hausa found several city-states in the south of modern Niger.
• The poet Petrarch coins the term Dark Ages to describe the preceding 900 years in Europe, beginning with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 through to the renewal embodied in the Renaissance.
• Iwan vault, Jamé Mosque of Isfahan, Isfahan, Persia (Iran), is built.
• Work begins on the Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe, built of un-cemented, dressed stone. The city's population is now between 10,000 and 40,000.

1300s

• 1300: The Turku Cathedral was consecrated in Turku.
• 1300: Sri Rajahmura Lumaya, known in his shortened name Sri Lumay, a half-Tamil and half Malay minor prince of the Chola dynasty in Sumatra established the Indianized Rajahnate of Cebu in Cebu Island on the Philippine Archipelago.
• 1305-1314: The Trials of the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar arrested and tried. Jacques de Molay, the last grand master of the Templars, is executed in 1314.
• 1309: King Jayanegara succeeds Kertarajasa Jayawardhana as ruler of Majapahit.
• 1309–1377: The Avignon papacy transfers the seat of the Popes from Italy to France

1310s

• The Great Famine of 1315-1317 kills millions of people in Europe.
• 1318–1330: An Italian Franciscan friar, Mattiussi, visited Sumatra, Java, and Banjarmasin in Borneo. In his record he described the kingdom of Majapahit.

1320s

• 1320: Władysław I the Elbow-high is crowned King of Poland which leads to its later unification.
• 1323: Malietoafaiga ordered cannibalism to be abolished in Tutuila, now known as American Samoa.
• 1325: Forced out of previous locations, the Mexica found the city of Tenochtitlan.
• 1327: Tver Uprising against the Golden Horde.
• 1328: Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi succeeds Jayanegara as ruler of Majapahit.
• 1328-1333: Wang Dayuan, a traveller from Quanzhou, China during the Yuan dynasty, visited Luzon & Mindanao in the Philippines, many places in Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and India, and reached Dhofar and Aden.
• Beginning of the Renaissance in Italy.

1330s

• 1335: The death of the Ilkhan Abu Said causes the disintegration of the Mongol rule in Persia.
• 1336: The Vijayanagara Empire is founded in South India by Harihara I.
• 1337: The Hundred Years' War begins when Edward III of England lays claim to the French throne.

1340s

• 1345–1346: The French recruit troops and ships in Genoa, Monaco, and Nice.

The Hundred Years' War, Battle of Crécy between the English and French in 1346.

• 1346: English forces led by Edward III defeat a French army led by Philip VI of France in The Battle of Crécy, a major point in the Hundred Years' War which marks the rise of the longbow as a dominant weapon in Western Europe.
• 1347–1351: The Black Death kills around a third of the population of Europe.
• 1347: Adityawarman moved the capital of Dharmasraya and established the kingdom of Malayupura in Pagarruyung, West Sumatra.
• 1348: The 6.9-magnitude 1348 Friuli earthquake centered in Northern Italy was felt across Europe. Contemporary minds linked the quake with the Black Death and Great Famine, fueling fears that the Biblical Apocalypse had arrived.

1350s

Burying coffins of Black Death victims in Tournai.

• 1350: Ramathibodi I establishes the Ayutthaya Kingdom.
• 1350: Hayam Wuruk, styled Sri Rajasanagara, succeeds Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi as ruler of Majapahit; his reign is considered the empire's 'Golden Age'. Under its military commander Gajah Mada, Majapahit stretches over much of modern-day Indonesia.
• 1353: Fa Ngum established the Lan Xang kingdom in Laos.
• 1356: The Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire headed by Emperor Charles IV issues the Golden Bull of 1356, establishing various constitutional aspects of the Empire, the most significant being the electoral college to elect future emperors.
• 1356: The Diet of the Hansa is held in Lübeck, formalising what up until then had only been a loose alliance of trading cities in northern Europe and officially founding the Hanseatic League.
• 1357: Scotland retains its independence with the signing of the Treaty of Berwick, thus ending the Wars of Scottish Independence.
• 1357: In the Battle of Bubat, the Sundanese royal family is massacred by the Majapahit army by the order of Gajah Mada; the death toll includes Sundanese king Lingga Buana and princess Dyah Pitaloka Citraresmi, who committed suicide.

1360s

• 1363: The Battle of Lake Poyang, a naval conflict between Chinese rebel groups led by Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang, takes place from August to October, constituting one of the largest naval battles in history.
• 1365: The Old Javanese text Nagarakertagama is written.
• 1366: Tepanec Tlatoani Acolnahuácatl accepts Acamapichtli as the first tlatoani of Tenochtitlan for the Mexica Empire.
• 1368: The end of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.

1370s

• 1371: The Battle of Maritsa, the Serbs are defeated by the Ottomans, with most of Serb nobility being killed.
• 1377: Majapahit sends a punitive expedition against Palembang in Sumatra. Palembang's prince, Parameswara (later Iskandar Syah) flees, eventually finding his way to Malacca and establishing it as a major international port.
• 1378: The Great Schism of the West begins, eventually leading to three simultaneous popes.
• 1378: Battle of the Vozha River between Russians and Mongols.
• 1378–1382: Ciompi Revolt occurs in Florence.

1380s

The Portuguese interregnum, Battle of Aljubarrota between the Portuguese and Castilians in 1385.

• 1380: Russian principalities defeat the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo.
• 1381: John Wycliffe is dismissed from the University of Oxford for criticism of the Roman Catholic Church, thus the Lollardy movement rises in England.
• 1381: Peasants' Revolt in England.
• 1382: Khan Tokhtamysh captures Moscow.
• 1382: Barquq rise to power to start the Burji dynasty, the Circassian Mamuluk Dynasty in Egypt.
• 1385: Battle of Aljubarrota between Portugal and Castile. Portugal maintains independence.
• 1385: Union of Krewo between Poland and Lithuania.
• 1389: Battle of Kosovo between Serbs and Ottoman Turks; Prince Lazar, Sultan Murad I and Miloš Obilić are killed.
• 1389: Wikramawardhana succeeds Sri Rajasanagara as ruler of Majapahit.

1390s

• 1391: Anti-Jewish pogroms spreads throughout Spain and Portugal, and many thousands of Jews are massacred.
• 1392: Taejo of Joseon establishes the Joseon Dynasty.
• 1396: The Battle of Nicopolis, in which the Ottomans defeat a large crusader army composed of knights and men-at-arms by the kingdoms of Hungary, France, the Holy Roman Empire, England and Wallachia.
• 1396: The Second Bulgarian Empire ends, with the capture of the last stronghold fortress of Vidin and its king Ivan Sratsimir by the Ottomans.
• 1397: The Kalmar Union is established, uniting Norway, Sweden and Denmark into one kingdom.

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

• List of 14th century inventions
• Music of the Ars nova
• The technique of knitting
• Foundation of the University of Cracow
• Chinese text the Huolongjing by Jiao Yu describes fire lances, fire arrows (rockets), rocket launchers, land mines, naval mines, bombards, cannons, and hollow cast iron cannonballs filled with gunpowder, and their use to set ablaze enemy camps.
• First pound lock in Europe reportedly built in Vreeswijk, Netherlands in 1373