1350
Red Turban discontent spreads in Yuan China
Persistent flooding of the Yellow River, plague outbreaks, and forced corvée labor on a colossal river-rerouting project pushed peasants in Henan and Anhui into open millenarian rebellion. Followers of the White Lotus society wrapped red cloth around their heads and waited for the Maitreya Buddha and the end of Mongol rule.
Ayutthaya Kingdom founded by Ramathibodi I
On an island at the confluence of three rivers in the Chao Phraya basin, U Thong crowned himself king and established the Thai kingdom that would dominate mainland Southeast Asia for four centuries. Ayutthaya's cosmopolitan markets would draw Chinese, Japanese, Persian, and eventually Portuguese traders to its gilded spires, making it one of the great entrepots of Asia.
Statute of Labourers attempts to freeze wages
The English parliament, alarmed by surviving peasants demanding double wages in a labor market thinned by plague, decreed that all able-bodied people must work for the rates current before the plague. Enforcement was patchy, resentment universal. The statute would be one of the grievances behind the great Peasants' Revolt thirty-one years later.
Black Death reaches Scandinavia and the Baltic
Plague ships carried Yersinia pestis to Bergen, Stockholm, and the Hanseatic ports, killing perhaps half the population of Norway and devastating the thin-spread settlements of northern Europe. Entire fjord communities vanished without a single survivor. The Norwegian kingdom, already weakened by union with Sweden, never fully recovered its pre-plague population or independence.
Pedro the Cruel takes the Castilian throne
The new king of Castile, sixteen and humorless, began his reign by ordering the murder of his father's mistress. He would acquire the epithet 'the Cruel' through years of poisonings and decapitations, drag Castile into the Hundred Years' War as an English ally, and die at his half-brother Henry of Trastamara's hand in a campaign tent.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1350?
Saeculum lists 5 curated events from 1350. The most significant is Red Turban discontent spreads in Yuan China: Persistent flooding of the Yellow River, plague outbreaks, and forced corvée labor on a colossal river-rerouting project pushed peasants in Henan and Anhui…
What era was 1350 part of?
1350 falls within the Late Middle Ages (1301-1500). Plague, papal schism, and the seeds of nation-states.
Which regions saw notable events in 1350?
The curated events from 1350 span East Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe.