1374
Petrarch dies bent over a book
The aging poet, living quietly at Arquà in the Euganean Hills, was found in his study slumped over a Virgil. He had spent his last years revising sonnets for Laura, dead of plague twenty-six years earlier. Humanism's first great practitioner had died as he had lived: among the ancient Romans.
Timur conquers Khwarezm after five campaigns
After years of bloody back-and-forth, Timur finally crushed the Sufi dynasty of Khwarezm and razed the old oasis cities of Urgench and Kath. The irrigation canals that had sustained civilization on the Oxus delta for millennia were deliberately destroyed. Khwarezm's gardens became desert, and its refugees scattered across Central Asia.
Dance Mania sweeps the Rhineland
Crowds of pilgrims and townsfolk in Aachen and Cologne began dancing uncontrollably, foaming at the mouth, falling exhausted, only to rise and dance again. Contemporaries blamed demons; modern historians point to ergotism, hysterical contagion, or post-traumatic disorder in communities still reeling from plague. The episode crawled along the Rhine for months before dissipating.
Sacrobosco's Sphere taught at Paris and Oxford
The thirteenth-century astronomical textbook De sphaera mundi remained the undergraduate standard in late fourteenth-century universities. Student commentaries and annotations in surviving copies reveal an increasingly empirical interest in tracking planetary positions and resolving discrepancies between observed and predicted celestial events, preparing the ground for later breakthroughs in calendar reform and heliocentric speculation.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1374?
Saeculum lists 4 curated events from 1374. The most significant is Petrarch dies bent over a book: The aging poet, living quietly at Arquà in the Euganean Hills, was found in his study slumped over a Virgil.
What era was 1374 part of?
1374 falls within the Late Middle Ages (1301-1500). Plague, papal schism, and the seeds of nation-states.
Which regions saw notable events in 1374?
The curated events from 1374 span Europe and Central Asia.