13th century in literature

Updated on Dec 11, 2023

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in the 13th century.

See also: 13th century in poetry, 12th century in literature, 14th century in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

1204 – The Imperial Library of Constantinople is destroyed by Christian knights of the Fourth Crusade and its contents burned or sold.

1211 – Hélinand of Froidmont begins compiling his Chronicon.

1226: By August – The biographical poem L'histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, commissioned to commemorate the life of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (d. 1219), a rare example at this time of a life of a lay person, is completed, probably by a Tourangeau layman called John in the southern Welsh Marches.

1240 – Albert of Stade joins the Franciscan order and begins his chronicle.

1249: September 27 – Chronicler Guillaume de Puylaurens is present at the death of Raymond VII of Toulouse.

1251 – The carving of the Tripitaka Koreana, a collection of Buddhist scriptures recorded on some 81,000 wooden blocks, is completed.

1258: February 13 – The House of Wisdom in Baghdad is destroyed by forces of the Mongol Empire following the end of the Siege of Baghdad. It is said that the waters of the Tigris run black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river and red from the blood of the philosophers and scientists killed.

1274: May 1 – In Florence, the nine-year-old Dante Alighieri first sees the eight-year-old Beatrice, his lifelong muse.

1276 – Merton College, Oxford, is first recorded as having a collection of books, making its Library the world's oldest in continuous daily use. During the first century of its existence the books are probably kept in a chest.

1283 – Ram Khamhaeng, ruler of the Sukhothai Kingdom, creates the Thai alphabet (อักษรไทย), according to tradition.

1289 – Library of the Collège de Sorbonne, earliest predecessor of the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, is founded in Paris.

1298–1299 – Marco Polo dictates his Travels to Rustichello da Pisa while in prison in Genoa, according to tradition.

1300: Easter – The events of Dante's Divine Comedy take place.

New works

13th century

Huon of Bordeaux

Beatrice of Nazareth – Seven Ways of Holy Love, the earliest prose work in Dutch

Conrad of Saxony – Speculum Beatæ Mariæ Virginis

Zhou Mi – Miscellaneous observations from the year of Guixin (癸辛雜識)

c. 1200

Layamon – Brut

Nibelungenlied

Early 13th century

Ancrene Wisse

Farid al-Din Attar – Mantiqu 't-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds)

Codex Gigas

Anonymus – Gesta Hungarorum

Guido delle Colonne – Historia destructionis Troiae

Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks ("The Saga of Hervar and Heidrek")

Raghavanka – Harishchandra Kavya

Wolfram von Eschenbach – Parzival

c. 1203 – Hartmann von Aue – Iwein

1205 – Lancelot-Grail

c. 1208 – Saxo Grammaticus – Gesta Danorum

c. 1210

Herbers – Li romans de Dolopathos (translation of Seven Wise Masters)

Gottfried von Strassburg – Tristan

1212 – Kamo no Chōmei (鴨長明) – Hōjōki (方丈記, Account of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut)

1214 – Gervase of Tilbury – Otia Imperialia

c. 1215

Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube – Girard de Vienne

Rumi – Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi (masnavi in Persian)

c. 1217–1235 – Andayya – Kabbigara Kava ("Poets' Defender")

1220 – Ibn Hammad – Akhbar muluk bani Ubayd

c. 1220s – Snorri Sturlusson – Prose Edda

c. 1225

Francis of Assisi – Laudes creaturarum or Cantico delle creature ("Praise of God's creation"), the oldest known Italian poetry

King Horn, the oldest known English verse romance

1227 – Brother Robert – Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, an Old Norse translation of the Tristan and Iseult legend

c. 1227 – Henry of Latvia – Livonian Chronicle of Henry

c. 1230

La Mort le roi Artu, French prose romance

Guillaume de Lorris – First section of Romance of the Rose

Johannes de Sacrobosco – De sphaera mundi

Snorri Sturlusson – Heimskringla

c. 1230s – Post-Vulgate Cycle

c. 1240

Egil's Saga

Johannes de Garlandia – De Mensurabili Musica

Rudolf von Ems – Alexanderroman

c. 1240–1250 – Roger Bacon – Summa Grammatica

mid-13th century

Black Book of Carmarthen completed

Doön de Mayence

Franco of Cologne – Ars cantus mensurabilis

Old incidents in the Xuanhe period of the great Song Dynasty (大宋宣和遺事)

c. 1250 – Willem die Madoc maecte – Van den vos Reynaerde

c. 1250–1266 – Poema de Fernán González

c. 1250–1282 – Mechthild of Magdeburg – Das fließende Licht der Gottheit ("The Flowing Light of Divinity"; originally composed in Middle Low German)

1252

Calyla e Dymna, translation of the Panchatantra into Castilian

Jikkunshō

1258–1273 – Rumi – Masnavi

1259 – Bonaventure – Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum ("Journey of the Mind to God")

completed 1260 – Minhaj-i-Siraj – Tabaqat-i Nasiri

c. 1260

Le Récit d'un ménestrel de Reims

Sa'di – Gulistan, Bustan poets and texts in Persian

1263 – Bonaventure – Life of St. Francis of Assisi

c. 1263 – Jacob van Maerlant – Der Naturen Bloeme

c. 1264–1273 – Thomas Aquinas – Summa contra Gentiles

c. 1264 – Jacob van Maerlant – De Spieghel Historiael

1265

Book of Aneirin (written or copied at about this date)

Shokukokin Wakashū (続古今和歌集, "Collection of Ancient and Modern Times Continued" completed)

c. 1270

Ibn al-Nafis – Theologus Autodidactus

John of Capua – Directorium Vitae Humanae, translation of the Panchatantra

Poetic Edda written in Codex Regius, including Hávamál and Völwpá

c. 1270–1278 – Witelo – Perspectiva

1274 – Bonvesin da la Riva – Libro de le tre scritture (Negra, Rubra, Aurea) (Western Lombard)

c. 1275 – Jean de Meun – Second section of Romance of the Rose

late 13th century

Amir Khusrow – The Tale of the Four Dervishes (Persian: قصه چهار درویش‎‎, Ghesseh-ye Chahār Darvīsh)

Njáls saga

c. 1280

Bernard of Besse – Liber de Laudibus Beati Francisci

Heinrich der Vogler – Dietrichs Flucht

c. 1280s

The Owl and the Nightingale

'Anonymous IV' – Concerning the Measurement of Polyphonic Song

1283

Ramon Llull – Blanquerna

Mujū – Shasekishū

1288 – Bonvesin da la Riva – De magnalibus urbis Mediolani ("On the Marvels of Milan")

1288-9 – Amir Khusrow – Qiran-us-Sa’dain ("Meeting of the Two Auspicious Stars") (masnavi)

1290s? – "Sir Patrick Spens" (Scottish ballad)

1290-1

Dnyaneshwar – Dnyaneshwari

Amir Khusrow – Miftah-ul-Futooh ("Key to the Victories") (masnavi)

1293 – Dante Alighieri – La Vita Nuova

1294 – Amir Khusrow – Ghurratul-Kamal (diwan)

c. 1295 – Mathieu of Boulogne – Liber lamentationum Matheoluli ("Book of the Lamentations of Matheolus")

1298 – Amir Khusrow – Khamsa-e-Nizami

1299 – Rustichello da Pisa – The Travels of Marco Polo

c. 1300

Cursor Mundi

Gesta Romanorum

The Interlude of the Student and the Girl (Interludium de clerico et puella)

New drama

The Orphan of Zhao (趙氏孤兒 Zhaoshi guer)

Births

c. 1200: Matthew Paris, English chronicler and monk (died 1259)

1205: Tikkana, Telugu poet (died 1288)

1207: September 9 – Rumi, Persian poet (died 1273)

c. 1212 – Ibn Sahl of Seville, poet (died 1251)

1214 – Sturla Þórðarson, Icelandic writer of sagas and politician (died 1284)

1225: January 28 – Thomas Aquinas, Italian philosopher and theologian (died 1274)

c. 1230–1240 – Jacob van Maerlant, Flemish poet and writer in Middle Dutch (died c. 1288–1300)

1240 or 1241 – Mechtilde, German religious writer and saint (died 1298)

1248 – Angela of Foligno Italian mystic and saint (died 1309)

1265 – Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (died 1321)

1266 (probable) – Duns Scotus, Scottish philosopher and theologian (died 1308)

1275 – Dnyaneshwar, Maharashtrian sant and writer (died 1296)

1279 – Muktabai, Maharashtrian sant and Abhang poet (died 1297)

c. 1280 – Ranulf Higden, English chronicler and Benedictine monk (died 1364)

1283 (approximate)

Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, Castilian poet (died c. 1350)

Yoshida Kenkō (吉田兼好), Japanese author and Buddhist monk (died c. 1350)

1293 or 1294 – John of Ruysbroeck (Jan van Ruysbroeck), Flemish mystic (died 1381)

Unknown year – Thomas the Rhymer, Scottish laird and prophet

Deaths

Unknown – Palkuriki Somanatha, Telugu, Kannada and Sanskrit poet

1209

Nizami Ganjavi, Seljuk Empire Persian romantic epic poet (born c. 1141)

December 29 – Lu You, Chinese poet (born 1125)

c. 1210 – Gottfried von Strassburg, German writer

1212 – Adam of Dryburgh, Anglo-Scots theologian (born c. 1140)

1223 – Gerald of Wales, Cambro-Norman churchman and topographer (born c. 1146)

1228 (probable) – Gervase of Tilbury, English lawyer, statesman and writer (born c. 1150)

1241: September 23 – Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic historian, poet, and politician (born 1179)

1241: September 26 – Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家), Japanese waka poet, calligrapher, novelist, and scholar (born 1162)

1251

Ibn Sahl of Seville, poet (born c. 1212)

(probable) – Albertanus of Brescia, Latin prose writer (born c. 1195)

1252 (probable) – Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Cistercian chronicler

1253: October 9 – Robert Grosseteste, English churchman and scholar (born c. 1175)

1259 – Matthew Paris, English chronicler and monk (born c. 1200)

1268 – Henry de Bracton, English lawyer (born c. 1210)

1273: December 17 – Rumi, Persian poet (born 1207)

1274

March 7 – Thomas Aquinas, Italian philosopher and theologian (born 1225)

July 12 – Bonaventure, philosopher and theologian

1285 – Rutebeuf, French trouvère (born c. 1245)

1287: August 31 – Konrad von Würzburg, German poet

1294

Roger Bacon, English scholar (born c. 1214)

Guittone d'Arezzo, Tuscan poet (born c. 1235)

In literature

John Arden's play Left-Handed Liberty (1965) is set around the creation of Magna Carta in England in 1215.

References

13th century in literature Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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