14th century in literature

Events

1323 – The name Pléiade is adopted by a group of fourteen poets (seven men and seven women) in Toulouse.

1324: 3 May (Holy Cross Day) – The Consistori del Gay Saber, founded the previous year in Toulouse to revive and perpetuate the lyric poetry of the Old Occitan troubadors, holds its first contest. Arnaut Vidal de Castelnou d'Ari wins the violeta d'or (golden violet) for a sirventes in praise of the Virgin Mary. At about this date, Raimon de Cornet writes Doctrinal de trobar in support of the aims of the Gay Saber.

1327

Between 20 January and 21 September – The deposed King Edward II of England perhaps writes the "Lament of Edward II".

6 April (Good Friday) – Tuscan writer Petrarch sees a woman he names Laura in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon, which awakes in him a lasting passion. He writes a series of sonnets and other poems in Italian dedicated to her up to about 1368, which are collected into Il Canzoniere, an influential model for Renaissance culture.

27 August – Death of Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester in England. His books are bequeathed to the University of Oxford where they are installed in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, forming the university's first library.

1329: February – French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut is brought to the Siege of Medvėgalis by John of Bohemia so the king's crusading deeds can be commemorated in song and poetry.

c. 1330 – Production of the Macclesfield Psalter in East Anglia.

1331 – Production of the Nuremberg Mahzor.

1341: 8 April – Petrarch becomes poet laureate at a ceremony in Rome.

1357 – The Polychronicon concludes, Ranulf Higden having ceased work on it at least a dozen years earlier.

1362: September – Petrarch's library is donated to the Republic of Venice, although subsequently dispersed.

1368

The new Hongwu Emperor in China halts government taxation on books.

The Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France) is founded as the Royal Library at the Louvre Palace in Paris by Charles V of France.

1370–1398 – Approximate date of production of the earliest part of the Sankt Florian Psalter, one of the earliest surviving texts to use the Polish language.

1374 – Ludolph of Saxony completes his Vita Christi, which appeared first in book form in 1474 and became an influence on St Ignatius Loyola in the early 16th century.

1377 – Production of the earliest known copy of the Laurentian Codex.

1382 – Earliest recorded appearance of Wycliffe's Bible.

1386: October – Geoffrey Chaucer is obliged to give up most of his official offices in London and retires to Kent where he may work on The Canterbury Tales.

1388 – Revision of Wycliffe's Bible is completed by John Purvey, and Wyclif's followers, known as Lollards, begin to be persecuted in England.

1390–1 – Production of the Book of Ballymote in Ireland.

1390s – Production of the Yellow Book of Lecan in Ireland.

1397 – Production of the Kiev Psalter in Ukraine.

1398 – The early 13th century carved wooden text of the Tripitaka Koreana is moved to the Haeinsa Buddhist temple in modern-day South Korea, where it will remain into the 21st century.

Undated

The prose original of the Amadis de Gaula is produced (or perhaps translated into Old Spanish from an earlier 14th-century version), perhaps by the knight Vasco de Lobeira or the troubador João de Lobeira.

Madhava Kandali produces the Saptakanda Ramayana (a retelling of the Ramayana), one of the earliest written examples of the Assamese language and the first translation from Sanskrit into one of the modern regional Indo-Aryan languages.

New works

c. 1300

Anonymous – Gesta Romanorum

Taliesin – Book of Taliesin, Middle Welsh. Taliesin (c. 534 – c. 599) is a Brythonic bard of Sub-Roman Britain believed to have sung at the courts of at least three Celtic British kings.

Marguerite Porete – The Mirror of Simple Souls

Rustichello da Pisa – The Travels of Marco Polo

c. 1300–10

Gona Budda Reddy – Ranganatha ramayan (శ్రీ రంగనాథ రామాయణం) (Telugu language)

Early to mid-14th century?

Anonymous Middle English writer from southern England (possible author of all following)

King Alisaunder

Of Arthour and of Merlin

Richard Coer de Lyon

The Seven Sages of Rome

Pseudo-Bonaventura – Meditationes Vitae Christi

Der Busant

Long Life of Saint Gerard (Legenda maior S. Gerardi, compiled)

1307

John of Gaddesden – Rosa Medicinæ

c. 1308–21

Dante Alighieri – Divine Comedy (Comedia)

c. 1309–24

Speculum Humanae Salvationis

The Book of Dede Korkut

1310

Amir Khusrow – Khazain-ul-Futuh

1310-1320

Queen Mary Psalter

1312

Jacques de Longuyon – Les Voeux du paon (The Vows of the Peacock)

1315–16

Amir Khusrow – Duval Rani–Khizr Khan (Romance of Duval Rani and Khizr Khan; masnavi)

1316–18

Amir Khusrow – Noh-Sepehr (Nine Skies; masnavi)

1318

Arnaut Vidal de Castelnou d'Ari – Guilhem de la Barra

c. 1320–35

Erikskrönikan

c. 1320–30

Jacob of Liège – Speculum musicae

1320

Dante Alighieri – Quaestio de Aqua et Terra

Amir Khusrow – Tughluq Nama (Book of the Tughluqs; prose)

1320–23

William of Pagula – Ocula Sacerdotis (Priest's Eye, a manual for priests)

c. 1321–23

Sānguózhì Pínghuà (三國志平話, "Story of Records of the Three Kingdoms")

c. 1329–32

Yoshida Kenkō (吉田 兼好) – Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness)

1330

Robert of Basevorn – The Form of Preaching (date of first known MS)

'Michael' – Kildare Poems (MS of about this date)

c. 1330–40

Perceforest

1330–43

Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita – The Book of Good Love (El Libro de Buen Amor)

ca. 1330–1400

Luo Guanzhong (attributed) – Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義)

1335

Matthew Blastares (compiler) – Syntagma Canonum

Lê Tắc – An Nam chí lược (安南志略)

Don Juan Manuel – Tales of Count Lucanor

1335–40

Giovanni Boccaccio – Il Filostrato

1338–14 (first published 1396–1397)

Petrarch – Africa

1340

Michael of Northgate (translator) – Ayenbite of Inwyt

c. 1340–41

Giovanni Boccaccio – Teseida

c. 1340–1349

Dafydd ap Gwilym – The Girls of Llanbadarn and The Seagull

1346

Toqto'a (Yuan Dynasty) (editor) – History of Song (宋史, Sòng Shǐ)

c. 1350

Baudouin de Sebourc (probably from Hainaut)

Prick of Conscience (Yorkshire)

The Tale of Gamelyn (anonymous)

c. 1352

Bahubali Pandita of Sringeri – Dharmanathapuranam

Wynnere and Wastoure (anonymous)

1353

Giovanni Boccaccio – The Decameron

c. 1355

Giovanni Boccaccio – Corbaccio

c. 1360–84

John of Fordun – Chronica Gentis Scotorum

1365

Mpu Prapanca – Nagarakretagama

c. 1367

William Langland (presumed author) – Piers Plowman (earliest likely date)

1369

Geoffrey Chaucer – The Book of the Duchess

1370

Bureau of History of the Ming dynasty, under direction of Song Lian – History of Yuan (元史, Yuán Shǐ)

1371

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (anonymous)

Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry – The Book of the Knight of the Tower

Kakuichi (compiler) – The Tale of the Heike (平家物語, Heike Monogatari)

Ibn Marzuq – The Correct and Fine Traditions About the Glorious Deeds of our Master Abu 'l-Hasan (Musnad as-sahid al-hasan fi maʿathir mawlana Abi 'l Hasan)

1375

John Barbour – The Brus

1378

Qu You – Jiandeng Xinhua (剪灯新话, "New stories told while trimming the wick")

1381

Amarkosh (अमरकोश, Sanskrit-Nepal Bhasa dictionary)

1382

Jacobus de Teramo – Consolatio peccatorum, seu Processus Luciferi contra Jesum Christum

Red Book of Hergest (soon after this date)

c. 1383

Sofonii of Razan – Zadonshchina

Late 1380s

Walter Hilton – The Scale of Perfection

1387

John Trevisa – translation of Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon, including "Dialogue on Translation Between a Lord and a Clerk"

1389

Gopalraj Vamshavali (गोपालराज वंशावली, a history of Nepal)

c. 1390

Anonymous – The Forme of Cury (earliest cookbook in the English language)

1390

John Gower – Confessio Amantis

1390s

Geoffrey Chaucer – The Canterbury Tales

1395

Lady Julian of Norwich – Revelations of Divine Love, first published book in English language to be written by a woman.

Mangaraja II – Mangaraja Nighantu (lexicon, 1398)

'Pearl Poet'

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Pearl

Cleanness

Patience

Sayana – commentary on the Vedas.

Ipomadon (Middle English tail-rhyme verse version; earliest likely date)

South English Legendary

Völsunga saga (approximate date of written version)

Water Margin (水浒传, Shui Hu Zhuan; approximate date of earliest components known)

c. 1399

Christine de Pizan

Cent Ballades d'Amant et de Dame, Virelyas, Rondeaux

L'Épistre au Dieu d'amours

L'Épistre de Othéa a Hector

Unknown

Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana

Epic of Sundiata

Grettis saga (approximate date)

Kavi Malla – Manmathavijaya

Peterborough Psalter

Drama

Li Qianfu – Circle of Chalk (Chinese: 灰闌記; pinyin: huīlán jì)

c. 1350 – Misteri d'Elx (Valencian)

Late 14th century – Ordinalia (Middle Cornish)

Births

1303 – Bridget of Sweden (Birgitta Birgersdotter), Swedish mystic, writer and saint (died 1373)

1304 – Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) Tuscan poet (died 1374)

1313 – Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian writer (died 1375)

c. 1315 or 1317 – Hafez, Persian poet (died 1390)

1320 – Lalleshwari, Kashmiri Hindu poet (died 1392)

1332: May 27 – Ibn Khaldun, North African historiographer and philosopher (died 1406)

c. 1332 – Catherine of Vadstena, Swedish mystic, writer and saint (died 1381)

1333 – Kan'ami (Kan'ami Kiyotsugu (観阿弥 清次), Japanese Noh actor (died 1384)

c. 1340–45 – Walter Hilton, English mystic writing in Latin and English (died 1396)

c. November 1342 – Julian of Norwich, English religious writer and mystic (died c. 1416)

1343 – Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet (died 1400)

1347 – Catherine of Siena, Italian theologian and saint (died 1380)

1348 – Jan of Jenštejn, Archbishop of Prague, writer, composer and poet (died 1400)

c. 1363 – Zeami Motokiyo (世阿弥 元清), Japanese Noh actor and playwright (died c. 1443)

1364 – Christine de Pizan, Venetian-born Middle French court poet and writer (died c. 1430)

c. 1368 – Thomas Hoccleve, English poet and clerk (died 1426)

c. 1373 – Margery Kempe, English mystic and autobiographer (died c. 1440)

1378 – Zhu Quan (朱權), Prince of Ning, Chinese military commander, feudal lord, historian and playwright (died 1448)

1393 – John Capgrave, English historian and scholastic theologian (died 1464)

1398 – Íñigo López de Mendoza, 1st Marquis of Santillana, Castilian politician and poet (died 1458)

Deaths

After 1306 – Adam de la Halle, French trouvère poet (born c. 1237)

1308 – Duns Scotus, Scottish philosopher and theologian (born c. 1266)

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

1310 – Marguerite Porete, French mystic (burnt as heretic, year of birth unknown)

1315: 10 March – Agnes Blannbekin, Austrian Beguine and Christian mystic (born c. 1244)

c. 1315 – Ramon Llull, Majorcan polymath and novelist in Catalan (born c. 1232)

1321: 14 September – Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (born c. 1265)

1325:

7 January – King Denis of Portugal, poet

October – Amir Khusrow, Sufi poet

1349: September – Richard Rolle, English hermit, mystic and religious writer (probably born between 1390 and 1400)

c. 1350 – Yoshida Kenkō (吉田 兼好), Japanese author and Buddhist monk (probably born 1283)

1364: 12 March – Ranulf Higden, English chronicler

1373: 23 July – Bridget of Sweden (Birgitta Birgersdotter), Swedish mystic, writer and saint

1374: 19 July – Petrarch, Italian poet

1375: 21 December – Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian poet

1377: April – Guillaume de Machaut, French poet and composer

1380:

29 April – Catherine of Siena, Italian theologian and saint

2 December – John of Ruysbroeck (Jan van Ruysbroeck), Flemish mystic (born 1293 or 1294)

1381: 24 March – Catherine of Vadstena, Swedish mystic, writer and saint

1384: 8 June – Kan'ami (Kan'ami Kiyotsugu, 観阿弥 清次), Japanese Noh playwright and actor (born 1333)

1392 – Lalleshwari, Kashmiri Shaivite poet and mystic

1395: 13 March – John Barbour, Scottish poet

1396: 24 March – Walter Hilton, English Augustinian mystic writing in Latin and English (born c. 1340–45)

1400: 15 December – Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet (born c. 1343)

In literature

Arthur Conan Doyle's novel Sir Nigel (1905–06) is set in 1350–56; The White Company (1891) in 1366–67.

Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose (Il Nome della Rosa, 1980) is set in 1327.

Walter Scott's novel Castle Dangerous (1831) is set around 1306; The Fair Maid of Perth (1828) is set around 1396.