15th century in literature

Events

1403 – A guild of stationers is founded in the City of London. As the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (the "Stationers' Company"), it continues to be a Livery Company in the 21st century.

1403–08 – The Yongle Encyclopedia is written in China.

c. 1408–11 – An Leabhar Breac is probably compiled by Murchadh Ó Cuindlis at Duniry in Ireland.

c. 1410 – John, Duke of Berry, commissions the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, illustrated by the Limbourg brothers between c. 1412 and 1416.

1424 – The first French royal library is transferred by the English regent of France, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, to England.

1425 – At about this date the first Guildhall Library (probably for theology) is established in the City of London under the will of Richard Whittington.

1434 – Japanese Noh actor and playwright Zeami Motokiyo is exiled to Sado Island by the Shogun.

1443 – King Sejong the Great establishes Hangul as the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is first described in the Hunminjeongeum published on 9 October 1446

1444: 15 June – Cosimo de' Medici founds the Laurentian Library in Florence.

1448 – Pope Nicholas V founds the Vatican Library in Rome.

1450 – Johannes Gutenberg has set up his movable type printing press as a commercial operation in Mainz by this date and a German poem has been printed.

1451

1 August – A manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy is sold in London.

Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, England, presumed author of the chivalric tales of Le Morte d'Arthur, is imprisoned for most of the following decade on multiple charges including violent robbery and rape.

1452 – Completion of the Malatestiana Library (Biblioteca Malatestiana) in Cesena (in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, commissioned by the city's ruler Malatesta Novello), the first European public library, in the sense of belonging to the commune and open to all citizens.

1453 – Pageant of Coriolan staged in the piazza of Milan Cathedral.

1455

23 February – Johannes Gutenberg completes printing of the Gutenberg Bible in Mainz, the first major book printed with movable type in the West, using a textualis blackletter typeface.

5 June – French poet François Villon is implicated in a murder.

1457

14 August – The Mainz Psalter, the second major book printed with movable type in the West, the first to be wholly finished mechanically (including colour) and the first to carry a printed date, is printed by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer for the Elector of Mainz.

The Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi in Persia is known to be in existence.

1460 – From about this date, Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, begins to form the Bibliotheca Corviniana, Europe's largest secular library.

1462: 8 November – First known sentence written in the Albanian language, a Formula e pagëzimit (baptismal formula) by Archbishop Pal Engjëlli.

1461 – Albrecht Pfister is pioneering movable type book printing in the German language and the addition of woodcut illustrations in Bamberg, producing a collection of Ulrich Boner's fables, Der Edelstein, the first book printed with illustrations. Soon after this he prints the first known Biblia pauperum (picture Bible).

1463: 5 January – François Villon is reprieved from hanging in Paris but never heard of again.

1468

31 May – The Byzantine scholar Cardinal Basilios Bessarion donates his library to the Republic of Venice, the foundation of the Biblioteca Marciana.

The printers Johann and Wendelin of Speyer settle in Venice; their first book published here, Cicero's Epistolae ad familiares, appears in 1469.

1470

Johann Heynlin prints the first book in Paris, the Epistolae Gasparini of Gasparinus de Bergamo (d. c. 1431), a guide to writing Latin prose.

Nicolas Jenson's edition of Eusebius, published in Venice, is the first book to use a roman type based on the principles of typography rather than manuscript.

1473

First book printed in Hungary, Chronica Hungarorum, the "Buda Chronicle".

First known printing in Poland, Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474, a wall calendar.

1474 – First book printed in Spain, Obres e trobes en lahors de la Verge María, the anthology of a religious poetry contest held this year in Valencia.

1475

February – Pope Sixtus IV appoints the humanist Bartolomeo Platina as Prefect of the newly-re-established Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) in Rome after Platina has presented him with the manuscript of his Lives of the Popes.

Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye is the first book to be printed in English, by William Caxton in Bruges.

Rashi's commentary on the Torah is the first dated book to be printed in Hebrew, in Reggio di Calabria.

1476

30 January – Constantine Lascaris's Erotemata ("Questions", also known as Grammatica Graeca) is the first book to be printed entirely in Greek (in Milan).

William Caxton sets up the first printing press in England, at Westminster.

First performance of one of Terence's plays since antiquity, Andria in Florence.

1477: 18 November – Caxton prints Earl Rivers' translation of Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first book printed in England on a printing press.

1478 – In England

William Caxton publishes the first printed copy of the Canterbury Tales.

The Ranworth Antiphoner is presented to St Helen's Church, Ranworth.

17 December – First book printed in Oxford.

1479

The St Albans Press, the third printing press in England, is set up in the Abbey Gateway, St. Albans.

Robert Ricart begins writing The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar in Bristol, England.

1480s (approximate date) – Scottish makar Robert Henryson writes The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian.

1485 – The play Elckerlijc wins first prize in the Rederijker contest in Antwerp.

1488 – Duke Humfrey's Library at the University of Oxford receives its first books.

1490

Chinese scholar Hua Sui invents bronze-metal movable type printing in China.

Publication in Valencia of the prose chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanch completed by Martí Joan de Galba from the work of the knight Joanot Martorell (d. 1468), written in Valencian and a pioneering example of the novel in modern Europe.

1492 – Antonio de Nebrija publishes Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar text for the Castilian Spanish language in Salamanca, which he introduces to the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, newly restored to power in Andalusia, as "a tool of empire".

1495: February–March – An edition of Constantine Lascaris's Erotemata in Greek with a parallel Latin translation (Grammatica Graeca) by Johannes Crastonis is the first book to be published by Aldus Manutius, in Venice, using typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo.

1495–1498 – Aldus Manutius publishes the Aldine Press edition of Aristotle in Venice.

1496: February – Francesco Griffo cuts the first old style serif (or humanist) typeface (known in modern times as Bembo) for the Aldine Press edition of Pietro Bembo's narrative Petri Bembi de Aetna Angelum Chabrielem liber, a work which also includes early adoption of the semicolon.

1497

7 February (Shrove Tuesday) – Followers of Girolamo Savonarola burn thousands of "immoral" objects, including books, at the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence, an episode repeatedly revisited in literature.

Possible date – First performance of the earliest known full-length secular play wholly in English, Fulgens and Lucrece by Henry Medwall, the first English vernacular playwright known by name, perhaps at Lambeth Palace in London.

1499: Late – Contents of the library of the Madrasah of Granada are publicly burned.

New works and first printings of older works

1400

Alliterative Morte Arthure

Shivaganaprasadi Mahadevaiah – Shunyasampadane

c.1400–1410

Nicholas Love – The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ (translation & adaptation into Middle English of Pseudo-Bonaventura's Meditationes Vitae Christi)

1402

Christine de Pizan – Dit de la Rose

1402–1403

Christine de Pizan – Le livre du chemin de long estude

1405

Christine de Pizan

L'Avision de Christine

The Book of the City of Ladies (Le livre de la Cité des dames)

The Treasure of the City of Ladies (Le trésor de la Cité des dames; also known as The Book of the Three Virtues)

c.1410

Mahathera Bodhiramsi – Cāmadevivaṃsa (Thai: ตำนานจามเทวีวงศ์)

1411

Thomas Occleve – The Regement of Princes

1413

Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York – The Master of Game

1420

John Lydgate – The Siege of Thebes

Approximate date: Andrew of Wyntoun – Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland

1424

Bhaskara – Jivandhara Charite

1425

Sharafuddin Ali Yazdi – Zafar Nama (history of Timur)

1429

Leone Battista Alberti – Amator

Radoslav Gospels

(?) Kashefi – Anvār-e Soheylī (Persian: انوار سهیلی‎‎, "The Lights of Canopus"), a translation of the Panchatantra

1430

Kallumathada Prabhudeva – Ganabhasita Ratnamale

1434

Treatise on the Barbarian Kingdoms on the Western Oceans (China)

Approximate date: John Lydgate – The Life of St. Edmund, King and Martyr

1435

Leon Battista Alberti – Della Pittura

1436

The Marvels discovered by the boat bound for the Galaxy (China)

1438

The Buik of Alexander

Gilte Legende, a translation into Middle English

1439

Kalyanakirti – Jnanachandrabhyudaya

1440

Zhu Quan – Cha Pu ("Tea manual")

Santikirtimuni – Santinathacharite

1444

Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini – The Tale of Two Lovers

1447

Walter Bower – Scotichronicon (completed)

1448

Vijayanna – Dvadasanuprekshe

1450

Reginald Pecock – Represser of over-much weeting [blaming] of the Clergie

Approximate date: Ballads "A Gest of Robyn Hode" and "Robin Hood and the Monk"

1453

Antoine de la Sale – Petit Jehan de Saintre

Pre-1460

Turpines Story (Middle English translation of the Historia Caroli Magni)

1461

François Villon – Grand Testament

1467

Cardinal Juan de Torquemada – Meditationes, seu Contemplationes devotissimae ("Meditations, or the Contemplations of the Most Devout"), the first book printed in Italy to include woodcut illustrations

1469/70

Giovanni Boccaccio – The Decameron (completed 1353)

c. 1470–85

Pietru Caxaro – Il Cantilena, oldest known Maltese language text

1471

Marsilio Ficino (translator) – De potestate et sapientia Dei, a translation from the Hermetica

1472

Dante Alighieri – Divine Comedy (written c.1308-21), first printed 11 April in Foligno, Italy, by Johann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini da Trevi

Johannes de Sacrobosco – De sphaera mundi (written c.1230), the first printed astronomical book

Paul of Venice – Logica Parva (published posthumously)

Roberto Valturio – De re militari, the first book with technical illustrations

1473

Avicenna – The Canon of Medicine

Sir John Fortescue – The Governaunce of England (first published 1714)

Approximate date: Missale Speciale ("Constance Missal")

1474

Obres e trobes en lahors de la Verge María

1475

Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, the first book printed in English, by William Caxton in Bruges

c. 1475?

The Squire of Low Degree

1477

William Caxton prints the first books in England on a printing press which he set up at Westminster in 1476

Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, a translation by Earl Rivers

History of Jason, a translation from the French of Raoul Le Fèvre by Caxton

Bible in duytsche ("Delft Bible")

First printed edition of The Travels of Marco Polo

Approximate date: Blind Harry – The Wallace (The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, Middle Scots poem)

1478

Geoffrey Chaucer – Canterbury Tales

1479

Rodolphus Agricola – De inventione dialectica

1480

Pierre Le Baud – Compillation des cronicques et ystoires des Bretons (approximate date of completion)

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

1481

Mirrour of the Worlde, a translation of 1480 by William Caxton from Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum Maius, the first book printed in England to include woodcut illustrations

The Historie of Reynart the Foxe (first English translation)

Approximate date: 'Pseudo-Apuleius' – Herbarium Apuleii Platonici, the first printed illustrated herbal

1482

Mosen Diego de Valera – Crónica abreviada de España ("Crónica Valeriana")

Euclid – Elements (in Latin)

Hans Tucher der Ältere – Beschreibung der Reyß ins Heylig Land

1483

The Golden Legend, a translation by William Caxton

Giacomo Filippo Foresti – Supplementum chronicarum

Das Der Buch Beyspiele, a translation of the Panchatantra

Theophrastus – Historia Plantarum (first Latin version of Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορία translated by Theodore Gaza)

1484

Aesop's Fables, a translation by William Caxton

Plato – Opera Platonis (complete works), a translation by Marsilio Ficino

1485

Leon Battista Alberti – De Re Aedificatoria (written 1443–52 and published posthumously), the first printed work on architecture

Joseph Albo – Sefer ha-Ikkarim (written before 1444)

Bommarasa of Terakanambi – Sanatkumara Charite

Sir Thomas Malory – Le Morte d'Arthur

1486

Bernhard von Breydenbach – Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam, with illustrations taken from life by the printer Erhard Reuwich

The Boke of Seynt Albans, with a contribution attributed to Juliana Berners

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola – De hominis dignitate

1487

Niccolò da Correggio – Fabula di Cefalo

Heinrich Kramer with James Sprenger – Malleus Maleficarum, a witch-hunting manual

1489

Marsilio Ficino – De vita libri tres (Three Books on Life)

1490

John Ireland – The Meroure of Wyssdome

Joanot Martorell and Martí Joan de Galba – Tirant lo Blanch

c. 1490s

Jacomijne Costers – Visioen en exempel

1492

John of Gaddesden – Rosa Medicinæ (first printing; written 1307)

1493

Giuliano Dati – Lettera delle isole novamente trovata, a translation into verse of a letter from Christopher Columbus to Ferdinand of Spain, regarding Columbus' first exploratory voyage across the Atlantic in 1492

15 June: Hartmann Schedel – Nuremberg Chronicle

1494

Sebastian Brant – Ship of Fools

1496

Isaac Abrabanel – Ma'yene ha-Yeshu'ah

Juan del Encina – Cancionero

1497–1504

Pietro Bembo – Gli Asolani (three volumes on courtly love, first printed 1505)

1498

Polydore Vergil – Adagia

1499

Francesco Colonna (attrib.) – Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Thomas of Erfurt (mistakenly ascribed to Duns Scotus) – De Modis Significandi printed (written in early 14th century)

Niccolò Machiavelli – Discorso sopra le cose di Pisa

Fernando de Rojas – Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, better known as La Celestina

Polydore Vergil – De inventoribus rerum

Jehan Lagadec (ed.) – Catholicon, the first French dictionary (trilingual with Breton and Latin; compiled in 1464)

Undated

Krittibas Ojha (translator, d. 1461) – Krittivasi Ramayan

Kim Si-seup (1435–1493) – Geumo Sinhwa (金鰲新話, "Tales of Mount Geumo" or New stories of the Golden Turtle)

At least two of the Middle English versions of Ipomadon

Drama

c.1463–1475

Probable date of composition of the "N-Town Plays" in The Midlands of England

1470

Approximate date of composition of Elckerlijc, attributed to Peter van Diest (first printed 1495)

Probable date of composition of Mankind

1492

Juan del Encina – Triunfo de la fama

1493

Ludovico Ariosto – La tragedia di Tisbe

c.1497

Henry Medwall – Fulgens and Lucrece

Approximate date of composition

The Castle of Perseverance

The Somonyng of Everyman

Births

1405: 18 October – Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Italian erotic poet and novelist, later Pope Pius II (died 1464)

1406 – Matteo Palmieri, Florentine humanist and historian (died 1475)

1413 – Giosafat Barbaro, Venetian travel writer (died 1494)

c. 1426 – Bhalan, Indian Gujarati-language poet (died c. 1500)

1432 – Ōta Dōkan (太田 道灌, Ōta Sukenaga), Japanese samurai warrior-poet and Buddhist monk (died 1486)

1434: 29 August – Janus Pannonius, Hungarian/Croatian poet and bishop writing in Latin (died 1472)

1441: 9 February – Ali-Shir Nava'i, Chagatai Turkic language Timurid poet and scholar (died 1501)

c. 1441 – Felix Fabri (Felix Faber), Swiss Dominican theologian and travel writer (died 1502)

1449 – Aldus Manutius, Italian publisher (died 1515)

c. 1451 – Richard Methley, English Dominican writer and translator (died 1527 or 1528)

1453 – Ermolao Barbaro, Italian scholar (died 1493)

c. 1460 – John Skelton, English poet (died 1529)

1462: September 8 – Henry Medwall, English playwright and ecclesiastical lawyer (died c. 1501/2?)

1465 – Yamazaki Sōkan (山崎宗鑑, Shina Norishige), Japanese poet (died 1553)

1470: May 20 – Pietro Bembo, Venetian-born scholar, poet and cardinal (died 1547)

c. 1473 – Jean Lemaire de Belges, Walloon French poet and historian (died c. 1525)

1475 – Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi, Italian calligrapher and type designer (died 1527)

1483: April 19 – Paolo Giovio, Italian contemporary historian, bishop and scientist (died 1552)

1485 – Hanibal Lucić, Croatian poet and playwright (died 1553)

1486: July 28 – Pieter Gillis, Flemish humanist, printer and Antwerp city official (died 1533)

1490: Gáspár Heltai (Kaspar Helth), Transylvanian writer in German (died 1574)

1494: November (probable) – François Rabelais, French writer (died 1553)

1496: November 23 – Clément Marot, French poet (died 1544)

Deaths

1400 – Jan of Jenštejn, archbishop of Prague, writer, composer and poet (born 1348)

1406: March 19 – Ibn Khaldun, North African historiographer and philosopher (born 1332)

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

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

c. 1426 – John Audelay, English poet and priest (year of birth unknown)

c. 1430 – Christine de Pizan, French poet and author of conduct books (born 1364)

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

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

1448 – Zhu Quan (朱|權), Prince of Ning, Chinese military commander, feudal lord, historian and playwright (born 1378)

c. 1451 – John Lydgate, English poet and monk (born c. 1370)

1454 – Francesco Barbaro, Italian humanist and politician (born 1390)

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

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

1468 – Joanot Martorell, Valencian novelist and knight (born 1413)

1471 – Sir Thomas Malory, presumed English writer (year of birth unknown)

1472: 27 March – Janus Pannonius, Hungarian/Croatian poet and bishop writing in Latin (born 1434)

1475 – Matteo Palmieri, Florentine historian and humanist (born 1406)

1486 – Margareta Clausdotter, Swedish chronicler and nun

c. 1490 – Lewys Glyn Cothi, Welsh poet (born 1420)

1492 – Jami, Persian poet and scholar (born 1414)

1493 – Ermolao Barbaro, Italian scholar (born 1453)

1494 – Giosafat Barbaro, Italian travel writer, diplomat and explorer (born 1413)

In literature

c. 1471 – Opening of Walter Scott's novel Anne of Geierstein (1829).

1476 – Lope de Vega's play Fuenteovejuna (c. 1614) is set in this year.

c. 1476–1485 – Cynthia Harnett's children's novel The Load of Unicorn (1959) is set around Caxton's London printing enterprise during this period.

1482: 6 January – Opening of Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831).

1490 – Mark Twain's novel The Mysterious Stranger, "No. 44" or "Print Shop" version (worked on 1902–1908) is set in this year.

1492–1494 – George Eliot's novel Romola (1862–1863) is set in this period.

1493 – Opening of Cynthia Harnett's children's novel The Wool-Pack (1951).