1296
Edward I invades Scotland
After John Balliol renounced his homage, Edward marched north, stormed Berwick with notorious brutality, and captured Stirling and Edinburgh. At Scone, he carried off the Stone of Destiny on which Scottish kings had been inaugurated. The First Scottish War of Independence began. The sack of Berwick, in which thousands of civilians were killed, became a defining atrocity of the Anglo-Scottish wars.
Alauddin Khalji seizes the Delhi throne
After murdering his uncle and father-in-law Jalaluddin at Kara, Alauddin Khalji rode south to Delhi with a war chest taken from a raid on Devagiri. He bribed nobles and ascended the Sultanate throne, beginning a reign of extraordinary conquests and equally extraordinary cruelty. His price controls and market regulations, enforced by a network of spies, created a command economy unique in medieval India.
Alauddin Khalji raids Devagiri in the Deccan
Before seizing the Delhi throne, the ambitious general launched an audacious cavalry raid across the Vindhya mountains into the Yadava kingdom of Devagiri. The surprised king surrendered an enormous treasure of gold, elephants, and jewels. The loot financed Alauddin's coup and opened the Deccan to future Delhi campaigns. The raid was the first successful Muslim penetration south of the Vindhyas and redrew the political map of India.
Clericis Laicos bars royal taxation of clergy
Boniface VIII issued the bull Clericis Laicos forbidding lay rulers from taxing the clergy without papal consent. Philip IV of France and Edward I of England, both at war and needing money, retaliated by cutting off revenues to Rome, prompting a partial climbdown by the pope. The confrontation exposed the papacy's declining leverage over secular monarchs who now commanded standing armies and professional bureaucracies.