1323
Thomas Aquinas canonized
John XXII proclaimed the Dominican friar a saint at Avignon, fifty years after his death. The canonization rehabilitated Aristotle within Catholic thought and made Thomism the intellectual backbone of the Dominicans, who championed it against Franciscan voluntarism. John could not, however, stop his Franciscan critics from damning him as a heretic over the poverty question.
Sinan of the Golden Horde consolidates steppe trade
Uzbeg Khan, having Islamized the Golden Horde in the previous decade, now dispatched envoys as far as Cairo and Constantinople. From Sarai on the Volga his couriers carried slaves, furs, and silver south, reshaping Eurasian commerce for another fifty years. His capital became the largest city in Europe east of Rome.
Raden Wijaya's successors consolidate Majapahit
The Javanese kingdom, under Jayanagara and the great chief minister who would become Gajah Mada, suppressed rebellious chieftains along the north coast and extended its reach into Bali. The court at Trowulan began importing Chinese porcelain and Indian textiles in bulk, signs of a thickening maritime network that would soon make Java the commercial hub of the archipelago.
Treaty of Nöteborg divides Finland between Sweden and Novgorod
On a Karelian island, Swedish and Novgorodian envoys drew the first fixed border in Nordic history, splitting the Finnish wilderness between Catholic west and Orthodox east. The treaty demarcated a line running from the Gulf of Finland inland to the northern wilderness. The boundary would echo through centuries of Swedish-Russian rivalry and leave Finland forever balanced between two civilizational worlds.