1327
Edward II forced to abdicate
A parliament summoned in Isabella's name declared Edward II unfit to rule and asked his fourteen-year-old son to take the crown. The boy hesitated, then accepted under pressure from his mother and Mortimer. His father, imprisoned at Berkeley Castle, would die in September, the official cause natural, the persistent rumor a red-hot poker.
Aztec alliance with Culhuacan forges Mexica legitimacy
The young Mexica city-state sought prestige by allying with the ancient Toltec-descended rulers of Culhuacan on the southern lakeshore. The alliance ended badly - the Mexica sacrificed a Culhua princess, outraging their would-be patrons - but it established the genealogical claim to Toltec heritage that would underpin Aztec imperial ideology for the next two centuries.
Meister Eckhart dies awaiting trial
The Dominican mystic from Thuringia, accused by the Cologne archbishop of preaching heresy to the laity in German, traveled to Avignon to answer charges. He died en route or shortly after arrival, his case unfinished. John XXII condemned twenty-eight of his propositions in 1329. Eckhart's vernacular sermons survived nevertheless to shape German spirituality for centuries.
Edward II dies at Berkeley Castle
The deposed king, held in increasingly harsh conditions in a dank cell, died on a September night. Official word gave natural causes; persistent rumor spoke of a red-hot poker. His tomb at Gloucester became an unofficial shrine of royal martyrdom, attracting pilgrims who venerated him as a suffering innocent. Edward III would later build a golden effigy over the sarcophagus.