1362
William Langland begins Piers Plowman
A West Midlands cleric began an alliterative Middle English dream vision in which a plowman named Piers stood for Christian labor and humility. The poem's social criticism - corrupt friars, grasping lords - would make it a handbook of the Peasants' Revolt two decades later and a foundation text of English Protestantism.
Tamerlane wounded in the leg
During a cattle raid in Sistan, the young Timur took the arrow wound that gave him his lifelong limp and Western nickname Tamerlane, from Timur-i lenk, 'Timur the Lame.' His right leg and right hand were permanently damaged. The wound never healed fully. He campaigned on horseback for the next forty years, often in severe pain.
St. Marcellus's Flood drowns the German coast
A North Sea storm surge breached dikes from Frisia to Jutland, drowning entire parishes and reshaping the coastline overnight. The lost city of Rungholt, of later legend, vanished beneath the sea. Tens of thousands died. Northern Europe was learning that a warming climate's end brought stormier weather.
English becomes the language of parliament
The Pleading in English Act and the Chancellor's opening of parliament in the vernacular signaled that Middle English had returned to formal political use after three centuries of Anglo-Norman monopoly. Law courts followed within the decade, allowing commoners to understand proceedings that affected their lives. The language of Chaucer was becoming respectable in court and lecture hall at the same time.