1378
Western Schism begins with rival pope at Fondi
The dissident cardinals declared Urban VI's election invalid and chose the Genevan Robert as Clement VII at the town of Fondi. He immediately retreated to Avignon. Latin Christendom now had two popes simultaneously, each excommunicating the other and demanding obedience. The schism would last thirty-nine years and badly damage papal authority.
Ming builds the Great Wall's eastern sections
Hongwu ordered the rebuilding of northern frontier walls using rammed earth and brick in the sections east of the Ordos loop, garrisoning them with military farmer colonies. These preliminary walls would later be greatly expanded under Ming successors, eventually producing the iconic brick-faced structure most tourists today associate with 'the' Great Wall.
Urban VI elected amid Roman riot
Roman crowds threatened the cardinals locked in conclave, demanding 'a Roman or at least an Italian.' They chose the irascible Bartolomeo Prignano of Naples. Urban VI immediately set about insulting the very cardinals who had elected him, questioning their moral character and threatening to pack the college. Within months they would denounce his election and run back to Avignon.
Ciompi Revolt: Florentine wool workers seize the city
Day laborers excluded from the wool guild rose against the Florentine oligarchy, forced through a popular constitution, and installed the wool comber Michele di Lando as gonfaloniere. Their proletarian republic lasted six weeks before patrician backlash crushed it and exiled its leaders. It remains a marker for late medieval class conflict and the limits of urban democracy.
Charles IV dies in Prague
The Bohemian-born emperor who had favored Prague over every German city died in his stone hilltop city after thirty-two years of statecraft. He left a strong Bohemia to his erratic son Wenceslaus and a fragmenting empire that had survived plague and schism more or less intact under his careful patience.
Tvrtko I crowned king of Bosnia
The Bosnian ban had himself crowned king at Mile after absorbing parts of coastal Dalmatia and western Serbia following Stefan Dusan's collapse. Bosnia briefly became one of the larger Balkan states. Its dual religious identity among Catholics, Orthodox, and the heretical Bosnian Church made it a puzzle to popes and a unique anomaly in medieval Christendom.