Events
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- 1202 – Leonardo Fibonacci writes Liber Abaci, about the modus Indorum, the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, including the use of zero; it is the first major work in Europe to move away from the use of Roman numerals.[1]
- 1204 – The Imperial Library of Constantinople is destroyed by Christian knights of the Fourth Crusade and its contents burned or sold.[2]
- 1211 – Hélinand of Froidmont begins compiling his Chronicon.[3]
- 1215 – Bhiksu Ananda of Kapitanagar completes writing the Buddhist book Arya Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita (Sutra), in gold ink in Ranjana script.
- 1216 – Roger of Wendover, English monk and chronicler, at St Albans Abbey, begins to cover contemporary events, in his continuation of the chronicle Flores Historiarum.[4]
- 1217 – Alexander Neckam, English scholar and theologian, writes De naturis rerum ("On the Nature of Things"), a scientific encyclopedia.[5]
- 1220 – A new shrine built at Canterbury Cathedral in England to house the remains of St Thomas Becket quickly becomes one of Europe's major places of pilgrimage,[6] and the destination of the fictional pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer's set of narrative poems The Canterbury Tales, written about 170 years later.[7]
- 1226: By August – The biographical poem L'histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, commissioned to commemorate William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (died 1219), a rare example at this time of a life of a lay person, is completed, probably by a Tourangeau layman called John in the southern Welsh Marches.[8]
- 1240 – Albert of Stade joins the Franciscan order and begins his chronicle.[9]
- 1249: September 27 – Chronicler Guillaume de Puylaurens is present at the death of Raymond VII of Toulouse.[10]
- 1251 – The carving is completed of the Tripitaka Koreana, a collection of Buddhist scriptures recorded on some 81,000 wooden blocks, thought to have been started in 1236.[11]
- 1258: February 13 – The House of Wisdom in Baghdad is destroyed by forces of the Mongol Empire after the Siege of Baghdad. The waters of the Tigris are said to have run black with ink from the huge quantities of books flung into it, and red from the blood of the philosophers and scientists killed.
- 1274: May 1 – In Florence, the nine-year-old Dante Alighieri first sees the eight-year-old Beatrice, his lifelong muse.[12]
- 1276 – Merton College, Oxford, is first recorded as having a collection of books, making its Library the world's oldest in continuous daily use.[13] During the first century of its existence the books are probably kept in a chest.
- 1283 – Ram Khamhaeng, ruler of the Sukhothai Kingdom, creates the Thai alphabet (อักษรไทย), according to tradition.
- 1289 – Library of the Collège de Sorbonne, earliest predecessor of the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, is founded in Paris.[14]
- 1298–1299 – Marco Polo dictates his Travels to Rustichello da Pisa while in prison in Genoa, according to tradition.
- 1300, Easter – The events of Dante's Divine Comedy take place.[15]