3874 entries. Last updated May 21, 2013.

1300 to 1400 Timeline Outline

  • Eras
  • Themes

The Hereford Mappa Mundi. (View Larger)
The Hereford Mappa Mundi, "The Greatest Extant Thirteenth Century Pictorial…
(Circa 1300)

A reproduction of Tabula Rogeriana. (View Larger)
The Most Accurate World Map for Three Centuries
(Circa 1300)

The Bird's Head Haggadah. (View Larger)
The Oldest Surviving Ashkenazi Illuminated Manuscript
(Circa 1300)

Lay Readers and Book Owners
(Circa 1300)

Four of twelve metal Chinese characters thought to be the world's oldest extant moveable type.
Perhaps the Earliest Movable Metal Type
(Circa 1300)

Ivory Booklet with Scenes of the Passion
(Circa 1300 – 1320)

A Venetian Ordinance on the Production of Eyeglasses
(April 2, 1300)

Folios 7v-8r of the Metz Pontifical.
The Metz Pontifical: An Unfinished Medieval Masterpiece
(Circa 1303 – 1316)

The effigy on pope Boniface VIII, carved into the white marble of his sarcophagus in Saint Peter's Basilica. (View Larger)
Origins of the Vatican Library in the Papal Library
(1303)

Folio 323r of Codex Manesse: a portrait of Reinmar dictating poetry scribes, one of which bears a wax tablet. (View Larger)
The Use of Manuscript Rolls in the Middle Ages
(Circa 1304 – 1340)

Folio 11 of MS M.232, the Morgan Library's 1470 Belgian manuscript of Ruralia Commoda. (View Larger)
Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Horticulture
(Circa 1304 – 1309)

A portrait of Ramon Llull. (View Larger)
Logical Machines for the Production of Knowledge
(1305)

Origins of Beijing University
(1306)

A scene from Rashid al-Din Tabib's 'Jami al-Tawarikh' in which the Ghazan Khan is converted to Islam. (View Larger)
Enormous Islamic History Containing the Earliest Notice of Chinese Printing…
(1307)

A statue of Dante at the Uffizi. (View Larger)
The Divine Comedy
(1308 – 1321)

First Recorded Use of Paper in England
(1309)

Arthur versus the Saxons as depicted in the Rochefoucauld Grail. (View Larger)
The Rochefoucauld Grail
(1315 – 1323)

Prices that Booksellers Should Charge for Manuscripts
(1317 – 1342)

Early Persian Appreciation of the Value of Chinese Printing for the Standardization of Correct Texts
(1317)

The Earliest Use of Paper Money in Japan
(1319 – 1327)

Medieval Union Catalogue of Manuscripts
(Circa 1320)

Rules for the Operation of the Library of the Sorbonne
(1321)

First Use of Paper in Holland
(1322)

Printing with 100,000 Written Characters of Movable Type
(1322)

Renaissance Humanists Hunt for the Manuscripts of Roman Authors
(Circa 1325 – 1450)

The Earliest Dated Astrolabe Made in Europe
(1326)

A reading room at the Library of the Sorbonne. (View Larger)
The Largest Library in Europe
(1328)

A photograph of the Canterbury Cathedral, within which resides the Library of Christ Church. (View Larger)
The Largest Library in England
(1331)

The Second Catalogue of the Library of the Sorbonne
(1338)

The First Two Color Printing
(1340)

The Oldest Known English Public Advertisement
(Circa 1340)

The seal of Richard de Bury. (View Larger)
Philobiblon
(1345)

The spread of the Bubonic plague in Europe. (View Larger)
The Black Death
(1347 – 1353)

Troyes, France. (View Larger)
Perhaps the First Paper Mill in France
(1348)

Medieval Union Catalogue of Manuscripts Names 694 Authors
(Circa 1350)

Block Printing May have been Practiced by Arabs and Jews as early as the Mid-14th Century
(Circa 1350)

A pair of leather spectacles, found, among other artifacts, in 1953 beneath the floorboards of Kloster Wienhausen, near Celle, in Germany. (View Larger)
The Earliest Surviving Spectacles
(Circa 1350)

From the Sarajevo Haggadah: Moses upon Sinai, holding the Ten Commandments. (View Larger)
The Oldest Sephardic Haggadah
(Circa 1350)

Zilbaldone
(Circa 1350)

Routine Everyday Messages Inscribed on Rune-Sticks
(Circa 1350)

The first depiction of spectacles in art: a portrait of Cardinal Hugo of Provence at his writing desk, painted by Tommaso de Mondena in fresco in the Basilica San Nicolo in Treviso, Italy. (View Larger)
The Earliest Depiction of Eyeglasses in a Painted Work of Art
(1352)

The Oldest Surviving Road Map of Great Britain and the First Map to Depict a Recognizably Accurate Picture of Britain's Coastline
(Circa 1360)

The courtyard of the Louvre, present day. (View Larger)
Charles V Establishes a Royal Library at the Louvre
(1368)

The Papal Library Contains 2,059 Volumes
(1369)

Folio 31r of the Rossi Codex, upon which is written a madrigal entitled 'in un broleto, al'alba.' (View Larger)
One of the Earliest Sources of Trecento Secular Polyphonic Music
(1370)

Scribes in London First Organize
(September 23, 1373)

The Relative Costs of the Components of Medieval Manuscripts
(1374 – 1375)

Folio 3r of the Psałterz Floriansk. (View Larger)
The Earliest Surviving Example of Old Polish Literature
(Circa 1375)

Folio 1v of Omne Bonum upon which is drawn the four scenes of creation: God creating fish; God creating animals; the Creation of Adam; the Creation of Eve. (View Larger)
The First Encyclopedia Arranged in Alphabetical Order
(Circa 1375)

One of the Most Beautiful Medieval Atlases
(1375)

The Earliest References to Playing Cards in Europe
(1377)

The Earliest Surviving Book Printed from Movable Metal Type
(1377)

A globe in the present day Merton College Library. (View Larger)
Merton College Library Contains Approximately 500 Manuscripts
(1378)

The opening leaf of the Hengwrt Chaucer. (View Larger)
Both of the Earliest and Most Authoritative Manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury…
(Circa 1380)

Costs for a Missal Produced in 1382
(1382)

The High Point of Medieval Library Cataloguing
(1389)

A portion of the Dun Ming Hun Yi Tu, or The Great Amalgamated Map, showing the African continent. (View Larger)
The Oldest Map of Africa
(Circa 1390)

A view of Nuremberg--folio 99v/100r of the Nuremberg Chronicles--showing Stromer's paper mill, bordering the city on the bottom right. (View Larger)
Earliest European Document on the Production of Paper
(1390)

A recipe for pork in a sage sauce, from The Forme of Cury. (View Larger)
One of the Oldest Known Manuscripts on Cookery in English, Written in the…
(Circa 1390)

Saint Catherine in her Study with her Revolving Bookstand
(Circa 1399 – 1416)