Islam replaces Christianity as the religion of the kings of Dongola, in present-day Sudan

Mansa Musa, sultan of the gold-rich African state of Mali, is so lavish in Cairo (on his way to Mecca) that the value of Egyptian gold slumps

Ibn Batutah leaves his home in Morocco to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, and continues travelling for 24 years

Moscow acquires new prestige when the metropolitan (or patriarch) of the Russian Orthodox church moves his residence from Vladimir

Edward III begins to transform a royal manor by the Thames at Richmond into a building that can for the first time be called a palace

After four years of captivity in Bordeaux and London, the French king John II is released for a promised ransom of 3 million gold crowns

The marriage of the duke of Burgundy to the heiress of Flanders lays the foundation for the great territorial expansion of Burgundy

John Wycliffe, writing mainly in Oxford, is critical of the contemporary church and can find no basis for the pope's authority

The papal curia returns to Rome in what would seem a conclusive move if there were not, two years later, two popes - one of them elected back in Avignon

The Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldun writes in his Muqaddimah that species tend to become more numerous and that humans must have developed from the world of the monkeys

The French cardinals, objecting to the new Italian pope, elect their own man as Clement VII - and thus inaugurate the Great Schism of the papacy

Koreans establish the first type foundry, casting movable type in bronze

Jogaila, baptized a Roman Catholic before marrying Jadwiga, brings Lithuania into the Christian fold - the last part of Europe to be converted

Construction begins on a canal from Lübeck south to the Elbe, linking the Baltic and the North Sea

The followers of Wycliffe, after his death, become known as Lollards or 'mutterers'

John Huss, known for his radical approach to Christianity, is put in charge of the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague

Henry IV has the Scottish prince educated, under guard, at Windsor Castle and demands a large ransom for his release (not paid until 1424)

Rivalry between factions of the French royal family results in the murder in Paris of the king's brother, Louis duke of Orléans, and the onset of civil war

The Council at Pisa elects a new pope, Alexander V, without persuading the other two to resign - bringing the total to an unprecedented three

The Poles defeat the Teutonic knights between Tannenberg and Grunwald, bringing the coastal strip around Gdansk into the Polish kingdom

A council is called at Constance, to consider the radical views of John Huss and to deal with the present excess of popes

John Huss, invited to Constance under a promise of safe conduct, is arrested, tried and burnt at the stake as a heretic

The Council of Constance, having done its best to dispose of the three existing popes, elects a new one - Martin V

The Scots finally pay the ransom for the release of the Scottish prince, now James I, who travels north to claim his throne

A peasant girl, Joan of Arc, hears the voices of saints urging her to relieve the siege of Orléans