The 1300s were shaped by plague, war, royal feuds, unusual laws, and events that sound almost impossible today. These 25 facts reveal just how strange, dramatic, and unpredictable the 14th century could be.
Timur’s Burning Camel Defense
1. In 1398, Timur the Lame confronted an army whose war elephants wore chain mail armor and had poison on their tusks. Timur filled his camels with wood and hay, and when the elephants charged, he set them on fire and drove them forward. The elephants panicked and turned back.
2. In 1313, 60 Scottish soldiers disguised as cows took control of the Roxburgh castle held by the English.
3. In 1302, during a revolt, Guildsmen in Bruges greeted people on the street by saying “Good Day” and then murdered them if they replied in a French Accent.
4. In 1338, King Edward III pawned his jewels to raise money for his war with France.
5. In 1348, the Scots invaded the English because they were weakened by the plague. The Scots later caught the plague themselves, returned to Scotland, and killed their own population.
6. In 1303, a wool merchant named Richard Pudlicott stole £100,000 of valuables from King Edward I, equal to England’s entire yearly tax income. Ministers discovered the robbery when priceless jewels began turning up in London brothels.
7. In 1361, King Peter I of Portugal captured assassins who had decapitated his wife (Inês de Castro) and publicly executed them by ripping out their hearts with his own hands, claiming they didn’t have one after having pulverized his own heart.
8. On June 24, 1374, one of the first documented outbreaks of St John’s Dance struck Aachen, Germany. People would dance uncontrollably for no apparent reason, even continuing to writhe around on the ground after collapsing from exhaustion.
9. In 1311, the Lincoln Cathedral was the first building to steal the title of “tallest structure in the world” from the Great Pyramid, which held the title for almost 4,000 years.
10. During the 14th century, medical experts from Paris declared bathing a health concern because it was claimed warm water opened pores and made people more susceptible to bubonic plague.
The Bucket War Begins
11. In 1325, the two Italian cities of Modena and Bologna fought a war in which 2000 people died after a man stole a bucket from Bologna. Modena still has the bucket to this day.
12. In 1382, a French bookseller named Nicholas Flamel said that he had turned lead into gold after deciphering an ancient book of alchemy. Whether true or not, historical records show that Flamel did become quite wealthy around this time and gave his wealth to charity.
13. In 1351, 30 knights from England and France fought a melee to determine which nation would inherit the Duchy of Brittany. The fight is praised as a noble expression of the ideas of Chivalry.
14. In 1386, a pig was accused of eating a child, a trial was held, the pig was dressed in human clothes, the pig was found guilty, and it was sentenced to death by public hanging.
15. In 1372, according to legend Yi Kaizhan was hired to build a fort along the Great Wall of China. He ordered the exact number of bricks he needed. When his judgment was questioned, he added one more brick. That brick was never used.
16. In 1355, the town of Oxford and the students of Oxford University broke into rioting, known as the St Scholastica Day riot, for days because some students disliked the beer they were served and threw a pint of beer at a tavern owner. The townsfolk eventually stormed the school, where 63 students and 30 locals were killed.
17. In 1349, King Edward III banned football and hockey in England so that more people would practice their archery. Archery was vital to warfare at the time.
18. In 1303, a feud between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip the Fair of France ended with the Pope being arrested by the King’s troops, during which he was allegedly slapped.
19. In June of 1316, King Louis X of France drank a large quantity of cooled wine after an exhausting tennis match. He subsequently died and, because of the contemporary accounts of his death, became the first tennis player known by name.
20. In 1318, Joan of Leeds, an English nun, bored with her monastic and enclosed life, at some point escaped from St Clement’s by York priory to journey to Beverley, where she lived with a man. To escape, she feigned her death with a dummy that was buried in her place.
Avignon Beetles Sentenced
21. In 1312, a few Cockchafer Beetles, which were a major pest for crop farmers, were brought into a courtroom in Avignon, France and were ordered to withdraw to their designated territory. When the beetles (obviously) didn’t comply, they were collected and killed.
22. In 1315, a small change in climate caused a great famine in Northern Europe which was so grim that one day even the King Edward II of England was left without bread.
23. Musa I of Mali was so wealthy when he made his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 that he had 12,000 slaves who each carried 4 pounds of gold and 80 camels that carried 50-300 pounds of gold. He gave away so much gold to the poor in the areas he visited that it devastated their economy and caused inflation.
24. In 1350, Charles IV, the King of Bohemia went missing. People were told he was poisoned. In fact, he was recovering from a disastrous jousting injury. He broke his jaw and injured cervical vertebrae. It would be hard to survive that kind of injury even today, but he did.
25. In September 1332, Edward Balliol, pretender to the Scottish throne, was attacked in the night by Scots rebels and narrowly escaped by riding bareback, naked from the waist down, all the way from Annan to Carlisle (about 18 miles).
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