Intro

Body

Photo

Music

 

1450

Henry VI is king of England – Gutenberg printing press invented in Germany and improves communication throughout Europe

The Inca are flourishing in Peru and are in the middle of building Machu Picchu; They are advanced in building, architecture and agriculture, but do not have a written language, not even glyphs or rock painting (why is it that the Western Hemisphere did not develop writing the way the Eastern Hemisphere did? They only passed down their history orally; Is it possible their writing has been erased from history? I know that’s a long shot, but I don’t know. It’s just odd.)  

The Catalan World Map is drawn (Picture of it in FPOW 190)

 

1451

Henry VI is king of England

 

1452

Henry VI is king of England

Leonardo da Vinci is born in Anchiano, Italy

 

1453

Henry VI is king of England – 

The Hundred Years’ War ends

The Portuguese court historian, Gomes Eannes de Azurara, writes The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, which is the main source of information we have for the voyages that Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal sponsored to explore the western coast of Africa

In May, Constantinople falls to the Ottoman Turks and the Hagia Sophia goes from being a Byzantine Christian Cathedral to a Mosque (and it remains so until 1931 when it becomes a museum, until 2020 when it becomes a Mosque again)

June 12, the papal legate Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini writes to Pope Nicholas V, “We have been defeated and thrown down in Europe.” (GNT 7)

 

1454

Henry VI is king of England

Wars of the Roses begins in England

Hohenzollern Castle is constructed again, this time bigger and even more fortified than before (see 1634)

https://www.burg-hohenzollern.com/castle-history.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenzollern_Castle   

Germany begins to take shape as a nation: At the Frankfurt Reichstag, or Frankfurt Oration, the papal legate Aeneas  Silvius Piccolomini appeals to “you, Germans” (Vos, Germani) to help fight the Turks, as “never before was so much Christian blood spilt” and “our religion so desperately shaken.” (GNT 7), “Historians often overlook Piccolomini’s contribution to the idea of a German nation. A seasoned envoy, bishop, and eventually Pope Pius II, Piccolomini was, after all, an Italian, not a German. Writing in Latin and serving the interests of Rome, Piccolomini hoped to raise the fund necessary to fight the Ottoman Turks by no more than the dint of flattery. Yet his Germania represented the first time in the postclassical era that an author actually explicated Germany as a space and described the cities within it—and the description neither followed nor served as an itinerary. Moreover, it was around this time that Piccolomini’s humanist friend Nicolaus Cusanus, plotted, or arranged to have plotted the coordinates of central European cities. One of the most influential philosophers of the late medieval era, Cusanus had responded to the fall of Constantinople not with a cry for war but with a plea for peace.” (GNT 9)

 

1455

Henry VI is king of England

The first Bibles printed on the Gutenberg printing press in Mainz, Germany, only 38 copies have survived (two of them are held by the British Library in London and one is held at the Huntington Library in California), they were printed in Latin

 

1456

Henry VI is king of England

Another Portuguese sailing expedition reaches further down the western coast of Sahara Africa, in Gambia (Gomes is the explorer), the expedition is sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator (EB)

 

1457

Henry VI is king of England

The papal legate, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, begins to write his extremely influential and widespread epistolary treatise titled Germania (he finishes it next year, and it is published in 1496)

 

1458

Henry VI is king of England

 

1459

Henry VI is king of England

 

1460

Henry VI is king of England - James II of Scotland dies and is buried at Holyrood Abbey, James III is crowned king of Scotland at Kelso Abbey

November 13, Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal dies at the Vila do Infante, near Sagres (he had sponsored many sailing expeditions to Sahara Africa’s western coasts and Madeira Islands) (EB)

 

1461

Henry VI (House of Lancaster) is king of England until March 4 when Edward IV (House of York) takes over as king

 

1462

Edward IV is king of England

The seal matrix of Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III) as Admiral of England for Dorset and Somerset, the matrix is engraved with a single masted ship, the mainsail bearing the Duke’s arms, now housed in the British museum (CBM 137)

 

1463

Edward IV is king of England

 

1464

Edward IV is king of England

 

1465

Edward IV is king of England

Lustred pottery vase is made in Valencia, Spain, about 1465-75, it bears the arms of the Medici family and was probably made for Piero ‘the Gouty’ or his son Lorenzo the Magnificent, successive rulers of Spain, Now housed in the British Museum (Collections of the British Museum, 139)

 

1466

October 28, Erasmus of Rotterdam is born, the Dutch philosopher, who also becomes a Catholic theologian and priest, and will be considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance and will also gain the sobriquet “Prince of the Humanists” as he used “humanist techniques” to translate new editions of the New Testament into Latin and Greek (d. 1536)

 

1469

James III of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor (Henry VII’s daughter) at Holyrood Abbey

 

1470

KINGS & RULERS:

Anton Koberger establishes the first printing house in Nuremberg, Germany, he is a goldsmith, printer and publisher, he publishes the Nuremberg Chronicle, a broadside or newspaper called an “incunabula,” he is also a successful bookseller of works from other printers

The northern coast of Peru (north of Lima), the Chimu Civilization, also known as Chimor, is overtaken by the Inca Civilization; The Chimu people had been sacrificing children for some time, as several burial grounds with hundreds of skeletal remains of children have recently been found since 2011 (see Inside Edition YouTube and this article https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/why-did-the-ancient-chimu-civilization-sacrifice-hundreds-of-young-lives)

 

1472

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV, of the House of York, is restored to the throne of England

York Minster, in York England is completed after several centuries of building, and consecrated (https://yorkminster.org/) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Minster)

Modern-day scholars estimate that between 1400-1472, there were only a few thousands maps in circulation in Europe (after print, that number rose to an estimated 56,000 between 1472-1500) (Germany, A Nation in Its Time Pg. 12)

 

1471

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV (of the House of York) is king of England

The first Bible in Italian is published by Nicolò Malermi, and is called the Malermi Bible  

 

1472

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV (of the House of York) is king of England

 

1473

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV (of the House of York) is king of England

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus is born (d. 1543), he becomes a Polish priest, mathematician, and astronomer, is born in Torun, a city in Prussia, in the north-central Poland on the Vistula River, meaning he is born into a place that is (at this time) under the Teutonic Knights’ control, and part of the Kingdom of Poland (kingdom of Poland founded 1466), the knights had conquered this area of land (according to History.com, he is Polish, though it sounds like there’s some debate whether he was in fact German, either way, he was definitely Prussian as he was born and died in Prussia, Poland)

 

1474

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV (of the House of York) is king of England

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 1 year old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1475

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV (of the House of York) is king of England - Ferdinand V & II (the Catholic) becomes king of Spain/Castile, he is the son of John II of Aragon and Juana Enríquez and is the first of the Trastámara family to reign

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 2 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1476

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV (of the House of York) is king of England – Ferdinand V & II (the Catholic) is king of Spain/Castile

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 3 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1477

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV (of the House of York) is king of England – Ferdinand V & II (the Catholic) is king of Spain/Castile

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 4 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1478

KINGS & RULERS: Edward IV (of the House of York) is king of England – Ferdinand V & II (the Catholic) is king of Spain/Castile

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 5 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

Oxford begins to build a library over the new Divinity School, it became known as Duke Humphrey’s library and housed all the books he donated to the school

 

1479

Edward IV (of the House of York restored) is king of England – Ferdinand V & II (the Catholic) is king of Spain/Castile and becomes king of Aragon

The University of Copenhagen is founded in Denmark

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 6 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1480

Edward IV (of the House of York restored) is king of England

“By the middle of the fifteenth century, the pairing of ‘German’ and ‘Empire’ became more frequent, though it wasn’t until the 1480s—when discussion of imperial reform intensified—that diplomats and statesmen regularly referred to the governing body as ‘the Holy Roman Empire and the Esteemed German Nation,’ or ‘the Roman Empire and the German Nation,’ and with the recess of the Imperial Diet of Cologne in 1512, the ‘Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.’” (GNT 13)

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 7 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1481

Edward IV (of the House of York restored) is king of England

Compton Wynyates is built in Warwickshire by Edmund Compton, just prior to the accession of the House of Tudor, it’s a beautiful red-brick manor house—“Wynyates” could refer to the nearby gap in the hills (‘wind gate’?), where a windmill was built (CPSH 96)

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 8 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1482

King Edward the IV of England sends English oak and tons of lead to renew the roof of the Church of the Nativity (later in the 1600’s the Turks melt down the lead to make bullets)

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 9 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1483

Richard III is king of England

Martin Luther is born in Eisleben, Germany

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 10 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1484

Richard III is king of England

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 11 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1485

Richard III is king of England until he dies at the Battle of Bosworth and Henry VII becomes king of England, Richard III is the last of the Yorks and Henry VII is the beginning of the Tudors

At some point early in the thirteenth century an English scholar known as John of Holywood, or Sacrobosco, wrote an astronomical treatise appropriately titled The Sphere, also translated as The Sphere of the World or Discussion on the Sphere, the RAS (Royal Astronomical Society) of England has a printed copy (printing had only just been invented) of it that dates from 1485 (The Fourth Part of the World, pg. 27-28) (Watch: https://ras.ac.uk/library/treasures-of-the-ras/2400-treasures-of-the-ras-the-sphere-by-john-of-holywood) (side note, can’t find a for sale copy anywhere, probably not translated to English)

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 12 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1486

Henry VII is king of England/Elizabeth of York becomes queen

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 13 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1487

Henry VII is king of England/Elizabeth of York becomes queen

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 14 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1488

Henry VII is king of England/Elizabeth of York becomes queen

Duke Humfrey’s library over the Divinity School in Oxford, England is opened  

Sebastian Münster is born in Ingelheim, Germany, a short distance down the Rhine from Mainz, he becomes a German humanist, and by the mid-sixteenth century, Germany’s most influential scholar in geography, and especially for his book Cosmography, which really put Germany on the map, and pretty much at the center of it, for most of his lifetime though, he will be better known as the translator and editor of many works in Hebrew including the Jewish histories of Josippon written at the end of the first millennium (as per the book Germany, A Nation in its Time, pg. 40, Wikipedia says it was written in the 10^th century, the author is thought to be Josephus)

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 15 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1489

Henry VII is king of England

Martin Truchseb von Wetzhausen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order until January 3 when he dies and Johann von Tiefen becomes Grand Master

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 16 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1490 

Henry VII is king of England – Fredrick III is the Holy Roman/German Emperor (House of Habsburg 1)

Johann von Tiefen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order  

In the 1490s, the German mapmaker Henricus Martellus makes the first scaled, accurate map of Central Europe (Picture of it in GNT 9)

May 17, Albert (who becomes Albert of Prussia) is born (d. 1568) in Ansbach, Brandenburg-Ansbach in the Holy Roman Empire (now Bavaria, Germany), he will be the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia (1510-1525) and will be the first Duke ever of Prussia when his uncle, the king of Poland, signs the Treaty of Kraków with him in 1525, giving him Prussia and letting Albert secularize it to become a hereditary realm, until then, Prussia is a Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, Albert will be strongly influenced by Martin Luther, and will convert to Lutheranism/Protestantism, he will also be the first ruler to establish Protestantism as the official state religion of his lands

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 17 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1491

Henry VII is king of England – Fredrick III is the Holy Roman/German Emperor (House of Habsburg 1)

Johann von Tiefen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order 

June 28, Henry VIII is born to King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, at Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, near London

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 18 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1492

Henry VII is king of England – Fredrick III is the Holy Roman/German Emperor (House of Habsburg 1)

Johann von Tiefen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order 

Erhard Etzlaub makes a regional map of Nuremberg’s hinterlands, it counts as one of more than one hundred regional maps scholars have discovered from the late Middle Ages, most of them made in Italy, England, and the Netherlands (GNT 20, see the map on 21)

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 19 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

June 28, the future King Henry VIII of England turns 1 year old

 

1493

Henry VII is king of England – Fredrick III, the Holy Roman/German Emperor (House of Habsburg 1), dies on August 19 BUT his son, Maximilian I (House of Habsburg 2) won’t ascend the throne as emperor until 1508 – Ferdinand and Isabella are king and queen of Spain (Castile and Aragon) –

Johann von Tiefen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order 

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 20 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

In Nuremburg, Germany, Hartmann Schedel’s work Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle in English) is printed in “royal format” (47x32.5 centimeters), with 326 folio pages in its Latin edition and 297 in its German edition, and it had 1,890 woodcuts, making it the most profusely illustrated work in the early stage of print, and one that expressed the pride, power, and wealth of the Nuremberg elite…Less the author than the conductor of the work, Schedel brought together an ensemble of extraordinary talent, including young Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Münzer (a doctor, traveler, and accomplished mapmaker), George Alt (who translated the Latin text into German), Michael Wohlgemut (from whom Dürer learned the art of making woodcuts), and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, Wohlgemut’s nephew and brilliant carver, illustrator, and painter in his own right. It was an immense and expensive production. Yet despite its cost (the monetary equivalent of five and a half oxen, in one estimate), the Nuremberg Chronicle became an overnight success, selling some 1,400 copies in Latin and 700 in German. Like many medieval chronicles, Schedel’s work narrate time along the seven days of creation, with each day standing for an era of history. (GNT 16-17, see woodcut of Nuremberg on 17)

In Spain, a history book commissioned by Queen Isabella and written by Diego de Valera, titled Chronicle of Spain is published, it highlights the kingdom’s ties to Greece; Isabella and her family believe themselves to be descended from Hercules, the legendary warrior, half-God and half-mortal; They also believe that the hero founded the cities of Arévalo, Segovia, Avila, and Salamanca, places that Isabella knows well; Hercules is also associated with the 120 ft. lighthouse off the coast of Galicia in northern Spain, in an area notorious for shipwrecks; It’s construction is viewed as a marvelous engineering feat, and a surviving illustration of the ways in which Greek mythology and biblical tales intermingled in the Spanish mind; In the dedication of Chronicle of Spain, Queen Isabella is referred to as Duchess of Athens through her marriage to Ferdinand; the land of Spain had been made a Roman province called Hispania in 38 B.C. (IWQ 9)

June 28, the future King Henry VIII of England turns 2 years old

 

1494

Henry VII is king of England – No Holy Roman/German Emperor

Johann von Tiefen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 21 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

 

1495

Henry VII is king of England – No Holy Roman/German Emperor

Johann von Tiefen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 22 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

June 28, the future King Henry VIII of England turns 3 years old

 

1496

Henry VII is king of England – No Holy Roman/German Emperor

Johann von Tiefen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order

Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini’s (papal legate) extremely influential and widespread epistolary treatise titled Germania which he wrote back in 1457-1458 is published as An Account of the Rites, Site, Mores, and General Condition of Germany, in which he rebuffs the complaints about the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, demonstrating that the Germans have become wealthy and civilized, and had Christianity and the Roman church to thank for it, further in the book he describes Germany as a place full of prosperity and beautiful cities and castles (Germany seems to be taking shape as a people/country at this time) (GNT 7)

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 23 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

June 28, the future King Henry VIII of England turns 4 years old

 

1497

Henry VII is king of England – No Holy Roman/German Emperor

Johann von Tiefen is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order until he dies on August 25

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 24 years old, he is growing up in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

June 28, the future King Henry VIII of England turns 5 years old

 

1498

Henry VII is king of England – No Holy Roman/German Emperor

Fredrick of Saxony becomes Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 26 years old, he is living in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

June 28, the future King Henry VIII of England turns 6 years old

 

1499

Henry VII is king of England – No Holy Roman/German Emperor

Fredrick of Saxony is Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, Poland, the land of the Teutonic Order

“As the fifteenth century drew to a close, Germany was still imperfectly known. Descriptions of the silhouettes of its cities, the bends of its rivers, the slopes and heights of its mountains, the location and density of its forests, and even the character of the people were rare, sparse in detail, and wanting in exactness. No charts drew the German lands to scale and no drawings showed its borders. And no one had describes Germany as a space with a recognizable shape.” (GNT 3)

February 19, Nicolaus Copernicus turns 27 years old, he is living in Prussia, Poland, which is under the control of the Teutonic Knights

June 28, the future King Henry VIII of England turns 7 years old