The Battle of Yamen 1279
Events
- King Louis IX of France launches the Eighth Crusade
- The 17-year-old Marco Polo departs from Venice with his father and uncle Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, to set off for Asia to meet the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan (the grandson of Genghis Khan) at his court in Beijing in China. They sail across the Mediterranean Sea and travel overland, crossing Armenia, Persia and the Pamir Mountains
- Floris V, count of Holland, grants the city of Amsterdam freedom from taxes (called a road toll).
- 1271: Edward I of England and Charles of Anjou arrive in Acre, starting the Ninth Crusade against Baibars.
- 1274: The Mongols launch their first invasion of Japan, but they are repelled by the Samurai and the Kamikaze winds.
Religion
- The Summa Theologica, a work by Thomas Aquinas that is considered within the Roman Catholic Church to be the paramount expression of its theology, is completed
Literature
- Bonvesin da la Riva, Italian poet, writes the didactic-allegoric poem Liber di Tre Scricciur (“Book of the Three Scriptures”). The text is in the Western Lombard language (similar to other Gallo-Italic languages). The poem is one of the first great literary works in Italy. It tells about Hell, the Passion of Jesus and Paradise; the plot later prefigures Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia).
- In Florence, the 9-year-old Dante first sees the 8-year-old Beatrice, his lifelong muse. She appears later as one of his guides in the Divine Comedy, Paradiso and Purgatorio.
- Jean de Meun completes the French allegorical work of fiction, Roman de la Rose, with a second section (the first section was written by Guillaume de Lorris in 1230).