Musa I was the tenth Mansa, which translates as "King of Kings" or "Emperor", of the wealthy Mali Empire. At the time of Mansa Musa's rise to the throne, the Malian Empire consisted of territory formerly belonging to the Ghana Empire and Me...

Orhan I or Orhan Bey was the second bey of the nascent Ottoman Empire (then known as the Ottoman Beylik or Emirate) from 1326 to 1359. He was the son of Osman I and Malhun Hatun, the daughter of Abdulaziz Bey. In the early stages of his...

Louis IV, called the Bavarian, of the house of Wittelsbach, was King of the Romans from 1314, King of Italy from 1327, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1328. Louis IV was Duke of Upper Bavaria from 1294/1301 together with his elder brother Ru...

Edward II, called Edward of Carnarvon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. He was the seventh Plantagenet king, in a line that began with the reign of Henry II. Interspersed between the strong reigns of his f...

William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher and theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey.[1] He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and...

The Mappa Mundi is unique in Britain's heritage - an outstanding treasure of the medieval age which reveals how 13th century scholars interpreted the world in spiritual and geographical terms. The map is undated but bears the name of "Richa...

Afonso IV, King of Portugal, known as the Brave, was the seventh king of Portugal and Algarve from 1325 until his death. He was the only legitimate son of Dinis of Portugal by his wife Elizabeth. As king, Afonso IV is remembered as a soldie...

Philip VI, called the Fortunate and of Valois, was the first King of France from the House of Valois. He reigned from 1328 until his death. Philip's reign was dominated by the consequences of a succession dispute. When King Charles IV th...

The Majapahit Empire was a vast archipelagic empire based on the island of Java (modern-day Indonesia) from 1293 to around 1500. Majapahit reached its peak of glory during the era of Hayam Wuruk, whose reign from 1350 to 1389 was marked by...

Alauddin Khalji, born as Ali Gurshasp, was the second and the most powerful emperor of the Khalji dynasty that ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent. Alauddin instituted a number of significant administrative changes, related...

Chosen as one of the ten best adventure books of all time The Travels of Marco Polo remains a wondrous adventure narrative. Chronicling the thirteenth-century world from Venice, his birthplace, to the far reaches of Asia, Marco Polo tells o...

Azzone Visconti was lord of Milan from 1329 until his death. He is considered the founder of the state of Milan, which later became a duchy. Born in Ferrara, he was the sole legitimate son of Galeazzo I Visconti and Beatrice d'Este. In 1322...

Bridget of Sweden, also Birgitta of Vadstena, Saint Birgitta, was a mystic and saint, and founder of the Bridgettines nuns and monks after the death of her husband of twenty years. She was also the mother of Catherine of Vadstena. She is on...

Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaiss...

Ibn Battuta, Muslim traveler from Tangier. No other medieval traveler is known to have journeyed so extensively. In 30 years (from c.1325) he made a series of journeys recorded in a dictated account. He traveled overland in North Africa and...