1260s

The 1260s is the decade starting January 1, 1260 and ending December 31, 1269.

Millennium: 2nd millennium
Centuries:
Decades:
Years:
Categories:
  • Births
  • Deaths
  • By country
  • By topic
  • Establishments
  • Disestablishments

In Asia, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the supreme leader of the Mongol Empire, although his title was only partially recognized. After defeating his younger brother Ariq Böke, he moved his capital to Beijing; while he fought the southern Chinese Song Dynasty, the empire saw its first significant military defeats first in Palestine at the hands of the Mamluks of Egypt, and later in the Caucasus. The Mamluks, led by their new sultan Baibars, quickly became a regional power in the Middle East by capturing a number of crusader states and repulsing Mongol attacks. The Empire of Nicaea succeeded in capturing Constantinople and the rest of the Latin Empire, thus re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

In Europe, political strife and territorial disputes led to widespread warfare around the continent. England witnessed the Second Barons' War, a civil war fought over the aristocracy's disillusionment with King Henry III's attempts to maintain an absolute monarchy. The pope of the Catholic Church, aligned against the Hohenstaufen dynasty of the Holy Roman Emperor, succeeded in eliminating the line when the last male heir, Conradin, was killed by papal ally Charles I of Sicily, a Frenchman. Meanwhile, King Otakar II of Bohemia became the most powerful prince in Europe, expanding his territories through both warfare and inheritance. In other developments, both Iceland and Greenland accepted the overlordship of Norway, but Scotland was able to repulse a Norse invasion and broker a favorable peace settlement. In Spain, the Reconquista continued as several important cities were recaptured from the Moors. Political reforms were instituted in the election procedures of the pope and the doges of Venice, and the parliaments of Ireland and England met for the first time.

Several important cultural achievements were made in the decade, including publication of Roger Bacon's important scientific work Opus Majus and Thomas Aquinas' Summa contra Gentiles. Masterpieces of architecture and sculpture were completed at cathedrals around Europe, including the Cathedral of Chartres and Nicola Pisano's pulpits for the Duomo di Siena and Pisa's Baptistery. In religion, the Sukhothai kingdom in Thailand adopted Buddhism as its official religion. In Europe anti-Semitism intensified, as several authorities promulgated laws requiring Jews to wear identifying yellow badges, Jews were massacred in England, and the Talmud was attacked and censored by the Catholic Church.

War and politics

Europe

War and peace

North and West Europe
Central and South Europe
  • 1260 September 4 The forces of King Manfred of Sicily, in league with the Ghibellines, defeat the Guelphs in the Battle of Montaperti.
  • 1260 War breaks out in the Valais (today in Switzerland) as the Bishopric of Sion defends against an invasion by the County of Savoy.
  • 1261 Byzantine Empire reemerges, Latin empire brought down
  • 1263 Genoa captures the city of Chania on Crete from the Venetians.
  • 1264 The Thuringian War of Succession ends.
  • 1266 February 26 In the Battle of Benevento, an army led by Charles, Count of Anjou, defeats a combined German and Sicilian force led by King Manfred of Sicily. Manfred is killed in the battle and Pope Clement IV invests Charles as king of Sicily and Naples.
Iberian Peninsula
Southeast Europe
England: The Second Barons' War

Political entities

Political reform

  • 1264 June 18 The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.
  • 1264 to 1267 The civil war in England known as the Second Barons' War marks a high point of struggle for political power between the landed aristocracy of England and the King.
  • 1268 New election procedures for the election of the doge are established in Venice in order to reduce the influence of powerful individual families.
  • 1268 Pope Clement IV dies; the following papal election fails to choose a new pope for almost three years, precipitating the later creation of stringent rules governing the electoral procedures.

People

Asia and Africa

Mongol Empire

Kublai Khan

Mamluk sultanate of Egypt

Byzantine Empire

North Africa

  • The Almohad dynasty of Caliphs (not universally accepted) that once ruled most of North Africa and Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain) is extinguished when Idris II is murdered in the dynasty's last remaining possession, Marrakesh.
  • The Berber Marinid completes the conquest of Morocco, replacing the Almohad dynasty which it defeated in Marrakesh.

South Asia

  • 1260 The Sena Dynasty of Bengal falls.
  • 1260 The Hindu Silharya Dynasty, which ruled an area around Mumbai, ends.
  • 1267 Malik ul Salih establishes Samudera Pasai, the first Muslim state in Indonesia.

Culture

Science, literature, and industry

  • 1260 Jacobus de Varagine compiles his work, the Golden Legend, a late medieval best-seller.
  • 1265 The Book of Aneirin, a Welsh manuscript of poetry, is penned.
  • 1265 The brewing of Budweiser Budvar beer begins in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic); Budweiser Budvar has been produced continuously there to this day.
  • 1266 In France, the gold écu and silver grosh coins are minted for the first time.
  • 1267 Roger Bacon completes his work Opus Majus and sends it to Pope Clement IV, who had requested it be written; the work contains wide-ranging discussion of mathematics, optics, alchemy, astronomy, astrology, and other topics, and includes what some believe to be the first description of a magnifying glass. Bacon also completes Opus Minus, a summary of Opus Majus, later in the same year.
  • 1268 In France, the use of hops as the exclusive flavoring agent used in the manufacture of beer is made compulsory.
  • 1269 Pierre de Maricourt first describes magnetic poles and remarks on the nonexistence of isolated magnetic poles.

Art, architecture, and music

Cities and institutions

Religion

Christianity

Judaism

  • 1263 Nahmanides, chief rabbi of Catalonia, defends the Talmud in an important disputation against Pablo Christiani before King James I of Aragon.
  • 1264 April Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford leads a massacre of the Jews at Canterbury.
  • 1264 King Boleslaus V of Poland promulgates legal protection for his Jewish subjects, including protection from the kidnapping and forcible baptism of Jewish children.
  • 1264 In Barcelona, a commission of Dominicans censors portions of the Talmud for the first time by ordering the cancellation of passages found reprehensible from a Christian point of view.
  • 1267 The leadership of Vienna forces Jews to wear Pileum cornutum, a cone-shaped head dress, in addition to the yellow badges Jews were already forced to wear.
  • 1269 June 19 King Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.

Buddhism

Births

Deaths

References

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