I suspect I shall not be able to return
So I inscribe my name here
Among those who have died by the bow
- poem composed by Kusunoki Masatsura on the eve of the Battle of Shijonawate
In the year 1348...
- In one of the greatest plagues in history, the Black Death rages across Europe. The plague would wipe out nearly one-third of the people on the continent by the end of 1350. Urban areas are hit hardest: Paris would lose 50% of its population, London, 40%, and Florence, 60%.
- Forces loyal to the Ashikaga shogunate and its puppet Northern Court, led by Ko Moronao and his brother Moroyasu, deal a serious blow to the aspirations of the rival Southern Court by defeating loyalist forces led by Kitabatake Chikafusa and Kusunoki Masatsura at the Battle of Shijonawate in Kawachi province.
- King Louis of Hungary invades Naples after the city-state's Angevin Queen, Joanna I, is accused of involvement in the murder of her husband and Louis's brother Andrew of Hungary. Joanna flees to Avignon in Provence, of which she is Countess. She then sells Avignon to Pope Clement VI, who in return declares her innocent of her husband's murder, enabling her to return to Naples as Queen.
- Charles University, one of the oldest universities in Europe, is founded at Prague by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.
- King Edward III of England establishes the Order of the Garter, England's first order of knighthood.
- Having retired to the country to escape plague-ravaged Florence, Giovanni Boccaccio begins work on his great masterpiece, Decameron.
- Edmund Gonville founds Cambridge University's Gonville Hall, now known as Gonville and Caius College.
These people were born in 1348:
These people died in 1348:
- The great Damascus-born Islamic historian, legal scholar, and hafiz al-Dhahabi.
- Umur Bey, Emir of Aydin, killed in battle attempting to recapture the fortress at Izmir (Smyrna) from the Italian forces of the Venitian-Genoese-Cyprus alliance.
- Japanese warlord Kusunoki Masatsura, son of legendary samurai Kusunoki Masashige, killed at the Battle of Shijonawate.
- Laura, the inspriation for Petrarch's great love poems, of plague.
- French queen Joan the Lame, wife of King Philip VI and mother of King John II.
- Sienese painters Pietro Lorenzetti and his brother Ambrogio Lorenzetti, of plague.
- Florentine historian Giovanni Villani, of plague.
- Japanese emperor Hanazono.
1347 - 1348 - 1349
14th century