1253

[edit] Events

[edit] Europe

[edit] War and politics

• July - William II, Count of Holland defeats the Flemish army at Westkapelle.
• July 6 - Mindaugas is crowned as King of Lithuania.
• A series of naval wars begins between the Italian city-states of Genoa and Venice, which will continue sporadically until 1371.
• King Henry III of England meets with English nobles and church leaders to reaffirm the validity of the Magna Carta.
• Pope Innocent IV returns to Rome, having left 9 years earlier in 1244 to depose Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, and being unable to return until after Frederick's death, due to the agitation throughout Europe caused by that action.
• Having rebuffed the armed forces of Conrad IV of Germany, Pope Innocent IV offers Sicily to Edmund, son of King Henry III of England.
• Halych-Volynia becomes a vassal state to the expanding Mongol Empire.

[edit] Culture

• Matthew Paris writes Historia Anglorum, a work on English history.
• The Basilica of San Francesco, the earliest important structure in the Italian Gothic style of architecture, is completed in Assisi, Italy.
• Sligo Abbey is built in Sligo, Ireland.
• The Domus Conversorum, a building and institution in London for Jews who had converted to Christianity, is established by King Henry III of England.
• La Sorbonne is founded by Robert de Sorbon.

[edit] Asia

• April 28 - Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, declares his intent to preach the Lotus Sutra and Nam Myoho Renge Kyo as the true Buddhism, thus founding Nichiren Buddhism.
• May - King Louis IX of France dispatches William of Rubruck from Constantinople on a missionary journey to convert the Tatars of central and eastern Asia. Later that year, William records the first meeting between European Christians and Buddhists.
• The Mongol Empire launches attacks on the Muslim cities of Baghdad and Cairo.
• The Mongol Empire destroys the Kingdom of Dali (Yunnan) in Laos and incorporates the region into their empire.
• Kublai Khan introduces the baisha xiyue song and dance suite to the music of Yunnan.
• The Chinese era Baoyou begins in the Southern Song Dynasty of China.
• The Mongols defeat the Thai confederacy.

[edit] Births

• October 17 - Saint Ivo of Kermartin, French canon lawyer
• John I, Duke of Brabant (d. 1294)
• Hugh II of Cyprus (d. 1267)

[edit] Deaths

• January 19 - Dogen, Japanese founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism
• July 8 - Theobald IV of Champagne (b. 1201)
• August 11 - Clare of Assisi, Italian follower of Francis of Assisi (b. 1194)
• September 23 - Wenceslaus I, King of Bohemia
• October 9 - Robert Grosseteste, English statesman and theologian
• Saint Richard of Chichester
• King Henry I of Cyprus (b. 1217)
• Amadeus IV of Savoy (b. 1197)