Jogaila inherits a pagan Lithuanian kingdom which has been extended as far south as Kiev

John Hawkwood, a condottiere in command of the White Company, is appointed captain general of Florence

The French cardinals, objecting to the new Italian pope, elect their own man as Clement VII - and thus inaugurate the Great Schism of the papacy

Dimitri, grand prince of Moscow, leads other Russian princes in a crushing victory over the Mongols on the Kulikovo plain

The Venetian blockade of Chioggia costs Genoa her fleet and ends Genoese rivalry with Venice in the eastern Mediterranean

A poll tax imposed in England provokes widespread unrest, which flares up in the Peasants' Revolt

Wat Tyler, leader of the Kentish rebels, meets Richard II at Smithfield - before being struck and wounded by the Lord Mayor of London

Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the signore of Milan, sets about enlarging his territory - seizing Vicenza, Verona and Padua between 1384 and 1388

The victory at Aljubarrota, securing the Portuguese throne for John I, is commemorated in the Dominican abbey called Batalha

Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy

John I, newly victorious in Portugal, proposes an alliance with England which has never been revoked

A clock, designed only to strike the hours, is installed in Salisbury cathedral and is still working today

Jadwiga, 12-year-old queen of Poland, marries Jogaila, her 34-year-old pagan neighbour - uniting the crowns of Poland and Lithuania

Jogaila, baptized a Roman Catholic before marrying Jadwiga, brings Lithuania into the Christian fold - the last part of Europe to be converted

Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death

Victory at Kosovo gives the Ottoman Turks control over Serbia, which becomes a vassal state

With a victory near Falköping, Margaret becomes regent of Sweden as well as Denmark and Norway

On the death of his father, Robert II, Robert III becomes king of Scotland

Construction begins on a canal from Lübeck south to the Elbe, linking the Baltic and the North Sea

Charles VI, king of France, suffers the first of many violent fits of madness

The Ottoman sultan Bayazid I brings the Slav kingdom of Bulgaria under his control

Philip II of Burgundy commissions from Netherlands sculptor Claus Sluter a work, the Well of Moses, which launches the northern Renaissance

The English king, Richard II, commissions a diptych (the Wilton Diptych) showing himself being presented to the Virgin and Child

The keyboard of the organ is adapted in Germany to strings, thus providing the harpsichord - first mentioned in a manuscript of this year

With the coronation of the 16-year-old Eric of Pomerania, the crowns of Denmark, Norway and Sweden are formally united for the first time