A competition is launched for an architect to construct a dome above Florence's cathedral, and is won by Brunelleschi

After a six-month siege Henry V makes a triumphal entry into Rouen, the city of his Norman ancestors

John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, is murdered by the Armagnac faction in the presence of the dauphin - escalating France's civil war

The Hussites build a new fortified town at Tabor as their fortress headquarters

The Portuguese, discovering the lush and uninhabited island of Madeira, send colonists to settle it

The treaty of Troyes, between the English and the Burgundian faction, grants Henry V the status of heir to the French throne

Henry V marries Catherine, daughter of the French king and sister of the rightful heir to the kingdom, the dauphin, who is on the opposing side

The dauphin proclaims himself Charles VII of France, but with Paris in the hands of his enemies he is known as the king of Bourges

Jan Zizka wins a series of victories against papal armies, using the mobile barricade which becomes known as his 'war wagon fortress'

Henry VI, son of Henry V and Catherine of France, is king of England and theoretically king of France before his first birthday

Masaccio paints some of the frescoes in the chapel of a Florentine silk merchant, Felice Brancacci, in Santa Maria del Carmine

A peasant girl, Joan of Arc, hears the voices of saints urging her to relieve the siege of Orléans

Joan of Arc wins her way into the presence of Charles VII at Chinon and persuades him, eventually, to trust her

Joan of Arc leads French forces in the successful relief of Orléans

Joan of Arc stands nearby while Charles VII is anointed at Reims, then kneels before him and for the first time calls him her king

Joan of Arc is captured in a skirmish with the Burgundians, who subsequently hand her over to the English

Work begins in Florence on Brunelleschi's Pazzi chapel, which encapsulates in miniature the new ideals of Renaissance architecture

Robert Campin, also known as the Master of Flémalle, brings to Flemish painting a natural and everyday quality which is entirely new

Joan of Arc, tried by the Inquisition on behalf of the English in Rouen, is burned at the stake as a relapsed heretic

A new altarpiece is installed in the cathedral in Ghent, introducing the powerful realism of Jan van Eyck

The Compacts of Prague, agreed with the papacy in 1433, allow the Hussite laity to receive the sacrament in both kinds

Cosimo de' Medici, arrested by a rival faction, escapes with his life thanks to bribes and well-placed friends

Giovanni Arnolfini, a merchant from Lucca trading in Bruges, commissions from van Eyck a portrait of himself and his wife

Chancellor Nicolas Rolin, of Burgundy, commissions an altarpiece from Jan van Eyck

Rogier van der Weyden, the third in the extraordinary trio of Flemish artists of the 1430s, is appointed painter to the city of Brussels