German merchants begin trading along the coasts of Latvia and Estonia, a region to which they give the name Livonia

Frederick Barbarossa becomes king of Germany and Holy Roman emperor, greatly extending the power of the empire during a long reign

Henry the Lion builds a new town at Lübeck, well placed to develop as the centre of the Hanseatic League

The shared memories and legends of Nordic peoples are brought together in a great German epic, the Nibelungenlied

The three-year old Frederick II has a claim to the thrones of both Sicily and Germany on the death of his father, the emperor Henry VI

German pressure eastwards (the Drang nach Osten) steadily brings colonists into regions previously occupied by Slavs

The story of Parsifal and the Holy Grail becomes the subject of a courtly epic by Wolfram von Eschenbach

Frederick II is crowned Holy Roman emperor by a somewhat reluctant pope, Honorius III

The Teutonic knights undertake a new form of crusade, attempting to subdue the pagan Prussians who occupy part of the Baltic coast

Tannhäuser is one of the Minnesinger, the German equivalents of the French troubadours

The death of the last Hohenstaufen ruler, Conrad IV, leaves a vacancy on the German throne which is not filled for nineteen years

The Teutonic knights seize the coastal area round Gdansk, cutting off Poland's access to the sea

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

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

Guilds of singers and song-writers develop in German towns, calling themselves Meistersinger, or master singers

A council is called at Constance, to consider the radical views of John Huss and to deal with the present excess of popes

John Huss, invited to Constance under a promise of safe conduct, is arrested, tried and burnt at the stake as a heretic

The Council of Constance, having done its best to dispose of the three existing popes, elects a new one - Martin V

Master ES becomes the first artist to produce engravings

A copy of Europe's first book printed from movable type, the Gutenberg Bible, is completed in Mainz

Albrecht Pfister publishes the first book with printed illustrations - Der Ackermann aus Böhmen ('The farmer of Bohemia')

In the treaty of Torun the Teutonic knights finally cede Prussia to Poland

The first Italian printing press is set up in Venice, which soon rivals Germany for the quality of its printing

The world's first globe is published by Martin Behaim without showing America, in the very year of Columbus' voyage

The Nuremberg Chronicle integrates text and pictures in an ambitious history of the world