When Charles IV dies, for the first time in more than 400 years of the Capetian dynasty there is no son or brother to inherit the French crown

The English finally accept a treaty, in Edinburgh, declaring that Robert de Bruce is king of a Scotland 'free and divided from the kingdom of England'

A French cousin, Philip of Valois, is selected to succeed Charles IV - in preference to an English cousin, Edward III

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

The long reign of Casimir III, known as the Great, is a time of prosperity and achievement in Poland

Philip VI of France confiscates Guienne, a fief belonging to Edward III of England - whose response begins the Hundred Years' War

A new dynasty, the Ashikaga shogunate, comes into power after a member of the family, Takauji, wins a civil war

Edward III, in Ghent, publicly assumes the title and the arms of the king of France

Charles IV, king of Bohemia, German king and Holy Roman emperor, makes Prague a glittering centre of learning and architecture

Charles IV establishes a permanent group of seven electors - four hereditary German rulers and the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier

The battle of Poitiers ends, on the third day, with victory for the English and the capture of the French king, John II

After four years of captivity in Bordeaux and London, the French king John II is released for a promised ransom of 3 million gold crowns

Chu Yüan-chang drives the Mongols out of Beijing and declares a new dynasty - the Ming (meaning 'brilliant')

On the fall of the Yuan dynasty, replaced by the Ming, Tibet declares its independence from China

The marriage of the duke of Burgundy to the heiress of Flanders lays the foundation for the great territorial expansion of Burgundy

On the death of his uncle, David II, Robert Stewart becomes king of Scotland as Robert II

10-year-old Richard II follows his grandfather, Edward III, on the English throne

The papal curia returns to Rome in what would seem a conclusive move if there were not, two years later, two popes - one of them elected back in Avignon

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

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

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

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

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