1275

1275

Events

April 22 - The first of the Statutes of Westminster are passed by the English Parliament, establishing a series of laws in its 51 clauses, including equal treatment of rich and poor, free and fair elections, and definition of bailable and non-bailable offenses.
Eleanor de Montfort is captured by pirates in the employ of Edward I of England to prevent her marriage to Llywelyn the Last, prince of Wales; she is used as a bargaining chip over the coming years in Edward's attempts to subjugate Llywelyn and Wales.
Scottish forces defeat the Manx of the Isle of Man in a decisive battle, firmly establishing Scottish rule of the island.
The Mongol Golden Horde raids Lithuania for the third time.
Around Ciney, in the future Wallonia, begins the fratricid war of the cow which will last until 1278.

Jean de Meun completes the French allegorical work of fiction, Roman de la Rose, with a second section; the first section was written by Guillaume de Lorris in 1230.
The verge escapement, a simple type of escapement used in clocks, is invented (exact year unknown).
Ramon Llull establishes a school in Majorca to teach Arabic to preachers in an attempt to aid proselytizing to Moors. He also discovers diethyl ether.
The first main survey of the Hundred Rolls, an English census seen as a follow up to the Domesday Book completed in 1086, is finished; it began in 1274.

March - The 200,000 multiethnic troops of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty, headed by the Turkish commander Bayan, face a Chinese Song Dynasty army of 130,000 led by the Song Chancellor Jia Sidao. The result is a decisive victory for the Yuan Dynasty, and soon after the much-vilified Jia Sidao is stripped of rank and title, and killed by one of his own guards as he is sent to exile in Fujian by the Song court.
March 4 - Chinese astronomers observe a total eclipse of the Sun in China.
Invading Mongol forces capture the Chinese city of Suzhou.
Marco Polo purportedly visits Xanadu, Kublai Khan's summer capital of the Mongol Empire.
The city of Kunming is made capital of the Yunnan province of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty.
Nestorian monk Rabban Bar Sauma begins his pilgrimage from China towards Jerusalem.

The era of the tosafot (medieval commentators on the Talmud) ends (began 1100).
The population of Bushmen in Basutoland (modern-day Lesotho) is estimated at 125,000.
The Japanese era Bun'ei ends, and the Kenji era begins.