1253

Events

Europe

War and politics

• July 6 - Mindaugas is crowned as King of Lithuania.
• July - William II, Count of Holland defeats the Flemish army at Westkapelle.
• A series of naval wars begins between the Italian city-states of Genoa and Venice, which will continue sporadically until 1371.
• King Henry III of England meets with English nobles and church leaders to reaffirm the validity of the Magna Carta.
• Pope Innocent IV returns to Rome, having left nine years earlier in 1244 to depose Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, and being unable to return until after Frederick's death due to the agitation throughout Europe caused by that action.
• Having rebuffed the armed forces of Conrad IV of Germany, Pope Innocent IV offers Sicily to Edmund, son of King Henry III of England.
• Galicia becomes a vassal state to the expanding Mongol Empire.

Culture

• Matthew Paris writes Historia Anglorum, a work on English history.
• The Basilica of San Francesco, the earliest important structure in the Italian Gothic style of architecture, is completed in Assisi, Italy.
• Sligo Abbey is built in Sligo, Ireland.
• The Domus Conversorum, a building and institution in London for Jews who had converted to Christianity, is established by King Henry III of England.

Asia

• April 28 - Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, declares his attention to preach the Lotus Sutra and Nam Myoho Renge Kyo as the true Buddhism, essentially founding the branch of Buddhism now known as Nichiren Buddhism.
• May - King Louis IX of France dispatches William of Rubruck from Constantinople on a missionary journey to convert the Tatars of central and eastern Asia. Later that year, William records the first recorded meeting between European Christians and Buddhists.
• The Mongol Empire launches attacks on the Muslim cities of Baghdad and Cairo.
• The Mongol Empire destroys the Kingdom of Dali (Yunnan) in Laos and incorporates the region into their empire.
• Kublai Khan introduces the baisha xiyue song and dance suite to the music of Yunnan.
• The Chinese era Baoyou begins in the Northern Song Dynasty of China.

Births

• October 17 - Saint Ivo of Kermartin, patron saint of lawyers.
• Hugh II of Cyprus
• Henry IV of Silesia
• Henry XIII, Duke of Bavaria
• John I, Duke of Brabant (d. 1294)

Deaths

• August 11 - Saint Clare of Assisi, patron saint of television
• September 22 - Dogen Zenji, founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism in Japan and author of the Shobogenzo and other important works.
• September 22 or 23 - King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia
• October 9 - Robert Grosseteste, English statesman and theologian.
• King Henry I of Cyprus
• Otto II of Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria
• Amadeus IV of Savoy
• Theobald IV of Champagne
• Elias of Cortona, an important early figure of the Franciscan order of Catholicism.
• Saint Richard of Chichester, author of the prayer adapted into the song Day by Day in the musical Godspell.

See also

• List of state leaders in 1253

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