13th century in literature
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in the 13th century.
See also: 13th century in poetry, 12th century in literature, 14th century in literature, list of years in literature.
Events
- 1204 – The Imperial Library of Constantinople is destroyed by Christian knights of the Fourth Crusade and its contents burned or sold.
- 1211 – Hélinand of Froidmont begins compiling his Chronicon.
- 1226: By August – The biographical poem L'histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, commissioned to commemorate the life of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, a rare example at this time of a life of a lay person, is completed, probably by a Tourangeau layman called John in the southern Welsh Marches.
- 1240 – Albert of Stade joins the Franciscan order and begins his chronicle.
- 1249: September 27 – Chronicler Guillaume de Puylaurens is present at the death of Raymond VII of Toulouse.
- 1251 – The carving is completed of the Tripitaka Koreana, a collection of Buddhist scriptures recorded on some 81,000 wooden blocks.
- 1258: February 13 – The House of Wisdom in Baghdad is destroyed by forces of the Mongol Empire after the Siege of Baghdad. It is said that the waters of the Tigris run black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river and red from the blood of the philosophers and scientists killed.
- 1274: May 1 – In Florence, the nine-year-old Dante Alighieri first sees the eight-year-old Beatrice, his lifelong muse.
- 1276 – Merton College, Oxford, is first recorded as having a collection of books, making its Library the world's oldest in continuous daily use. During the first century of its existence the books are probably kept in a chest.
- 1283 – Ram Khamhaeng, ruler of the Sukhothai Kingdom, creates the Thai alphabet, according to tradition.
- 1289 – Library of the Collège de Sorbonne, earliest predecessor of the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, is founded in Paris.
- 1298-1299 – Marco Polo dictates his Travels to Rustichello da Pisa while in prison in Genoa, according to tradition.
- 1300: Easter – The events of Dante's Divine Comedy take place.
New works
- 13th century
- *Huon of Bordeaux
- *Sagas of Icelanders
- *Beatrice of Nazareth – Seven Ways of Holy Love, the earliest prose work in Dutch
- *Conrad of Saxony – Speculum Beatæ Mariæ Virginis
- *Śivadāsa – "The five and twenty tales of the genie"
- *Zhou Mi – Miscellaneous observations from the year of Guixin
- c. 1200
- *Layamon – Brut
- *Nibelungenlied
- Early 13th century
- *Ancrene Wisse
- *Færeyinga saga
- *Farid al-Din Attar – Mantiqu 't-Tayr
- *Codex Gigas
- *Anonymus – Gesta Hungarorum
- *Guido delle Colonne – Historia destructionis Troiae
- *Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks
- *Raghavanka – Harishchandra Kavya
- *Wolfram von Eschenbach – Parzival
- c. 1203 – Hartmann von Aue – Iwein
- 1205 – Lancelot-Grail
- c. 1208 – Saxo Grammaticus – Gesta Danorum
- c. 1210
- *Herbers – Li romans de Dolopathos
- *Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun – Razós de trobar
- *Gottfried von Strassburg – Tristan
- 1212 – Kamo no Chōmei – Hōjōki
- 1214 – Gervase of Tilbury – Otia Imperialia
- c. 1215
- *Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube – Girard de Vienne
- *Rumi – Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi
- c. 1217–1235 – Andayya – Kabbigara Kava
- 1220 – Ibn Hammad – Akhbar muluk bani Ubayd
- c. 1220s – Snorri Sturlusson – Prose Edda
- c. 1225
- *Francis of Assisi – Laudes creaturarum or Cantico delle creature, the oldest known Italian poetry
- *King Horn, the oldest known English verse romance
- 1225 or 1226 – L'Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal
- 1227 – Brother Robert – Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, an Old Norse translation of the Tristan and Iseult legend
- c. 1227 – Henry of Latvia – Livonian Chronicle of Henry
- c. 1230
- *La Mort le roi Artu, French prose romance
- *Guillaume de Lorris – First section of Romance of the Rose
- *Johannes de Sacrobosco – De sphaera mundi
- *Snorri Sturlusson – Heimskringla
- c. 1230s – Post-Vulgate Cycle
- Mainly before 1235 – Henry de Bracton – De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae
- c. 1240
- *Egil's Saga
- *Johannes de Garlandia – De Mensurabili Musica
- *Rudolf von Ems – Alexanderroman
- c. 1240–1250 – Roger Bacon – Summa Grammatica
- mid-13th century
- *Black Book of Carmarthen completed
- *Doön de Mayence
- *Franco of Cologne – Ars cantus mensurabilis
- *Old incidents in the Xuanhe period of the great Song Dynasty
- c. 1250 – Willem die Madoc maecte – Van den vos Reynaerde
- c. 1250–1266 – Poema de Fernán González
- c. 1282 – Mechthild of Magdeburg – Das fließende Licht der Gottheit
- 1252
- *Calyla e Dymna, translation of the Panchatantra into Castilian
- *Jikkunshō
- After 1255 – Epic of Sundiata, in Mandinka oral tradition
- 1258–1273 – Rumi – Masnavi
- 1259 – Bonaventure – Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum
- completed 1260 – Minhaj-i-Siraj – Tabaqat-i Nasiri
- c. 1260
- *Le Récit d'un ménestrel de Reims
- *Sa'di – Gulistan, Bustan poets and texts in Persian
- 1263 – Bonaventure – Life of St. Francis of Assisi
- c. 1263 – Jacob van Maerlant – Der Naturen Bloeme
- c. 1264–1273 – Thomas Aquinas – Summa contra Gentiles
- c. 1264 – Jacob van Maerlant – De Spieghel Historiael
- 1265
- *Book of Aneirin
- *Shokukokin Wakashū
- c. 1270
- *Ibn al-Nafis – Theologus Autodidactus
- *John of Capua – Directorium Vitae Humanae, translation of the Panchatantra
- *Poetic Edda written in Codex Regius, including Hávamál and Völwpá
- c. 1270–1278 – Witelo – Perspectiva
- 1274
- *Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla – Ginnat Egoz
- *Bonvesin da la Riva – Libro de le tre scritture
- c. 1275 – Jean de Meun – Second section of Romance of the Rose
- late 13th century
- *Amir Khusrow – The Tale of the Four Dervishes
- *Njáls saga
- c. 1280
- *Bernard of Besse – Liber de Laudibus Beati Francisci
- *Heinrich der Vogler – Dietrichs Flucht
- c. 1280s
- *Havelok the Dane
- *The Owl and the Nightingale
- *'Anonymous IV' – Concerning the Measurement of Polyphonic Song
- 1283
- *Ramon Llull – Blanquerna
- *Mujū – Shasekishū
- 1288 – Bonvesin da la Riva – De magnalibus urbis Mediolani
- 1288-9 – Amir Khusrow – Qiran-us-Sa’dain
- c. 1290s – "Sir Patrick Spens"
- 1290-1
- *Dnyaneshwar – Dnyaneshwari
- *Amir Khusrow – Miftah-ul-Futooh
- 1293 – Dante Alighieri – La Vita Nuova
- 1294 – Amir Khusrow – Ghurratul-Kamal
- c. 1295 – Mathieu of Boulogne – Liber lamentationum Matheoluli
- 1298
- *Amir Khusrow – Khamsa-e-Nizami
- *Gertrude the Great – Legatus Memorialis Abundantiae Divinae Pietatis
- 1299 – Rustichello da Pisa – The Travels of Marco Polo
- c. 1300
- *Cursor Mundi
- *Gesta Romanorum
- *The Interlude of the Student and the Girl
New drama
- The Orphan of Zhao
Births
- c. 1200 – Matthew Paris, English chronicler and monk
- 1205 – Tikkana, Telugu poet
- 1207: September 9 – Rumi, Persian poet
- c. 1210 – Henry de Bracton, English cleric and jurist
- c. 1212 – Ibn Sahl of Seville, poet
- 1214 – Sturla Þórðarson, Icelandic writer of sagas and politician
- 1225: January 28 – Thomas Aquinas, Italian philosopher and theologian
- c. 1230–1240 – Jacob van Maerlant, Flemish poet and writer in Middle Dutch
- 1240 or 1241 – Mechtilde, German religious writer and saint
- 1248 – Angela of Foligno Italian mystic and saint
- 1265 – Dante Alighieri, Italian poet
- 1266 – Duns Scotus, Scottish philosopher and theologian
- 1275 – Dnyaneshwar, Maharashtrian sant and writer
- 1279 – Muktabai, Maharashtrian sant and Abhang poet
- c. 1280 – Ranulf Higden, English chronicler and Benedictine monk
- 1283
- *Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, Castilian poet
- *Yoshida Kenkō, Japanese author and Buddhist monk
- 1287: January 24 – Richard de Bury, English bishop and bibliophile
- 1293 or 1294 – John of Ruysbroeck, Flemish mystic
- Unknown year – Thomas the Rhymer, Scottish laird and prophet
Deaths
- Unknown – Palkuriki Somanatha, Telugu, Kannada and Sanskrit poet
- 1209
- *Nizami Ganjavi, Seljuk Empire Persian romantic epic poet
- *December 29 – Lu You, Chinese poet
- c. 1210 – Gottfried von Strassburg, German writer
- 1212 – Adam of Dryburgh, Anglo-Scots theologian
- 1223 – Gerald of Wales, Cambro-Norman churchman and topographer
- 1228 – Gervase of Tilbury, English lawyer, statesman and writer
- 1241: September 23 – Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic historian, poet, and politician
- 1241: September 26 – Fujiwara no Teika, Japanese waka poet, calligrapher, novelist, and scholar
- 1251
- *Ibn Sahl of Seville, poet
- * – Albertanus of Brescia, Latin prose writer
- 1252 – Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Cistercian chronicler
- 1253: October 9 – Robert Grosseteste, English churchman and scholar
- 1259 – Matthew Paris, English chronicler and monk
- 1268 – Henry de Bracton, English writer and jurist
- 1273: December 17 – Rumi, Persian poet
- 1274
- *March 7 – Thomas Aquinas, Italian philosopher and theologian
- *July 12 – Bonaventure, philosopher and theologian
- 1285 – Rutebeuf, French trouvère
- 1287: August 31 – Konrad von Würzburg, German poet
- 1294
- *Roger Bacon, English scholar
- *Guittone d'Arezzo, Tuscan poet
In literature
- John Arden's play Left-Handed Liberty is set around the creation of Magna Carta in England in 1215.