485

By place

Britannia

• Aelle of Sussex, king of the South Saxons, fights the Britons at the stream of Mercredesburne. The battle ends in a draw.
• Period of Arthur's "twelve battles", during which he gains reputation for invincibility.

  Asia

• Emperor Xiao Wen Di institutes an "equal-field" system of agriculture, assigning each peasant family about 19 acres of land, of which a small portion is to be kept permanently by the farmer and his family, with the rest reverting to the state upon his death or retirement. To make sure that the people supervise each other in implementing the new system, he divides the population into groups, with five families constituting a neighborhood, five neighborhoods a village, and five villages an association headed by a chief. The land-reform system will discourage farmers from selling off their properties to large landholders and will be continued in essence for well over 1,000 years.
• Prince Kenzō succeeds his adoptive father Seinei, and becomes the 23rd emperor of Japan.

  By topic

Religion

• Peter the Fuller, patriarch of Antioch, is condemned and excommunicated by a synod of Western bishops at Rome.