1249

Year 1249 (MCCXLIX) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	12th century – 13th century – 14th century
Decades:	1210s  1220s  1230s  – 1240s –  1250s  1260s  1270s
Years:	1246 1247 1248 – 1249 – 1250 1251 1252

Events

By place

Africa

• King Louis IX of France captures Damietta in Egypt. It is the first major military battle of the Seventh Crusade.

Asia

• Pho Khun Si Indrathit is the first king of the Sukhothai kingdom. This is the start of the modern Thai nation.
• The Hikitsuke, a judicial organ of the Kamakura and Muromachi shogunates of Japan, is started.
• The Japanese Hōji era ends, and the Kenchō era begins.

Europe

• February 16 – Andrew of Longjumeau is sent by King Louis IX of France as an ambassador to meet with the Khan of the Mongols.
• June 13 – coronation of Alexander III as King of Scots.
• August 15 – The First Battle of Athenry is fought in Galway, Ireland.
• The city of Stralsund (in present-day Germany) is burned to the ground by forces from the rival city of Lübeck.
• Swedish statesman Birger Jarl takes over the province of Tavastia in Finland. This gives Sweden power in Finland.
• Alphonse of Toulouse orders Jews from Poitou, France to leave.
• The Hungarian capital is moved from Esztergom to Buda.

Mediterranean

• May 26 – The Battle of Fossalta is fought between the Holy Roman Empire and the Lombard League. The Lombards capture the German commander.
• The Moors lose possession of Alicante in Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain).
• King Afonso III of Portugal recaptures Faro and Silves in the Algarve from the Moors. This ends the Portuguese Reconquista.
• The city of Mystras, Greece is strengthened and a palace is built there by William II Villehardouin.

By topic

Education

• University College, the first College at Oxford, is founded with money gifted from the estate of William of Durham.

Science

• Roger Bacon publishes a major scientific work. It includes writings of convex lens spectacles for treating long-sightedness. It is the first publication of the formula for gunpowder in the western world.

Births

• Eric V of Denmark (d. 1286)
• Robert III of Flanders
• Frederick I, Margrave of Baden (d. 1268)
• Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford (d. 1297)
• Pope John XXII (d. 1334)
• Menachem Meiri, rabbi

Deaths

• July 6 – King Alexander II of Scotland (b. 1198)
• July 19 – Jacopo Tiepolo, Doge of Venice
• September 27 – Count Raymond VII of Toulouse (b. 1197)
• As-Salih Ayyub, ruler of Egypt
• Abu Zakariya, ruler of the Maghreb (b. 1203)
• William of Sherwood, English logician (b. 1190)
• Wuzhun Shifan, Chinese Zen Buddhist monk (b. 1178)
• Song Ci, Chinese physician and judge (b. 1186)