Timeline April 1341

Events in April 1341 3

• 1286 – 1341 John III, Duke of Brittany (1286-1341) Died 30 April 1341, aged 55 John III ruled the Duchy of Brittany from 1312 and maintained a cautious balance between his English and French overlords. He died without a son, and his failure to settle the succession before his death touched off the War of the Breton Succession.
• 1341 Petrarch crowned poet laureate in Rome Ceremony on the Capitoline Hill honors the scholar-poet Francesco Petrarca was crowned with a laurel wreath on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, reviving an honor unused since antiquity. The ceremony, held on Easter Sunday, celebrated his scholarship and Latin verse and is often cited as a symbolic milestone in the emergence of Renaissance humanism. Petrarch had lobbied for the honor through contacts in Rome and Naples.
• 1341 War of the Breton Succession begins Death of Duke John III sparks a contested Breton inheritance Duke John III of Brittany died without a direct heir, igniting a succession dispute between his half-brother John of Montfort and his niece Joan, wife of Charles of Blois. The conflict quickly drew in the kings of England and France, who backed opposing claimants, turning it into a proxy theatre of the wider Anglo-French rivalry. Fighting over the duchy continued for more than two decades.