1250
Year 1250 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
World
- The world population is estimated at between 400 and 416 million individuals.
- World climate transitions from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age.
Europe
- February 2 - King Erik Eriksson of Sweden dies. The ten-year-old Valdemar, the eldest son of Birger Jarl, is elected King of Sweden, and becomes the first king from the House of Bjälbo.
- October 12 - A great storm shifts the mouth of the River Rother in England 12 miles to the west; a battering series of strong storms significantly alters other coastal geography around Romney Marsh.
- December 13 - Emperor Frederick II dies, beginning the 23-year-long "Great Interregnum". Frederick is the last Holy Roman Emperor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty; after the interregnum, the empire passes to the Habsburgs.
- The Lombard League dissolves upon the death of its member states' nemesis, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor.
- Albertus Magnus isolates the element arsenic, as the 8th discovered metal. He also first uses the word "oriole" to describe a type of bird.
- The Rialto Bridge in Venice is converted from a pontoon bridge to a permanent, raised wooden structure.
- The Ponts Couverts fortified bridges of Strasbourg are completed.
- Vincent of Beauvais completes his proto-encyclopedic work Speculum Maius.
- The first of the Parlements of Ancien Régime France is established.
- Villard de Honnecourt draws the first known image of a sawmill.
- The first usage is made of the English word "cuckold", according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
- Medieval music: The Notre Dame school of polyphony ends.
Asia
- July 9 – The Qaymariyya tribe engineers a coup d'état to hand over Damascus to An-Nasir Yusuf. The garrison in the citadel surrenders later to him.
- A kurultai is called by Batu Khan in Siberia as part of maneuverings which will elect Möngke Khan as khan of the Mongol Empire in 1251.
- Starting in this year and ending in 1275, the Muslim Shougeng Pu, likely a Persian or an Arab, serves as the Commissioner of Merchant Shipping for the Song dynasty Chinese seaport at Quanzhou, due to his effort in defeating pirates.
Africa
- April 8 - Battle of Fariskur: Louis IX is captured by Baibars' Mamluk army while he is in Egypt conducting the Seventh Crusade; he later has to ransom himself.
- April 30 - King Louis IX is released by his Egyptian captors after paying a ransom of one million dinars and turning over the city of Damietta.
- May 2 - Al-Muazzam Turanshah, Ayyubid ruler of Egypt, is murdered, ending effective Ayyubid Dynasty rule in the country. He is briefly succeeded by his widow, Sultana Shajar al-Durr.
- July 21 - Aybak becomes ruler of Egypt, beginning the Bahri Dynasty of the Mamluk Sultanate. After 5 days he stands down and the six-year-old Al-Ashraf Musa is nominally proclaimed sultan.
- The Welayta state is founded in modern-day Ethiopia.
- In Tunis, a popular rebellion against newly arrived, wealthy and influential Andalusian refugees breaks out, and is violently put down.
- The Hafsid caliph al-Mustansir enforces laws of ghiyar, or differentiation for non-Muslims. As such, Jews have to wear a distinguishing badge which Tunisian Jews will have to wear into the nineteenth century.
Oceania
- Samoa frees itself from Tongan rule, which begins the Malietoa dynasty in Samoa.
By topic
Markets
- The Flemish town of Douai emits the first recorded redeemable annuities in medieval Europe, confirming a trend of consolidation of local public debt started in 1218, in Rheims.
- The Sienese bankers belonging to the firm known as the Gran Tavola, under the steering of the Bonsignori Brothers, become the main financiers of the Papacy.
Births
- April 8 - John Tristan, son of Louis IX
- December - al-Allama al-Hilli, Persian Shia theologian
- December 25 - John IV Doukas Laskaris, emperor of Nicaea
- Agnes of Baden, German noblewoman
- Albertus de Chiavari, Italian Master General
- Beatrice of Savoy, Swiss noblewoman
- Dmitry of Pereslavl, Kievan Grand Prince
- Esclaramunda of Foix, queen consort of Majorca
- Jeanne de Montfort de Chambéon, Swiss noblewoman
- Margaret of Burgundy, queen of Sicily
- Matteo I Visconti, Italian imperial vicar
- Nijō Tameyo, Japanese official and poet
- Niklot I, German nobleman and knight
- Robert II, French nobleman and knight
- Sancho of Aragon, Spanish archbishop
- approximate date
- Adolf II of Waldeck, prince-bishop of Liège
- Albert II, Duke of Saxony, German nobleman
- Albert III, Margrave of Brandenburg-Salzwedel, German nobleman and knight
- 1250 or 1259 - Asher ben Jehiel, German Jewish rabbi
- Diether of Nassau, archbishop of Trier
- Fra Dolcino, Italian priest and reformist
- Grigorije II of Ras, Serbian monk-scribe
- 1250–1259 - Guido Cavalcanti, Italian poet and writer
- Konrad II of Masovia, Polish nobleman
- Mordechai ben Hillel, German scholar
- Rhys ap Maredudd, Welsh nobleman
- Theodoric of Freiberg, German physicist
- Záviš of Falkenstein, Bohemian nobleman
Deaths
- February 2 - Erik Eriksson, king of Sweden
- February 6 - Geoffrey VI, French nobleman and knight
- February 8
- * Andrew III, French nobleman and knight
- * Fakhr ad-Din, Egyptian ruler and military leader
- * Robert I, French nobleman
- * William Longespée, English knight
- February 11 - Jean de Ronay, French Grand Master
- March 29 - Ludolph of Ratzeburg, German bishop
- April 6
- * Guillaume de Sonnac, French Grand Master
- * Hugh XI of Lusignan, French nobleman
- May 2 - Al-Muazzam Turanshah, Ayyubid ruler of Egypt
- May 21 - Humbert V, French nobleman and knight
- May 26 - Peter I, French nobleman
- May 27 - Raniero Capocci, Italian priest and cardinal
- June 7 - Vitslav I, Danish nobleman and knight
- June 11 - Alice of Schaerbeek, Flemish Cistercian lay sister
- June 18 - Theresa of Portugal, queen of León
- August 10 - Eric IV, king of Denmark
- October 4 - Herman VI, German nobleman and knight
- October 12 - Richard Wendene, English bishop
- December 13 - Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
- Yang Miaozhen, Chinese female military leader
- approximate date
- Gilbertus Anglicus, English physician and writer
- Julian of Speyer, German Franciscan composer and poet
- Fibonacci, Pisan mathematician and writer
- Romée de Villeneuve, French nobleman and seneschal
- Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi, Persian biographer
- Walter of Serviliano, Italian Benedictine hermit and abbot