Most of the German princes had come…

Rebel leader Ashikaga Takauji takes control of the capital and sets up a puppet emperor who reciprocates by appointing Takauji shogun in 1338.

Takauji rules from the Muromachi district of Kyoto, relying on Zen monks as intermediaries in foreign relations.

By so doing, Andronikos and Kantakouzenos are able to call on the services of almost limitless numbers of Turkish soldiers to fight for them against their other enemies: the Italians in the Aegean islands and the Serbs and the Bulgars in Macedonia and Thrace.

The Ottomans have by 1338 conquered most of western Asia Minor, and Emperor Andronikos III has reluctantly acquiesced to Orhan’s terms of truce, as he requires Turkish help against the expansionist Serbs under Stephen Dushan.

Northwestern Anatolia, once the heart of the empire, is lost to Greek rule after the Turkish warriors of Orhan, second emir of the powerful Ottoman principality, had captured Nicomedia in 1337, renaming it Izmit, …

… Chrysopolis.

Taddeo Gaddi, the son of Gaddo di Zanobi, called Gaddo Gaddi, had been a member of Giotto's workshop from 1313 to 1337, when his master died.

His principal work is the cycle of Stories of the Virgin in the Baroncelli Chapel of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence (1328–1338).

Later he perhaps paints the cabinet tiles in the sacristy of the same church, now divided among the Galleria dell'Accademia of Florence and museums in Munich and Berlin.

These works show his mastership of Giotto's new style, to which he has added a personal experimentation in the architectural backgrounds, such as in the staircase of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Baroncelli Chapel.

Andrea Pisano, whose real name is Andrea da Pontedera, had in 1336 completed a pair of bronze doors, begun in 1330, that he has created for the south portal of the Baptistery in Florence.

After 1337, Pisano sculpts some of the marble reliefs surrounding the campanile of the Florence Cathedral, his bulkily rendered figures reflecting the influence of the late painter and sculptor Giotto, whom he succeeds on this project.

Hungary, enriched by renewed Western cultural influences from Italy and France under the rule of Angevin king Charles I, once more becomes a significant power in central Europe.

Charles’s successful foreign policy, based on strong ties with Poland, has resulted in the extension of Hungary's influence into southern Italy.

The third son of Charles I of Hungary and his wife, Elizabeth of Poland, born on March 5, 1326, is named for his father's uncle, Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, canonized in 1317.

The first-born son of Louis's parents, Charles, died before Louis's birth.

Louis became his father' heir in 1329 after the death of his brother Ladislaus.

He has had a liberal education by the standards of his age and learned French, German and Latin.

He showed a special interest in history and astrology.

A cleric from Wrocław, Nicholas, had taught him the basic principles of Christian faith.

However, Louis's religious zeal is due to his mother's influence In a royal charter, Louis will remember that in his childhood, a knight of the royal court, Peter Poháros, often carried him on his shoulders.

His two tutors, Nicholas Drugeth and Nicholas Knesich, had saved the lives of both Louis and his younger brother, Andrew, when Felician Záh attempted to assassinate the royal family in Visegrád on April 17, 1330.

He was only nine when he stamped a treaty of alliance between his father and John of Bohemia.

A year later, Louis had accompanied his father in invading Austria.

On March 1, 1338, John of Bohemia's son and heir, Charles, Margrave of Moravia, signed a new treaty with Charles I of Hungary and Louis in Visegrád.

According to the treaty, Charles of Moravia acknowledges the right of Charles I's sons to succeed their maternal uncle, Casimir III of Poland, if Casimir dies without a male issue.

Louis also pledges that he will marry the margrave's three-year-old daughter, Margaret.

Casimir III's first wife, Aldona of Lithuania, dies on May 26, 1339.

Two leading Polish noblemen—Zbigniew, chancellor of Cracow, and Spycimir Leliwita—had persuaded Casimir, who had not fathered a son, to make his sister, Elizabeth, and her offspring his heirs.

Historian Paul W. Knoll writes that Casimir preferred his sister's family to his own daughters or a member of a cadet branch of the Piast dynasty, because he wanted assure the king of Hungary's firm against the Teutonic Knights.

Louis's father and uncle sign a treaty in Visegrád in July whereby Casimir III makes Louis his heir if he dies without a son.

In exchange, Charles I pledges that Louis will reoccupy Pomerania and other Polish lands lost to the Teutonic Order without Polish funds and will only employ Poles in the royal administration in Poland.

Louis receives the title of Duke of Transylvania from his father in 1339, but he does not administer the province.

According to a royal charter from the same year, Louis's bride, Margaret of Bohemia, lived in the Hungarian royal court.

Louis's separate ducal court is first mentioned in a royal charter of 1340.

The expansionist Swiss of the free imperial city of Bern have, throughout the early 1300s, extended their control by annexing surrounding territories.

To counter this growth, the Burgundians invade with a fifteen thousand man force, including cavalry and infantry, and lay siege to the town of Laupen, a Bernese acquisition.

Laupen’s Bernese defenders receive help from the three nuclear Forest cantons of the Everlasting League—Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden—and although outnumbered three to one, the Swiss infantry charges, routing the Burgundians on the field on June 21, 1339, and withstanding a strong counterattack by the Burgundian cavalry.

The siege is lifted, the Swiss having demonstrated, for the first time, their military valor and resolution; ...

...Bern becomes the established leader of the evolving polity of Switzerland.