1264

Events

Europe

War and politics

* Before May - The Second Barons' War, a civil war in England, begins.
* May 12 to May 14 - The Battle of Lewes of the Second Barons' War is fought between Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and King Henry III of England in Sussex. By the end of the battle, de Montfort's forces capture both King Henry and his son, future King Edward I, making de Montfort the "uncrowned king of England" for 15 months before Edward escapes captivity and recaptures the throne.
* June 18 - The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.
* In Spain, King James I of Aragon reconquers the cities of Orihuela in Alicante and Elx in Valencia from the Moors, ending over 500 years of Islamic rule.
* The Thuringian War of Succession ends.
* The state of Hesse gains its independence from Thuringia and becomes a free state of the Holy Roman Empire.
* In the Peerage of England, the title Baron de Ros, the oldest continuously held peerage title in England, is created by writ of summons.

Culture and religion

* April - Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Hertford leads a massacre of the Jews at Canterbury.
* August 5 - Anti-Jewish riots break out in Arnstadt (modern-day Germany).
* September 14 - Walter de Merton formally completes the foundation of the House of Scholars of Merton (later Merton College, Oxford) to provide education in Malden and the University of Oxford.
* King Boleslaus V of Poland promulgates legal protection for his Jewish subjects, including protection from the kidnapping and forcible baptism of Jewish children.
* In Barcelona, a commission of Dominicans censors portions of the Talmud for the first time, by ordering the cancellation of passages found reprehensible from a Christian point of view.
* Thomas Aquinas completes his theological work "Summa contra Gentiles".
* Pope Urban IV creates the festivity of Corpus Domini.

Asia

Mongol Empire

* Kublai Khan, supreme leader of the Mongol Empire, moves the empire's capital from Karakorum in Mongolia to the Chinese city of Khanbaliq (now Beijing).
* Kublai Khan defeats his brother and pretender to the title of Khagan, or Khan of Khans, Ariq Boke, who surrenders to Kublai and is summarily imprisoned. He dies a year later under mysterious circumstances, possibly by poisoning, but the cause of death is still uncertain.
* Kublai Khan publicly reprimands his own officers for executing 2 Song Dynasty Chinese generals without trial or investigation. This act is one of many in order to enhance his reputation amongst the Chinese, to increase his legitimacy as a just ruler, and win over more defectors from the Southern Song.

Japan

* The Japanese era Kōchō ends, and the Bun'ei era begins.

Births

* May 26 - Prince Koreyasu, Japanese shogun (d. 1326)
* Pope Clement V (d. 1314)

Deaths

* December 2 - Pope Urban IV
* Vincent of Beauvais, French encyclopedist (b. 1190)
* Danylo of Halych, King of Galicia (b. 1201)
* Emperor Lizong of China
* Andrei II of Russia