1303
year
Year 1303 (MCCCIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
Events
January–March
January 17 – A major earthquake strikes Byzantium and Constantinople (now Istanbul in Turkey). Byzantine Emperor Michael IX Palaiologos spreads the word that the former Patriarch of the Eastern Church, Athanasius I had given him a warning about the imminent wrath of God against the city.
January 21 – John XII is forced to resign as Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church after the January 17 earthquake.
January 28 – In India, the siege of Chittorgarh, capital of the Medapata Kingdom (now in the state of Rajasthan), begins as the Sultan of Delhi, Alauddin Khalji, seeks to acquire the territory of the Medapata Emperor, Ratnasimha.
February 24 – Battle of Roslin: Scottish forces (some 8,000 men) led by John Comyn III "the Red" and Simon Fraser ambush and defeat an English scouting party under John Segrave at Roslin. During the battle, the Scots attack the English camp, capturing Segrave and several other nobles. But a second English brigade manages to rescue Segrave in a pitched battle. Later, the English army is again defeated, according to sources they lose between 28,000 and 30,000 men.
March 17 – Joan II of the Anscarids becomes the Countess and ruler of Burgundy, a free state within the Holy Roman Empire (now the département of Jura in France), upon the death of her father Otto IV.
April–June
April 4 – Battle of Arques: Flemish forces (some 10,000 men) led by William of Jülich ("the Younger") defeats a French army at Arques in Flanders.
“1303” enters the record as year. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what year can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1303” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, year provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5614. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1303.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1303”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1303 primary sources, 1303 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1303” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.