1220

Centuries: 12th century – 13th century – 14th century

Decades: 1170s 1180s 1190s 1200s 1210s – 1220s – 1230s 1240s 1250s 1260s 1270s

Years: 1215 1216 1217 1218 1219 – 1220 – 1221 1222 1223 1224 1225

The world in 1220

• Middle Ages in Europe
• Fifth Crusade (1217-1221)

Events

• Mongols first invade Abbasid caliphate – Bukhara and Samarkand taken
• End of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, destroyed by Genghis Khan's Mongolian cavalry
• Dominican Order approved by Pope Honorius III
• Frederick II crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Honorius III
• Conrad of Masovia drives out the heathen Prussians from a Masovian territory of Chelmno Land
• Trial by ordeal abolished in England
• The German Hohenstaufen dynasty which had ruled Sicily since 1194, adopts Palermo as its principal seat
• Dordrecht receives city rights, making it the oldest city in the present-day Netherlands
• Ljubljana receives its town rights
• The Islamic lands of Central Asia are overrun by the armies of the Mongol invader Genghis Khan (ca. 1155-1227), who laid waste to many civilizations and created an empire that stretched from China to the Caspian Sea. But he failed to destroy the strength of Islam in Central Asia.

Architecture

• Gothic architecture in Europe
• Rebuilding of the Cathedral of Chartres, which had been destroyed by a fire in 1194, is completed
• Building of the York Minster begins
• Building of the Salisbury Cathedral begins

Births

• Emperor Go-Saga of Japan (+1272)
• Alexander Nevsky (+1263), leader of the Russian principality of Novgorod
• Alphonse of Toulouse (+1271), son of Louis VIII, King of France

Deaths

• Michael Choniates (b. c. 1140), Byzantine writer and ecclesiastic

Office holders

• List of state leaders in 1220
• List of religious leaders in 1220