Editing 1591 (section)

=== January&ndash;March ===
* [[January 27]] &ndash; Scottish schoolmaster [[John Fian]] becomes the first person to be executed after the [[North Berwick witch trials]], following his conviction for the crime of witchcraft. Fian is taken to the Castlehill outside of Edinburgh and strangled after which his body is burned. [[Agnes Sampson]] is [[garotte|garroted]] the next day at Castehill and then burned.<ref>Robert Pitcairn, ''Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland'', volume 2 (Bannatyne Club 1833) pp. 241, 348</ref>
* [[February 7]] &ndash; [[Pope Gregory XIV]], who had succeeded [[Pope Urban VII]] in December, appoints Cardinal [[Marco Antonio Colonna]] and six other cardinals to a commission to revise the [[Sixtine Vulgate]] Latin translation of the Bible, published in 1590 under the editorship of [[Pope Sixtus V]], to which the [[College of Cardinals]] has taken exception. The revision of the revision, dubbed the [[Sixto-Clementine Vulgate]], will be completed in 1592 and be the official version used by the Catholic Church until 1979.
* [[February 25]] &ndash; Poet [[Edmund Spenser]] is granted an annual pension of 50 [[pounds sterling]] by Queen [[Elizabeth I]] of England in recognition of his publication of ''[[The Faerie Queen]]''. The pension is paid in quarterly installments of 12s. 10d. on March 25, June 24, September 29 and December 25.<ref>Richard A. McCabe, ''The Oxford Handbook of Edmund Spenser'' (Oxford University Press, 2010) p. 112</ref>
* [[March 1]] &ndash; [[Pope Gregory XIV]] [[excommunication|excommunicates]] King [[Henry IV of France]] and orders the clergy, nobles, judicial functionaries and the Third Estate of France to renounce the nation's king.<ref name=Ott>Michael Ott, "Pope Gregory XIV", in ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'', Volume 7 (Robert Appleton Company, 1910)</ref>
* [[March 13]] &ndash; [[Battle of Tondibi]]: In [[Mali]], forces sent by the [[Saadi dynasty]] ruler of [[Morocco]], [[Ahmad al-Mansur]], and led by [[Judar Pasha]], defeat the [[Songhai Empire]], despite being outnumbered by at least five to one.<ref>{{cite book|author=ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Saʿdī|title=Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Saʻdī's Taʼrīkh Al-Sūdān Down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7L4TVckuppUC&pg=PA259|date=January 1, 1999|publisher=Brill|isbn=90-04-11207-3|pages=259|language=en}}</ref>
* [[March 21]] &ndash; Pope Gregory XIV issues the [[papal bull]] ''Cogit nos'', prohibiting the placing of bets on the outcome of papal elections, the length of time that a pope will reign, or who will be appointed as a cardinal.<ref name=Ott/>