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Year 1381 (MCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.

• January 14 – Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester and son of the late King Edward III of England, ends his siege of the French city of Nantes after two months, having started on 8 November 1380.
• January 25 – King Charles VI the Beloved re-confirms the 1315 Charter to the Normans (Charte aux Normands), recognizing the rights and privileges of the residents of the Duchy of Normandy to self-government within France. The Charter had lapsed in 1364 when King Charles V the Wise declined to confirm it after ascending the throne.^[1]
• March 14 – Chioggia concludes an alliance with Zadar and Trogir against Venice, which becomes changed in 1412 in Šibenik.
• April 14 – The second Treaty of Guérande is concluded in France between Jean, Count of Penthièvre and Yann IV, Duke of Brittany as Penthièvre drops his claim to rulership of the Duchy in return for being released from Gloucester Castle in England and being paid a substantial indemnity.^[2] Penthièvre had been the eldest son of Charles of Blois-Châtillon, who had been Duke of Brittany until his death in 1364.
• April – (Muharram 783 AH) In what is now Afghanistan, the Siege of Herat by the Mongol conqueror Timur ends with the Persian city surrendering to the Mongols, in return for the populace being spared.^[3]
• May 21 – Al-Salih Hajji succeeds his older brother, Al-Mansur Ali II as the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt. The Egyptian government continues to be controlled by rebel leader Barquq.^[4]
• June 2 – Due to the support by Queen Joanna I of Naples for the antipope Clement VII, Pope Urban VI declares her cousin, Carlo di Durazzo to be the new ruler of the Kingdom of Naples.^[5] Afterward, with the help of the Hungarians, Charles advances on Naples and captures Joanna. James of Baux, the ruler of Taranto and the Latin Empire, claims the Principality of Achaea after Joanna's imprisonment.
• June 12 – Peasants' Revolt: In England, rebels from Kent and Essex, led by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, meet at Blackheath. There the rebels are encouraged by a sermon, by renegade priest John Ball.
• June 14 – Peasants' Revolt: Rebels destroy John of Gaunt's Savoy Palace in London and storm the Tower of London, beheading Simon Sudbury, who is both Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, and also Robert Hales, Lord High Treasurer. King Richard II of England (age 14) meets the leaders of the revolt and agrees to reforms such as fair rents and the abolition of serfdom.
• June 15 – Peasants' Revolt: During further negotiations, Wat Tyler is murdered by the King's entourage. Noble forces subsequently overpower the rebel army. The rebel leaders are eventually captured and executed and Richard II revokes his concessions. The revolt is discussed in John Gower's Vox Clamantis and Froissart's Chronicles.

• July 16 – King Richard II of England summons the members of the English Parliament to assemble at Westminster on November 3.
• July 17 – The Battle of Saltes Island is fought off of the coast of Spain between the navies of the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, with all but one of the Portuguese fleet of 23 galleys being captured, and their crews taken prisoner, by a smaller force of 17 galleys commanded by Fernando Sánchez de Tovar.
• August 8 – The Treaty of Turin is signed between the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa to end the three-year War of Chioggia against Genoa, on terms favorable to Venice. The settlement comes more than a year after Venice's triumph in the Battle of Chioggia on June 24, 1380.^[6]
• August – Kęstutis overthrows his nephew, Jogaila, as Grand Duke of Lithuania. Jogaila is allowed to remain as governor of eastern Lithuania. This marks the beginning of the Lithuanian Civil War (1381–84).
• October 10 – The Church of Koratty Muthy is established by Roman Catholic missionaries and local Christians on the Indian subcontinent at Koratty in the Venadu kingdom, now part of the Kerala state in India.^[7]
• October 14 – Fishmonger John Northampton is elected as Lord Mayor of London to succeed Sir William Walworth, who had retired after suppressing Wat Tyler's rebellion.

• Timur conquers east Persia, ending the rule of the Sarbadar dynasty.
• Sonam Drakpa deposes Drakpa Changchub as ruler of Tibet.
• The Ming dynasty of China annexes the areas of the old Kingdom of Dali, in modern-day Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, inhabited by the Miao and Yao peoples. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese (including military colonists) will migrate there from the rest of China.
• In Ming dynasty China, the lijia census registration system begun in 1371 is now universally imposed, during the reign of the Hongwu Emperor. The census counts 59,873,305 people living in China in this year. This depicts a drastic drop in population since the Song dynasty, which counted 100 million people at its height in the early 12th century. A modern historian states that the Ming census is inaccurate, as China at around this time has at least 65,000,000 inhabitants, if not 75,000,000.^[8]

• January 13 – Colette of Corbie, French abbess and saint in the Catholic Church (d. 1447)^[9]
• October 13 – Thomas FitzAlan, 12th Earl of Arundel, English politician (d. 1415)
• date unknown
  • Anna of Celje, Queen consort of Poland (d. 1416)
  • Johann Schiltberger, German traveller and writer (d. 1440)
  • John I, Duke of Bourbon (d. 1434)
  • Saint Rita of Cascia (d. 1457)
  • Itzcóatl, fourth Tlatoani for the Mexica Empire (d. 1440)

• March 24 – Catherine of Vadstena, Swedish saint (b. 1331 or 1332)^[10]
• May 15 – Eppelein von Gailingen, German robber baron
• June 14 – Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury (murdered)
• June 15
  • John Cavendish, Lord Chief Justice of England (murdered)
  • Wat Tyler, English rebel (murdered)
• July 15 – John Ball, renegade priest (executed)
• December 2 – John of Ruysbroeck, Flemish mystic
• December 27 – Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, English politician