Late Middle Ages

The final phase of the European Middle Ages, generally spanning the 14th and 15th centuries. It was marked by demographic crisis, political conflict, religious upheaval, and economic change.

Black Death: A pandemic of plague that devastated populations across Eurasia and North Africa in the mid-14th century. Its arrival in Europe in 1347 began the period’s most catastrophic demographic shock.
Great Famine of 1315–1317: A severe food crisis in northern Europe caused by prolonged cold, wet weather and crop failures. It preceded the plague and revealed the vulnerability of medieval food systems.
Geoffrey Chaucer: An English poet whose works include The Canterbury Tales, written in Middle English. His writing records social voices and literary culture in late medieval England.
Renaissance: A cultural movement that renewed interest in classical learning and transformed European arts and scholarship. Its Italian developments overlapped with the later Middle Ages and grew from urban patronage.
Hundred Years’ War: A series of conflicts between England and France from 1337 to 1453 over dynastic claims and territory. The war reshaped French and English monarchy and warfare across much of the period.
Manorialism: A system organizing rural production and obligations between landlords and dependent cultivators. Its labor arrangements came under pressure as population collapse made workers scarce.
Christine de Pizan: A late medieval writer whose works addressed politics, ethics, and women’s status. Her career shows women’s participation in literary and political debate.
Printing press: A machine for reproducing text with movable type, developed in Europe by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century. Printing began to change the scale and cost of knowledge circulation near the period’s end.
Western Schism: A division in the Western Church from 1378 to 1417, when rival claimants each asserted the papacy. Competing popes made the period’s crisis of church authority visible.
Black Death labor shortages: The widespread scarcity of workers in Europe after plague mortality reduced the labor force. Labor scarcity strengthened bargaining in some regions and provoked efforts to restrict wages.

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