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Late Middle Ages
The 14th century brought famine, the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War. Yet the crisis also changed society: labour became more valuable, kings built standing armies with guns, and people questioned the Church. By 1500 the printing press and voyages across the oceans were opening a new age.
The Black Death
THEME ONE
In 1347 Genoese ships brought plague from the Black Sea to Sicily. Carried by fleas on rats and from person to person, it spread along the trade routes and by 1351 had killed between a third and a half of Europe's people. It returned again and again for centuries. Fewer workers meant higher wages, and when lords tried to hold them down, peasants rose, as in France in 1358 and England in 1381.
The Hundred Years' War
THEME TWO
From 1337 the kings of England fought the kings of France for the French crown and for lands in France. English longbowmen won great victories at Crécy (1346) and Agincourt (1415), and by 1429 the English held Paris. Then a peasant girl, Joan of Arc, helped to lift the siege of Orléans and to crown Charles VII. She was burned by the English in 1431, but France won: by 1453 England kept only Calais.
The Church in crisis
THEME THREE
From 1309 the popes lived in Avignon under the shadow of the French kings. When they returned to Rome, a disputed election in 1378 produced two rival popes, and later three. The schism ended only at the Council of Constance in 1417 - the same council that had the Czech reformer Jan Hus burned in 1415. Hus and the English theologian John Wycliffe anticipated much of the later Reformation.
New powers and new tools
THEME FOUR
In 1453 Ottoman cannon broke the walls of Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire. In 1480 Moscow stopped paying tribute to the Horde, and in 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella took Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain. Around 1450 Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz began printing with movable metal type, and by 1500 presses in more than 200 European towns had printed millions of books.
Periods
Famine and plague
1300 – 1351
A colder climate and the Great Famine end two centuries of growth, the popes move to Avignon, the Hundred Years' War begins and the Black Death sweeps across Europe.
Revolts and schism
1351 – 1417
Peasant and urban revolts, the Great Schism of the papacy, Wycliffe and Hus, and the English victory at Agincourt.
Recovery and new horizons
1417 – 1500
Joan of Arc and the French victory, printing, the fall of Constantinople, the end of Muslim Granada and the first voyages to America and India.
Key dates
- 1315The Great Famine begins in northern Europe.
- 1347The Black Death reaches Europe.
- 1381The Peasants' Revolt in England.
- 1429Joan of Arc helps to relieve Orléans.
- 1453The Ottomans take Constantinople, and the Hundred Years' War ends.
- 1492The fall of Granada and Columbus's first voyage.
Questions and answers
How many people died in the Black Death?
Estimates vary, but between 1347 and 1351 it probably killed between a third and a half of Europe's population, some 25 to 50 million people. The Middle East and North Africa suffered similar losses. Europe's population took about two centuries to recover.
Did the Hundred Years' War really last a hundred years?
It lasted 116 years, from 1337 to 1453, but it was a series of wars separated by long truces rather than continuous fighting. The name was given to it by historians in the 19th century.