General Overview of the Late Middle Ages:
– The Late Middle Ages lasted from AD 1300 to 1500.
– Europe faced famines, plagues, social unrest, and warfare, such as the Hundred Years War.
– The Catholic Church experienced the Western Schism, causing a crisis.
– Progress in arts, sciences, and the Italian Renaissance occurred in the 14th century.
Northern Europe:
– The Kalmar Union was established in 1397 but dissolved later.
– Sweden separated from the union in 1523.
– Norway remained united with Denmark until 1814.
– The Black Death affected Iceland, and the Norse colony in Greenland vanished during the Little Ice Age.
Western Europe:
– The French House of Valois faced challenges from English forces and the Duchy of Burgundy.
– Figures like Joan of Arc and King Louis XI shifted the tide of war in France’s favor.
– The Duchy of Burgundy was reclaimed by France after the Battle of Nancy in 1477.
– The County of Burgundy and Burgundian Netherlands came under Habsburg control.
Central and Eastern Europe:
– Bohemia experienced prosperity in the 14th century but faced crises during the Hussite revolution.
– The Holy Roman Empire passed to the House of Habsburg in 1438, remaining fragmented.
– Financial institutions like the Hanseatic League and the Fugger family held significant power.
– The Kingdom of Hungary thrived as a major European supplier of gold and silver.
Southern Europe and Northern Europe:
– Italian city-states like Florence, Venice, and Genoa were economic powerhouses and centers of the Renaissance.
– The Hanseatic League controlled trade in Northern Europe.
– Scandinavia experienced the Kalmar Union in 1397 under Queen Margaret I.
– The Black Death caused economic and social upheaval in Northern Europe.
– Kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway faced power struggles and conflicts, while the Teutonic Order expanded in the Baltic region, leading to conflicts with Poland and Lithuania.
The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renaissance).
Around 1350, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it had been before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare. France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants' Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict, the Hundred Years' War. To add to the many problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was temporarily shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively, those events are sometimes called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.
Despite the crises, the 14th century was also a time of great progress in the arts and sciences. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance began. The absorption of Latin texts had started before the Renaissance of the 12th century through contact with Arabs during the Crusades, but the availability of important Greek texts accelerated with the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, when many Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West, particularly Italy.
Combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing, which facilitated the dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. Those two things would later lead to the Reformation. Toward the end of the period, the Age of Discovery began. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire cut off trading possibilities with the East. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the Spanish expedition under Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492 and Vasco da Gama's voyage to Africa and India in 1498. Their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations.
The changes brought about by these developments have led many scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern history and of early modern Europe. However, the division is somewhat artificial, since ancient learning was never entirely absent from European society.[citation needed] As a result, there was developmental continuity between the ancient age (via classical antiquity) and the modern age.[citation needed] Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not to speak of the late Middle Ages at all but rather see the high period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance and the modern era.[citation needed]
