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The Middle Ages was the period in European history from the collapse of Roman civilization in the 5th century CE to the period of the Renaissance -
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feudalism, also called feudal system or feudality, French féodalité, historiographic construct designating the social, economic, and political conditions in western Europe during the early Middle Ages, the long stretch of time between the 5th and 12th centuries. -
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The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule -
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Children's Crusade, (1212) Religious movement in Europe in which thousands, including many children and young people, set out to take the Holy Land from the Muslims by love instead of by force. -
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Throughout the remainder of the 13th century, a variety of Crusades aimed not so much to topple Muslim forces in the Holy Land but to combat any and all groups seen as enemies of the Christian faith -
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Battle of Bannockburn, (June 23–24, 1314) Decisive battle in Scottish history, at which the Scots under Robert the Bruce (later Robert I) defeated the English under Edward II. -
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Peasants’ Revolt, also called Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, (1381), first great popular rebellion in English history. Its immediate cause was the imposition of the unpopular poll tax of 1380, which brought to a head the economic discontent that had been growing since the middle of the century -
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Plague pandemics hit the world in three waves from the 1300s to the 1900s and killed millions of people. The first wave, called the Black Death in Europe, was from 1347 to 1351. The second wave in the 1500s saw the emergence of a new virulent strain of the disease. -
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The most popular theory of how the plague ended is through the implementation of quarantines. The uninfected would typically remain in their homes and only leave when it was necessary, while those who could afford to do so would leave the more densely populated areas and live in greater isolation -
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Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the hands of the invading Ottoman Empire on May 29, 1453. This day, many believe, marks the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the 15th-century Renaissance