The ‘crisis of the Late Middle Ages’ began with the Great Famine of 1315-17, which was followed by two centuries of disease, wars, rebellions, religious uncertainty, the continued growth of urban centres as places of learning and population hubs with the advent of the printing press, and the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, which cut off trading routes for Europeans, forcing them to discover new ones, as was the case with Columbus and his discovery of the Americas.
The end of the thirteenth century marked the beginning of the ‘Little Ice Age’ that produced harsher winters and reduced harvests, resulting in widespread food shortages and the inflation of prices. The reduction in the supply of grains also saw livestock numbers drop, leading to
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These efforts were largely ineffective and difficult to enforce with people in the worst affected areas unable to buy grain from abroad despite increasing crop failures due to a labour shortage, and grain that could be shipped usually ended up being sold on the black market. Meanwhile, war had been the main expenditure of many of the larger European nations, decreasing national wealth and increasing inflation. Despite this growing problem, in 1337, just before the first wave of the Black Death, England and France went to war, in what became known as the Hundred Years’ War. The worsening situation also led monarchs and landowners to raise the fines and rents of their tenants, despite their terrible conditions, in fear that they would lose their high standard of living. This created a malicious cycle within European society where malnutrition led to widespread disease, which reduced the productivity of labourers, decreasing the output of crops, causing grain prices to increases, which only intensified malnutrition. This resulted in drastic reductions in the standard of living across Europe in the Late Middle