--- title: The Black Death and the end of the Middle Ages — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The Black Death and the end of the Middle Ages», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In 1347 ships from the Black Sea brought a deadly plague to Europe, and within a few years it killed perhaps a third to a h --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / The Black Death and the end of the Mid… # The Black Death and the end of the Middle Ages Lesson 24 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/0/) — In 1347 ships from the Black Sea brought a deadly plague to Europe, and within a few years it killed perhaps a third to a half of all the people. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/1/) — Nobody knew about germs then; the real cause, a germ carried by fleas on rats and other animals, was found more than 500 years later, in 1894. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/2/) — Think of a whole class where every third child is suddenly missing: after the plague there were so few workers that the survivors could ask for higher pay, and the old feudal system began to crack. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/3/) — The same years saw England and France fight the Hundred Years' War, which began in 1337, the year Europa Universalis V starts, and a teenage peasant girl, Joan of Arc, led the French to victory at Orléans. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/5/) — In 1347 a deadly plague, later called the Black Death, reached Europe on ships from the Black Sea and spread along trade routes. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/6/) — The Black Death killed perhaps a third to a half of Europe's people within a few years. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/7/) — The plague was caused by a germ carried by fleas on rats and other animals, and it could also pass between people; the germ was discovered in 1894. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/8/) — At the time people blamed bad air, the stars or God's anger, because they did not know about germs. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/9/) — In many towns frightened people falsely blamed Jewish communities for the plague and attacked them, a sad example of how fear can make people cruel. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/10/) — The nursery rhyme Ring a ring o' roses was written down hundreds of years later and is probably not about the plague. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/11/) — Medieval remedies such as herbs, bleeding and sweet flowers mostly did not work, but some towns kept travellers apart for forty days, which is where the word quarantine comes from, from the Italian word for forty. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/12/) — The famous beaked plague doctor mask comes from a later plague in the 1600s, not from the Black Death. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/13/) — After the plague so many workers had died that survivors could ask for higher pay, and many peasants won more freedom. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/14/) — In 1381 English peasants angry about taxes and unfair laws marched on London in the Peasants' Revolt; it was crushed, but lords never again tried to tax them the same way. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/15/) — The Hundred Years' War between England and France over who should rule France lasted on and off for 116 years, from 1337 to 1453. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/16/) — English longbowmen won famous battles such as Agincourt in 1415, but France won the war in the end. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/24-the-black-death-and-the-end-of-the-middle-ages/18/) — In 1453 the Ottoman Turks led by Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire, and Greek scholars fled to Italy with their books. - ← previous: [The Mongols](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/23-the-mongols/) - next →: [Printing, the Renaissance and the Reformation](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/25-printing-the-renaissance-and-the-reformation/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)