14與15世紀是中世紀晚期。至1300年左右，歐洲幾個世紀以來的繁榮和增長開始停滯。一係列的饑荒和瘟疫，如1315-1317年大饑荒與黑死病。黑死病是歐洲史上的最大災難之一，有過多次爆發，但是最嚴重的一次是在14世紀中期，估計歐洲人口的三分之一死於此次爆發。人口減少導致社會動亂與部族戰爭。法國和英格蘭經歷了大規模的農民起義——紮剋雷起義與英國農民起義，以及英法百年戰爭。無獨有偶，統一的羅馬天主教會也被大分裂所動搖。這些事件有時被統稱為中世紀晚期危機。
雖然有這些危機，14世紀仍然是一個在藝術和科學方面有着長足進步的時代。復興的對於古希臘和古羅馬文獻的興趣引起了後人所稱的意大利文藝復興。一個發現時代在這一時期末期發端。奧斯曼土耳其帝國的擴張在1453年君士坦丁堡陷落之後到達頂峰，切斷了歐洲和東方的貿易可能。歐洲人被迫尋找新的貿易路綫，比如哥倫布1492年探訪美洲，又如達·伽馬1498年繞過非洲直航印度。
在14世紀早期，波羅的海成為了最重要的貿易航運中心。一個城市貿易聯盟——漢薩同盟——促進了波蘭、立陶宛和其他波羅的海國傢的大片地區融入歐洲經濟，也幫助了東歐列強的崛起，包括立陶宛、波蘭、匈牙利、波西米亞和莫斯科大公國。
公認的中世紀結束時間一般定為君士坦丁堡和拜占庭帝國被奧斯曼土耳其攻占的1453年。土耳其人把該城作為他們的奧斯曼帝國的首都，該帝國一直延續到1922年，包括埃及、敘利亞和大部分巴爾幹國傢。奧斯曼帝國對歐戰爭，有時也稱土耳其戰爭，在東南歐歷史上的影響舉足輕重。
The Late Middle Ages span the 14th and 15th centuries. Around 1300, centuries of European prosperity and growth came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, such as the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population by as much as half according to some estimates. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare. France and England experienced serious peasant risings: the Jacquerie, the Peasants' Revolt, and the Hundred Years' War. To add to the many problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Great Schism. Collectively these events are sometimes called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.
Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of great progress within the arts and sciences. A renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts led to what has later been termed the Italian Renaissance. Toward the end of the period, an era of discovery began. The growth of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the fall of Constantinople in 1453, cut off trading possibilities with the east. Europeans were forced to discover new trading routes, as was the case with Columbus’s travel to the Americas in 1492, and Vasco da Gama’s circumnavigation of India and Africa in 1498.
One of the largest catastrophes to have hit Europe was the Black Death. There were numerous outbreaks, but the most severe was in the mid-1300s and is estimated to have killed a third of Europe's population.
Beginning in the 14th century, the Baltic Sea became one of the most important trade routes. The Hanseatic League, an alliance of trading cities, facilitated the absorption of vast areas of Poland, Lithuania and other Baltic countries into the economy of Europe. This fed the growth of powerful states in Eastern Europe including Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Muscovy. The conventional end of the Middle Ages is usually associated with the fall of the city Constantinople and of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Turks made the city the capital of their Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1922 and also included Egypt, Syria and most of the Balkans. The Ottoman wars in Europe, also sometimes referred as the Turkish wars, marked an essential part of the history of southeastern Europe.