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.
Europe and the Mediterranean region, c. 1354.
From the Apocalypse in a Biblia Pauperum illuminated at Erfurt around the time of the Great Famine. Death sits astride a lion whose long tail ends in a ball of flame (Hell). Famine points to her hungry mouth.
The Battle of Agincourt, 15th-century miniature, Enguerrand de Monstrelet
Silver mining and processing in Kutná Hora, Bohemia, 15th century
In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis. This is usually done in order to understand current and historical processes, and the causality that might have linked those events.
Petrarch conceived of the idea of a European "Dark Age" which later evolved into the tripartite periodization of Western history into Ancient, Post-classical and Modern.