[coliveira]

"ending with the discovery of America"... I don't know what you learned in school, but the end of middle ages had nothing to do with America. What caused the end of the middle ages was the cultural renaissance of Europe. By the time America was discovered, the middle ages were finished for a few decades at least.

[dragonwriter]

> What caused the end of the middle ages was the cultural renaissance of Europe.

The Renaissance in Italy started well before the usual end date for the Middle Ages. There's a lot of things that motivate the dating of the end of the Middle Ages -- the discovery of the New World, the spread of the Renaissance to much of Europe, the completion of the reconquista, and a number of other things contribute.

[vorg]

Probably discovering the New World and movable type printing together had the most impact in ending the "Middle Ages" in Western Europe.