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Message:: [QUOTE="Orielensis, post: 5390423, member: 96898"]As [USER=74712]@FitzNigel[/USER] explained above, the end of the Middle Ages is usually dated to the period roughly between 1450 (invention of the printing press) and 1517 (Luther's 95 theses). This periodization is not due to a single defining event but rather to a series of changes in the cultural, religious, political and technological landscape of Europe, caused for example by the Fall of Constantinople (1453), the War of the Roses in England (c. 1455–1487), the end of the Reconquista or Columbus voyage to the Americas (1492). Coinage also starts to quickly change in the early modern period, in part due to new minting technologies, and in part to new mining efforts and an enormous influx of silver from the New World. In early 16th century central Europe, for example, the Reichsmünzordnung ("imperial minting ordinance") more or less unified an enormously complex system of different regional coinages and based the new currency on the thaler, a very large and chunky coin whose predecessor had only been introduced in 1486. Spain started to mint pieces of eight, the Netherlands later produced the daalder, and other countries followed the trend towards large silver coins.[/QUOTE]