The late Middle Ages brought great suffering and death: the shattering of western Christendom between rival papacies, ecclesiastical corruption and cynicism, a plague called the Black Death which killed off half the population of Europe, the destruction of France by England, the fall of Constantinople to a resurgent Islam, and the merciless Catholic suppression of nascent Protestantism. Yet despite such ruin and despair, good things emerged. H̳oly Russia ̲arose in the north and threw off Tartar oppression. Spaniard Christians freed themselves at last from Islam and discovered new continents across the Atlantic. In Italy, the Renaissance saw a magnificent rebirth of art and science in a new and fascinating form.