The crusades
The Great Schism
The Black Plague
The Hundred Years War (crossbows easily defeated knights)
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The Middle Ages began in the 5th century and end in the 15th century.
A fletcher puts feathers on the end of arrows.
Yes, polyphony was used during the Middle Ages. We do not have any real idea of when polyphony was introduced, but the earliest texts describing it date to the Early Middle Ages. By the end of the Middle Ages, it was highly developed. There is a link below to an article on polyphony, beginning at the section on its origins.
The year 1453 is defined by historians as the end of the Middle Ages.
I think it was not a matter of Europe being ready for change. The Middle Ages did not suddenly end and a new age begin. The dates used for the end of the Middle Ages range from 1400 to as late as 1517. The dates for the beginning the Renaissance range back as far as about 1300, with some historians giving dates related to the life of Dante, who lived from 1265 to 1321. The end of the Middle Ages was not a revolutionary event, but an evolutionary process. The rise of Italian communes and republican city states, the rise of guilds, the growing importance of towns and cities, the rise of the Hanseatic League, and the rise of the middle class all preceded the end of the Middle Ages, as did a long list of technological advances. These things contributed to the beginning of the Renaissance, and gradually brought the Middle Ages to an end. Clearly there were events that contributed, such as the destruction of the Knights Templar, which created a demand for banks, and the Black Death, but the general trends that brought the Middle Ages to an end can be seen going back for centuries. Guilds existed at the very beginning of the Middle Ages. There was at least one school in Wales, Cor Tewdws, that opened before the Middle Ages started and closed after it ended, and other primary and secondary schools were being opened from the sixth century at the latest. The universities started opening in the eleventh century, with the opening of the University of Bologna, but it was clear that the opening of universities was merely a formalization of something that had been going on for at least decades. Venice was a republic from the seventh century. The world started to move past the Middle Ages, I think, before Charlemagne was even born.