<P> During the Later Middle Ages, theologians such as John Duns Scotus (d . 1308) and William of Ockham (d.c. 1348), led a reaction against scholasticism, objecting to the application of reason to faith . Their efforts undermined the prevailing Platonic idea of "universals". Ockham's insistence that reason operates independently of faith allowed science to be separated from theology and philosophy . Legal studies were marked by the steady advance of Roman law into areas of jurisprudence previously governed by customary law . The lone exception to this trend was in England, where the common law remained pre-eminent . Other countries codified their laws; legal codes were promulgated in Castile, Poland, and Lithuania . </P> <P> Education remained mostly focused on the training of future clergy . The basic learning of the letters and numbers remained the province of the family or a village priest, but the secondary subjects of the trivium--grammar, rhetoric, logic--were studied in cathedral schools or in schools provided by cities . Commercial secondary schools spread, and some Italian towns had more than one such enterprise . Universities also spread throughout Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries . Lay literacy rates rose, but were still low; one estimate gave a literacy rate of ten per cent of males and one per cent of females in 1500 . </P> <P> The publication of vernacular literature increased, with Dante (d . 1321), Petrarch (d . 1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (d . 1375) in 14th - century Italy, Geoffrey Chaucer (d . 1400) and William Langland (d.c. 1386) in England, and François Villon (d . 1464) and Christine de Pizan (d.c. 1430) in France . Much literature remained religious in character, and although a great deal of it continued to be written in Latin, a new demand developed for saints' lives and other devotional tracts in the vernacular languages . This was fed by the growth of the Devotio Moderna movement, most prominently in the formation of the Brethren of the Common Life, but also in the works of German mystics such as Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler (d . 1361). Theatre also developed in the guise of miracle plays put on by the Church . At the end of the period, the development of the printing press in about 1450 led to the establishment of publishing houses throughout Europe by 1500 . </P> <P> In the early 15th century, the countries of the Iberian peninsula began to sponsor exploration beyond the boundaries of Europe . Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (d . 1460) sent expeditions that discovered the Canary Islands, the Azores, and Cape Verde during his lifetime . After his death, exploration continued; Bartolomeu Dias (d . 1500) went around the Cape of Good Hope in 1486 and Vasco da Gama (d . 1524) sailed around Africa to India in 1498 . The combined Spanish monarchies of Castile and Aragon sponsored the voyage of exploration by Christopher Columbus (d . 1506) in 1492 that discovered the Americas . The English crown under Henry VII sponsored the voyage of John Cabot (d . 1498) in 1497, which landed on Cape Breton Island . </P>

What year did the dark ages begin and end