Pandemics have always forced people to rethink their own lives. The world after the plague of 1347–53 changed beyond recognition. People were faced with a disease that spared neither women nor men, neither old nor young. The Dances of Death, depicting processions drawn by dancing skeletons, became a symbol of inevitability. But the “pestilence” was not the only thing that forced people to remember every hour about the frailty of life. The age of plague began with the execution of the Templars. And in parallel with the pandemic, the Hundred Years' War raged between England and France. In Rus', the Grand Duke of Moscow Simeon the Proud died from pestilence. But in these same years, Sergius of Radonezh created his own “revolutionary” monastic community. Thus, one of the darkest eras will turn into a spiritual triumph. This is the century of the battle on the Kulikovo field and the campaigns of the invincible Tamerlane, the battle on the Kosovo field, and the Great Schism in the Catholic Church. And each of these events has a “double bottom” or its own “skeleton in the closet”. This book will introduce you to each of them. A modern person who has survived the coronavirus will be able to compare his trials and feelings with those that befell those who lived in one of the most dramatic centuries. The publishing design is preserved in PDF A4 format.