Grade 7 WAB Feudalism Humanities flashcards

Terms	Definitions
Middle Ages	The period of history approximately between 400 CE and 1500 CE.
medieval	Adjective referring to the Middle Ages.
christendom	The Christian world; all the places that were Christian (basically all of Western Europe).
archbishop	Chief bishop in charge of an archdiocese; he is very high in the Catholic church hierarchy and controls a large area of land and many bishops.
clergy	People in the hierarchy of the Christian church (monks, nuns, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, the pope).
crusades	A series of military medieval expeditions from Europe to try to recover the Holy Lands from the Muslims (11, 12 13th centuries).
feudalism	A social system (a system of organizing society) where people in a hierarchy (monarch, tenants-in-chief, knights, peasants) were connected by a system of duties and rewards.
chivalry	The medieval code of behaviour for knights; it governed their moral and ethical conduct. In Japan it was called bushido.
guild	A medieval association of craftsmen or merchants; intended to protect its members from competition and to maintain standards.
hierarchy	A system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.
homage	A process by which a man acknowledges himself to be the vassal of a lord; he promises loyalty and military service in return for protection, land (a fief) or the use of the land.
knight	A mounted soldier who promised military service and loyalty to his lord in return for a fief (a piece of land).
manor	An estate (land) owned by a lord and farmed by peasants who owed him rents and services; the lord's manor also had a court where he had legal power.
monarch	A king or queen; royalty.
monastery	Residence of monks (members of the clergy who are not priests, but who take an oath of poverty, chastity and obedience to the church and to their ONE god).
motte and bailey	An early type of design for castles.
oath	A solemn promise. An oath of fealty was a promise of loyalty ("fidelity") a vassal made to his lord.
peasant	A poor farmer at the bottom of the feudal social system who rented a small piece of land from the lord.
serf	An agricultural labourer who might work for a peasant.
tenant-in-chief	Someone who is given land by the king in return for providing knights to guard castles or fight in wars.
vassal	A person who has been granted protection and/or land (or the use of land) in return for homage, loyalty and military service.
Black Death	Epidemic of Bubonic Plague that killed approximately one third of all the people in Europe in the 1300s