1.
Accolade: tap on the shoulder with the flat of a sword making a man a knight.
2.
Acre: a piece of land 40 rods long and four rods wide; in other words, 160 square rods. Since the average strip of land held by the peasant was this size, the acre became an important measurement in the medieval economy.
3.
Aides: payment made to the lord on certain special occasions:
(a) the knighting of his eldest son
(b) the marriage of his eldest daughter
(c) when he had to be ransommed from captivity
(d) to help him prepare to go on crusade
4.
Aristocrat: Nobles and knights (2nd Estate)
5.
Arthur: Was in love triangle with Guinivere and Sir Lancelot. Also an epic poem about him was written.
6.
Bailiff: the lord's representative on the manor.
7.
Banalites: fees which the peasant paid the lord for the use of certain manorial facilities on which the lord had a virtual monopoly, mill, baking oven, wine press, brewhouse, and sometimes even the village well and village studbull.
8.
Cartage: task of bringing fire wood to the manor, hay to the barns, and grain to the graneries.
9.
Castle: derived from the Latin word 'castra,' meaning the fortified camp in which a legion was quartered. In the centuries of disorder which accompanied the fall of Rome, private individuals began to construct fortified dwellings of their own.
10.
Charles Martel: Charlemagne's grandfather and the victor of the Battle of Tours. He is believed by many to be 'father of feudalism.' It was he who appears to have been most responsible for the idea of creating a permanent class of heavily-armed, mounted warriors who would draw their support from fiefs and could therefore could devote full time to training and fighting.
11.
Chivalry: word, derived from French (cheval, chevalier); it refers to that whole code of honorable conduct in accordance with which a warrior was supposed to shape his actions. Knighthood is often used as an English synonym for chivalry.
12.
Comitatus: Roman word for the German warrior band in which a number of young men attached themselves to a war-like chieftain, who would lead them into battle. The chief was like the medieval feudal lord; the young men were his vassals.
13.
Corvee: peasant had to put in on building and repairing roads and bridges, digging ditches, cleaning the moat, and patching up the manor house.
14.
Courtly Love: "secular idealization" of women. It created the powerful image of the "knight's lady," a woman whom the knight was to place upon a pedestal and in whose name he was to do his great deeds.
15.
Crusade: holy war that Christian society conducted not against pagans and followers of Islam, but also against heretical Christians.
16.
Demesne: the part of the manor reserved for the lord; it would usually amount to at least a third of the cultivable land.
17.
Dowry: the property that a woman brought to marriage; an important consideration in estimating her "value".
18.
Drawbridge: the bridge across the moat, which could be drawn up in time of attack.
19.
Droit du seigneur: sexual obligation owed by peasant women in a few parts of Europe. They were required to spend their marriage night, not with their new husband, but with their lord. In English, it is sometimes called the right of the first night.
20.
Duel: a serious combat, often fought to the death, for the purpose of settling a quarrel.
21.
Eleanor of Aquitaine: the strong willed duchess who married the king of France, then deserted him for the younger and more handsome king of England, Henry II. Played a key role in pioneering and promoting the idea of courtly love.
22.
Escheat: Loss resulting from the failure to produce heirs capable of inheriting. (For example, if the feudal contract provided for succession by a male heir and the vassal had only daughters.)
23.
Estate: the name which people of the Middle Ages applied to these social classes.
24.
Eve: the temptress who leads man into sin.
25.
Falconry: The use trained birds of prey to hunt for smaller birds and animals. It was a form of hunting which was highly favored by medieval aristocrats (and which is still practiced in various parts of the Near East.)
26.
Fealty: a similar religious oath usually sworn on a Bible or sacred relict (such as the bones of a saint).
27.
Felony: in the Middle Ages, any crime calling for forfeiture. The person who committed such a crime was called a felon.
28.
Fief: a parcel of land from which the vassal could derive an income, which meant that it had to be an agriculturally productive piece of land with the labor necessary to keep it producing.
29.
First Estate: the Christian clergy (the men who pray)
30.
Forfeiture: loss which occurred when a vassal committed a serious crime, which violated the feudal contract.
31.
Frederick II: Wrote On the Art of Hunting with Falcons; 13th Century intellectual emperor. Many historians regard this as the finest scientific book of the Middle Ages.
32.
Guinevere: Married to King Arthur, courtly love of Sir Lancelot.
33.
Henry the Fowler: an example of the passion for hunting displayed by nobles. When messengers arrived telling him of his election to the imperial crown, rather than thanking them, he scolded them for scaring away the birds he was hunting.
34.
Homage: the principal oath which a vassal swore to his lord in the presence of the other vassals to observe the contract.
35.
Hospitality: When the lord and his court arrived at the fief of a vassal, they could lay claim to this; which meant that the vassal would have to house, feed, and entertain the lot of them. Usually limited to three days a year.
36.
Jacquerie: peasant revolts. The name is derived from the French nicknamed for a peasant, Bonhomme Jacque, or 'Good Man Jack."
37.
Joan of Arc: One of the charges brought against her was the wearing of men's clothing
38.
Joust: single combat between warriors carried on for sport
39.
Knight: the English word for the heavily-armed, mounted warrior of the Middle Ages.
40.
Leyrwite: a fine imposed upon a peasant for 'excessive promiscuity'
41.
Lynn White: One of the leading American historians of the 20th century who taught for many years at UCLA; Spent his career studying and writing about the technological change in the Middle Ages and its social implications.
42.
Maintenance: a means of giving support to a vassal, without actually giving that vassal a fief. Instead of getting a fief from which he could draw an income, the vassal was taken directly into the lord's household, where he received food, clothing, shelter, and weapons.
43.
Manor: The basic unit of land in the Middle Ages, with an agricultural population living on it. Not granted to a vassel under a feudal contract.
44.
Manorialism: Aristocracy in the role of "exploiters" and the peasantry in the role of "exploited" Based on a 'servile' rather than an 'honorable relationship,' in which the peasant population undertook a multitude of menial tasks, and, by so doing, supported the economically parasitic upper classes.
45.
Marriage: If contract permitted any direct descendant - male or female - to inherit the fief, then it could pass to a daughter. In this case, the lord could either to choose the woman's husband or to okay her choice.
46.
Minstrel: English storyteller
47.
Moat: the man-made ditch surrounding the castle.
48.
Patrocinium: the Roman system of patronage where a powerful man (known as a patron) had a number of men dependent upon him (called his clients.)
49.
Pogrom: massacre of the Jewish population.
50.
Precarium: a piece of land granted by a wealthy Roman to someone less well off on the condition that the recipient pay certain dues, fulfill certain services, or both. Eventually, this precarium evolved into the beneficium (or benefice); which in turn evolved into the feudum (or fief.)
51.
Primogeniture: the rule of inheritance by the eldest son which came to govern the passage of fiefs.
52.
Reeve: The most important member of the peasant population. He was a peasant who acted as overseer on the manor and who passed on to the rest of the peasants any commands handed down by either the lord or the baliff.
53.
Relief: an inheritance tax (an aristocrat would call it a "feudal due") paid to the lord by the vassal's son in order to inherit his father's fief. It often amounted to a full year's revenue from the fief.
54.
Right of Pursuit: if a serf tried to escape his condition by running away, the lord had the legal right to pursue him, force him to return, and punish him harshly.
55.
Robin Hood: In fact, the peasant was not even permitted to kill gave on his own land, to protect his crops from destruction. The famous case of this in literature involved a legendary English hero (we do not know when he live or even if he lived)
56.
Rod: Eventually, the length of such a whip was standardized at 16 and a half feet; and, in turn, this became a measure of distance in the English system.
57.
Roland: Epic poem written about.
58.
Second Estate: the Warrior Aristocracy (the men who fight)
59.
Subinfeudation: occurred when a vassal sub-divided his fief, keeping part of it for his own support, while handing over part of it to yet another member of the warrior class. In doing this, the vassal was entering a new feudal contract, in which he would be the lord, and the man to whom he had given part of his own fief would become his vassal.
60.
Thatch: bunches of grass which formed the typical peasant roof.
61.
The Peace of God (pax dei): listed the non-combattants of society whom the knight was not to harm. These included widows, orphans, travellers, merchants, priests, pilgrims, and peasants.
62.
The Truce of God (truga dei): specified certain days of every week, and whole seasons of the year when all fighting was to cease.
63.
Third Estate: the rest of the population (the men who work)
64.
Tithe: the tenth part of all produce which everybody was supposed to donate each year to the church.
65.
Tournament: a fight which involved a number of men on either side. Sometimes they fought as teams; sometimes as individuals.
66.
Troubadour: French storyteller
67.
Villain: This synonym for "a bad guy" comes from the similar word 'villein' which referred to a free peasant.
68.
Virgin Mary: the compassionate mother. Raised to a leading position of Christian doctrine in Middle Ages.
69.
Wardship: The right of the lord to take control over the heir to a vassal's fief when that heir was (a) too young to fulfill the service demanded by the feudal contract; or (b) an unmarried female. In either case, the lord would collect the income from the fief throughout the period when the heir was his ward. When the son came of age, he would inherit his father's fief.
70.
Wattle: peasant building material which consisted of a rough framework of logs, over which was placed first a covering of interwoven sticks and then a layer of mud.
71.
Week Work: the part of the week which the peasant spent farming the lord's demesne. In many places, the time owed the lord was fixed at roughly three days a week with two oxen.
72.
William Langland: Wrote one of the greatest examples is the 14th century poem, Piers the Plowman, which greatly sympathizes with the exploited toilers on the lowest rung of the social ladder.
73.
William the Conqueror: In 1066, when one of the most talented of these Dukes of Normandy, sailed across the channel to England, won the great battle of Hastings, and seized the English crown. Now, not only were he and his descendants vassals of the Kings of France, they were also kings of England.
