| Term | Definition |
|---|
| scholasticism | the medieval philosophical movement that sought to reconcile Catholic doctrine with the teachings of Aristole |
| pravada Russkaia | Russia's first law code, instituted by Yaroslav I the "Wise" |
| Eastern Orthodox Church | the religion that Vladimir I of Kiev chose for him and his subjects when he invited represenatives from different faiths to present their beliefs and liturgies to him |
| bubonic plague | a fatal illness, also known as the Black Death, that spread from Asia to Europe on rats on ships in the mid 1300s and killed roughly 25 million people |
| Charlemagne | a great Frankish king, also called Carolus Magnus and Charles the Great, conquered a massive empire consisting of France and then some, greatly supported education, and supported the writing of a more legible Bible (the Caroligian Bible), levied no taxes because he could support the empire himself, and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day 800 |
| renovatio imperi Romani | Charlemagne's motto, in Latin, which means "renewal of the Roman Empire" |
| missi dominici | Latin for "the lord's messengers," they were envoys sent by Charlemagne throughout his empire to minister justice to the people, reviewed the effectiveness of laws, made sure the counts served Charlemagne and not themselves |
| Charles Martel | the great Frankish ruler who succeeded in defeating the Muslims at Tours, France in 732 A.D. halting the Muslim advance into Europe and saving western civilization |
| Charles VII | formerly simply "the dauphin," or prince, of France, Joan of Arc defeated the English at Orleans for him so that he could be anointed king of France and the cathedral in Reims |
| Clovis | a harsh king of a Frankish tribe, he conquered most of what is now France, started the Merovignian dynasty, and had a Constantine experience through which he converted to Christianity |
| Pepin the Short | he became king of the Franks after which he defeated the Lombards in Italy for the Pope and gave him the land now known as the Papal States when he won |
| three-field system | the practice of planting two out of three fields while the third is left fallow in a rotating system so that each field can recover the nutrients needed for crops |
| trebuchet | a medieval catapult device that acted simply as a giant sling to hurl random objects at attackers of a castle |
| romanesque | this architectual style of churches is characterized by small, high windows, thick, unadorned walls, curved arches, and barrel vaults |
| gothic | this architectual style of churches features ornately decorated, high ceiling, and spacious interiors, pointed arches, flying buttresses, and stained glass windows |
| Dante Alighieri | he wrote The Divine Comedy |
| Geoffry Chaucer | he wrote The Canturbury Tales |
| Allah | the name of the supreme diety of the Muslim religion |
| Thomas Aquinas | he is a saint, a Doctor of the Church and one of the greatest theological philosophers of the Middle Ages. He wrote Summa Theologia |
| Muslim classical scholarship | this was brought about by Nestorian heretics, who, after being expelled from Europe, moved to Asia where they taught the Muslims about classical ideas |
| Octavion | Julius Caesar's nephew who became the first Roman emperor and changed his name to Caesar Augustus |
| Julius Caesar | Octavion's uncle who was a member of the First Triumvate, Cleopatra's first husband, and was killed by his friend Brutus and a number of other senators because they thought he was growing too powerful |
| Nero | a nortoriously cruel and insane Roman emperor who set fire to Rome and blamed the Christians. Fearing assassination, he commited suicide in 68 A.D. |
| hijrah | the Arabic word meaning "flight" or "immigration" refering to the event of Mohammud's life when he fled assassins from Mecca to Medina |
| caliph | the Arabic word meaning "successor to the prophet," that is, the leader of the Muslims (in early periods of history, he also controlled secular government as well) |
| taiga | the northern jungle-like region of Russia with abundant rainfall and harshly cold winters |
| jihad | the Arabic word for a Muslim "holy war" |
| suttee | the practice of a widow commiting suicide after her husband's death by throwing herself on his funeral prye common in the Buddhist and Indian (India) culture |
| John Wycliffe | a priest and teacher at Oxford University, he seriously attacked the Church and her teachings, but supported the first English translation of the Bible |
| Ptolomy | Alexandrian astronomer scientist who invented the theory of a geocentric (earth-centered) universe |
| Hunayn | he translated classical science works into Arabic |
| Merovingians | Clovis and his successors (because Clovis traced his ancestry back to a man with that name) |
| Carolingians | Charlemagne and his successors |
| Capetians | the members of the French royal dynasty that died out and triggered the Hundred Years' War |
| Ferdinand and Isabella | devout Spanish monarchs who sent Christopher Columbus on his quests and expelled Muslims and Jews from Spain in 1492 |
| King Canute | this Anglo-Saxon king did not do much save brutally murdur the families of the other royal families, forcing Edward the Confessor to flee England |
| Edward the Confessor | fled King Canute, but came back to claim his throne after a becoming very devout; his death spurred the power struggle for the English throne in 1066 |
| universitas | the Latin name taken up by guilds of learning, meaning "an assosiation of people" |
| Paris and Oxford Universities | these univeristies specialized in theology and liberal arts |
| University of Bologna | this university was a law school, both canon and civil |
| University of Salerno | this university specialized in medicine |
| Diocletian | the Roman emperor who originally split the empire. He ruled the east, while Maximian ruled the west. His instituted harsh bureaucratic laws through which the government controlled almost every aspect of daily life |
| Constantine | became Roman emperor and reunited the East and the West. Famously became a Christian after praying "if I win the this battle, I will become a Christian" and seeing a vision of the cross. Most notable for his protection of Christianity |
| machicolation | a parapet that extends beyond the castle wall through which "stuff" is thrown at attackers |
| Alaric | a leader of the VIsigoths, he captured the city of Rome for the first time in 410 A.D. |
| Odoacer | a leader of the Ostrogoths who overthrew Rome for the last time in 476 A.D. when Romulus Augustulus was emperor |
| Romulus Augustulus | the last emperor of Rome; his reign ended in 476 A.D. when the Ostrogoths, led by Odoacer, overthrew Rome for the last time |
| burghers | the German term for the English burgesses and French bourgeoisie, they were the prosperous middle class |
| tribunes | the ten members of a Roman assembly who could veto Senate bills if they decided that they were contrary to the interests of the public |
| consuls | the two chief executives of the Roman government, each of who could veto the actions of the other one (there were two to stop eachother from getting too powerful) |
| plebeians | the common, lower-class citizens of Rome |
| praetors | officials elected to oversee the legal sstem in times of peace, in times of war they commanded the armies |
| censors | officials elected every five years to serve 18 month terms; they registered citizens according to wealth |
| troubadours | traveling singers or minstrels who wrote and sang lyrical poems of love and chivalry in the vernacular tongue |
| chivalry | a code of honor for knights during the middle ages, now it simply refers to gallantry |
| Battle of Hastings | the battle fought in 1066 between William, Duke of Normandy and Harold, King of England for the throne of England, won by William, aslo known as William the Conquerer |
| Reconquista | the official name for the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews from Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella |
| longbow | an English weapons technology advancement; a bow that could pierce armor from two football fields away, started the decline of knights and the rise of infantry |
| fall of Constantinople-causes | the "Fourth Crusaders" captured Constantinople, the natives took over again but it never regained its former strength and fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 |
| fall of Constantinople-effects | Byzantine scholars fled Greece and sought refuge in Italy, thus starting the Italian Renaissance |
| Joan of Arc | the French peasant girl who saw Saints Catherine, Michael, and Maragaret tell her to free Orleans from the British during the Hundred Years' War. She did and made sure that the French dauphin was anointed king of France at Reims until she was captured by her enemies, English supporters, who burned her at the stake as a heretic, but later she was made a saint |
| Urban II | the Pope who called for the First Crusade because the Saljuq Turks mugged pilgrims in the Holy Land and threatened the safety of the Byzantine people who asked for aid |
| Doomsday Book | the census carried out by William the Conqueror when he became king of England for purposes of taxation |
| William the Conqueror | the Duke of Normandy, he claimed the English throne when Edward the Confessor died |
| Holy Roman Empire | a loose confederation of most German and a few Italian states controlled by the Hasburgs |
| vernacular language | the common everyday language of a people |
| domestic system | a system where manufacturing took place at one's home |
| Estates General | the French represenative government similar to English parliament consisting of three "estates": First Estate: clergy, Second Estate: nobles, Third Estate: commoners |
| apprentice | the first stage to attain membership to a craft guild, where a boy's parents paid a professional craftsman to board him and teach him the craft |
| journeyman | the second stage to attain membership to a craft guild, where a young man became a hired worker until he submitted a "masterpiece", proof of his skill |
| master | when a man submitted his masterpiece, he became this and was eligible for a guild |
| Hundred Years' War-causes | a power struggle for the French throne by Edward III, King of England, and Phillip VI, elected king by the nobles when the Capetian dynasty died |
| Hundred Years' War-effects | what are the effects of the hundred years war? |
| Saladin | the leader of the Muslims during the Third Crusade; he made a truce with King Richard the Lion Heart of England that gave pilgrims peaceful passage in the Holy Land |
| Concordat of Worms | the agreement in which the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V and Pope Gregory VII stated that only the Church could make bishops, but the king was allowed to give them land and secular powers |
| Babylonian Captivity | the period between 1309 to 1377 during which the Pope resided at Avignon, France rather than Rome, Italy |
| Henry I of England | an early descendent of William the Conqueror, he set up a new legal system separate from the papal courts |
| trial by ordeal | feudal justice in which the accused would be tortured; if his wounds healed fast or he wasn't hurt, he was innocent |
| trial by battle | feudal justice in which the accused and the accuser, or people representing them fought a duel, the loser was guilty |
| compurgation | also called "oath taking," where the accused and the accuser got people to represent them and swear the person they represented was telling the truth |
| Treaty of Verdun | the contract stating that Louis the Pius' three sons agreed on the division of Charlemagne's empire into three parts, one for each of them |
| Vikings | a Germanic people, also called Danes and Norsemen, they were great craftsmen and farmers, but they were brutal thieves who robbed, killed, and plundered innocent Irish villages and monasteries |
| Results of the Crusades | cultural diffusion between Europe and Asia, the invention of the crossbow, weakening of the feudal system, revival of trade, and prestige for the Church |
| Second Crusade | this war was a complete failure for the Crusaders, who launched this war against the Turks because the Turks had recaptured a few cities in the Holy Land |
| Third Crusade | this Crusade was launched by Richard the Lion Heart of England, King Phillip II of France, and Fredrick Barbossa of the Holy Roman Empire because the Muslim leader Saladin recaptured Jerusalem and ended in a peace treaty |
| interdict | the mass excommunication of an entire region and the closing of all the churches in that area |
| investiture | the right to appoint bishops |
| simony | the sin of selling sacramentals and indulgences |
| primogeniture | the name of the practice in which the eldest son of a vassal always inherited his fief |
| serfs | peasents bound to the land of a fief |
| vassal | one who recieves land from a lord in return for services |
| manor | a large estate that included a house for the lord, pastures, fields, and a village; it became the economic unit of the Middle Ages |
| fief | a grant of land given to a vassal from his lord |
| feudalism | the government system in which the king granted lands to nobles who granted it to knights who used peasants to farm it |
| Yarslov I the Wise | this Russian ruler instituted Russia's first written law code |
| Ramadan | the month that Muslims consider sacred because it was the month that Mohammad said an angel appeared to him |
| Sunni Muslims | this sect of Muslims believed that the consensus of the Islamic community established religious and civil authority |
| Shi'ah Muslims | this sect of Muslims believed that only the imam ("Ali's successor") held authority |
| Mohammud | a native of the Arabic city of Mecca, he was a caravan trader until he had a religious experience in which he claimed an angel appeared to him and because of this he founded the Muslim religion |
| 5 pillars of Islam | 1. Recite the profession of faith: "I bear witness that there is no deity except Allah and that Mohammad is his servant and messenger." 2. Pray 5 times a day facing Mecca 3. Give alms to the poor 4. fast from first light to sunset during the month of Ramadan 5. make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in your life |
| iconoclastic controversy | the argument in the Eastern Orthodox Church that was about whether icons should be allowed for veneration or not |
| Justinian Code | the first part of the corpus juris civilis, often simply called "The Code" that is mainly laws Justinian wrote himself |
| Justinian | a very wise and just Byzantine emperor who ruled during one of Byzantium's most prosperous periods in history |
| Theodora | a famous and wise Byzantine emporess who influenced her husband to improve the status of women |
| Magna Carta | a great English document that forced King John to respect the rights of nobles and abide by laws signed in 1215 A.D. |
| Norman Conquest | the attempt and sucess of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, to defeat Harold the King of England and conquer the country in 1066 |
| motivations of Crusaders | Crusaders gained a plenary indulgence, they wanted land and plunder from Asia, or a love of adventure |
| Parliament | England's reprensenative body of government that consisted of two houses that had the power to approve or veto tax regulations |
| House of Lords | the half of English Parliament that consisted of nobles |
| House of Commons | the half of English Parliament that consisted of common people; it became more powerful during the Hundred Years' War when it gained the right to meet before the other part of Parliament to discuss tax legislation |
| Great Schism | the period of time between 1378-1417 when French and Italian cardinals each elected their own pope and each of the popes excommunicated each other; both popes were disposed of and a new Pope was elected at the Council of Constance |
| Visigoths, Vandals, and Ostrogoths | the three barbarian tribes that ultimately defeated Rome |
| corpus juris civilis | a collection of Roman laws |
| patricians | the high, upper-class of Roman citizens, the nobles |
| First Crusade | a war called for at the Council of Clermont by Pope Urban II against the Saljuq Turks who were killing and mugging pilgrims in the Holy Land and threatening the Byzantine Emperor. Europe won. |
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