- apostle: one of the twelve early followers to Jesus
- bishop: a high ranking church officer
- blacksmith: one who works with iron, making and mending tools and horseshoes
- bridle: a harness with a bit and reins for a horse
- Charlemagne: the king who was crowned emperor of the holy roman empire in 800 A.D.
- Constantine: an emperor who allowed christianity to be preached freely among his people
- Constantinople: the capitol of the Byzantine empire
- convert: to change someone's belief from one religon to another
- crucify: to put to death by nailing or tying to a cross
- drought: a long period without rain orother precipitation
- duke: a noble of the highest hereditary rank
- feudal: the social and economic arrangement under which people are paid for protection and farming privleges by giving goods and services to an overlord
- frontier: the area beyond the boarder of a country
- icon: a painting of a saint or holy person
- Jesus Christ: One whose teachings and life form teh basis of the Christian religion
- Justinian: a great Byzantine emperor
- knight: a high-ranking solider of the Middle Ages who recieved this title from a sovereign
- Leif Ericson: an explorer who landed somewhere on the coast of north america
- manor: a large medival estate with farmalands, village, and teh home of the owner, who collected goods and services from teh villagers
- miller: one who runs machinery for grinding grain into flour
- missionary: someone who goes or is sent on a special errand: often for the purpose of spreading a religion
- Mohammed: the prophet and founder of the moselm religon
- monarch: in medieval times, an all-powerful ruler of a nation or empire
- oath: a solemn promise, often carrying the threat of punishment if broken
- ordeal: a difficult, perhaps even painful or dangerous test
- overland: across land rather then sea
- paradise: heaven, or a place of lasting and perfect happiness
- patriarch: a religous leader of teh church of constantinople
- Paul: a religious leader who preached to gentiles as well as jews and helped to establish and strengthen the christian religon
- peasant: a small farmer, tenant, sharecropper, laborer: a country person
- persecute: to harm or injure
- plague: a seriouse disease, often causing death, that spreads rapidly among people
- Pope: highest officialof the Roman Catholic Church
- raid: an attack
- ritual: a rigid set of rules tobe followed exactly
- script: written letters and words
- scythe: a tool with a long curved blade and long handle used for cutting grass and grain
- serf: a person legally tied to the land
- steppe: a large treeless plain, found especially in southeast Europe or Asia
- strait: narrow passage linking two bodies of water
- testimony: statement made for the purpose fo proving something
- unify: to bring together into one whole
- waterwheel: a large wheel turned by running water to provide power
- William the Conqueror: the duke who conqured england and became its king