Vocab

Knight

(in the Middle Ages) a man who served his sovereign or lord as a mounted soldier in armor.

Serf

an agricultural laborer bound under the feudal system to work on their lord's estate.

Chivalry

the medieval knightly system with its religious, moral, and social code.

Feudalism

It was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.

Bard

a professional poet, employed to compose elegies for his lord.

Squire

a young nobleman acting as an attendant to a knight before becoming a knight himself.

Vassal

a holder of land by feudal tenure on conditions of homage and allegiance.

Crusades

a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Western European Christians in the medieval period.

Courtly Love

a highly conventionalized code that prescribed the behavior of women of the nobility and their lovers during the later Middle Ages.

Guild

a medieval association of craftsmen or merchants, often having considerable power.