Mid-Term Exam Study Guide: Medieval Christianity, Economics, and Reformation

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the economic, theological, and institutional history of medieval Christianity through the Protestant Reformation based on the mid-term exam review notes.

Formed Faith

According to Aquinas, an intellectual belief in God that is animated and shaped by charity and produces good works.

Unformed Faith

According to Aquinas, a bare, intellectual assent to religious truth without love.

10th-Century Invasions

Raids that led to the establishing of trade routes, encouraged localized economic activity, and spurred fortified settlements.

Incarnation

The doctrine that Jesus was the Word made flesh, who was crucified, died, was buried, and was resurrected.

Jesus' Commandment to Love

The instruction to love the Lord and love thy neighbor, establishing that one should not love or pursue anything but God.

Virtues

Practices undertaken in imitation of Christ—such as poverty, chastity, and obedience—to combat carnal desires and vices like greed and lust.

Sins

Transgressions against the creator and violations of God's commandments or divine will.

Avarice

An extreme or insatiable desire to accumulate, gain, and hoard possessions of material value, treating money and possessions as ends in themselves.

Payment in Kind

The practice of settling rents, taxes, fees, or payments using goods, produce, or direct labor instead of material money, relying on mutual obligations.

Dioceses

Large administrative territories overseen by bishops, who supervised priests, ordained clergy, and exercised ecclesiastical authority.

Bishops

Senior clergy who oversaw priests, supervised worship, controlled land and revenues, linked parishes to the wider church, and served as transmitters of an inherited worldview.

Parishes

Local communities overseen by priests who administered sacraments, conducted worship, and provided basic pastoral care.

Benedictine Monasticism

Preeminent pursuers of holiness who organized life around prayer and work (ora et labora), copied manuscripts, cultivated land, and helped evangelize.

Early Christians' Economic Practices

Practices characterized by communal ownership, widespread sharing, pooling resources into common stock, and caring for the poor, as satirized by Lucian.

Two-Tier Template

Late Antiquity model dividing religious life into lay Christians served by parish clergy in society, and monastic withdrawal for those seeking to follow Jesus' commands radically.

Commercial Revolution

An increase in commerce in Italian cities at the intersection of Latin Christendom, Byzantium, and Islam across the Mediterranean Sea, creating a monetized, profit economy.

Monetized Economy

An economic system reliant on currency and credit (loans) that leads to depersonalized interpersonal relationships.

Cluny

A major Benedictine monastery that expanded through wealthy donations, resulting in the Church owning 20% to 30% of Western European land and gaining papal episcopal exemption in 1024.

Leo IX

Pope who reformed the Church by holding reforming synods, combating simony, assembling key advisors like Peter Damian and Hugh of Cluny, and maintaining ties with Cluny.

Gregory VII

Pope who asserted supreme authority over emperors, bishops, councils, and canon law, mandated clerical celibacy, and eliminated secular political control over the Church.

Gregorian Reform

A reform movement establishing unprecedented papal central authority over the Church and removing political control from secular rulers.

Hermits

Social critics alarmed by the commercial revolution and Cluniac luxury who fled to rural areas, preached repentance, and were sought after for spiritual counsel.

Peter Damian

Church reformer who identified avarice as the root of all evil and described the hermitage as a blessed market where everlasting life is set out for sale.

Bruno of Cologne

Founder of the Carthusians and advisor to Pope Urban II who established the Grande Chartreuse to unite solitary hermit life with communal monastic living.

Carthusians

A monastic order established at the Grande Chartreuse marked by deliberate anti-Cluniac austerity, combining solitary eremitic life with communal monasticism.

Premonstratensians

Also called Norbertines, an order founded in remote Northern France by Norbert of Xanten combining communal monasticism with active pastoral ministry.

Bernard of Clairvaux

Founder of the Abbey of Clairvaux who expanded the Cistercian order across Europe by championing a strict return to Benedictine labor, prayer, simplicity, and austerity.

Cistercians

A monastic movement led by Bernard of Clairvaux characterized by rapid expansion, strict adherence to the Benedictine Rule, and austerity.

Humiliati

A movement of clerical, monastic, and married laypeople approved by Pope Innocent III who lived in commercial areas and were permitted to preach on moral topics.

Use Value

The value of an item derived from being used directly for its natural purpose.

Exchange Value

The value of an item generated when it is traded or exchanged for something else.

Usury

The practice of charging interest, considered sinful because it unnaturally extracts profit from abstracted exchange value, circumvents divine providence, and exploits the vulnerable.

Omobono of Cremona

A merchant-saint who converted his private home into a charitable center for orphans and the poor.

Mendicant Orders

Mobile, urban-focused religious orders oriented toward the laity, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, that relied on voluntary poverty and preaching.

Franciscans

A mendicant order founded by Francis of Assisi that embraced radical poverty in imitation of Christ, refused property ownership, and ministered in urban centers.

Dominicans

A mendicant order founded by Dominic Guzman that emphasized voluntary poverty, intellectual formation, and orthodox preaching to counter heresies like the Cathars.

The Mendicant Solution

The theological stance that while voluntary poverty is the highest ideal, attitudinal detachment from material possessions paired with almsgiving is acceptable for laypeople.

Fourth Lateran Council

A church council that defined the doctrine of transubstantiation, mandated annual confession and communion, and required ecclesiastical approval for new religious orders.

Great Famine

A crisis caused by bad weather from 1315 to 1322 that killed 5% to 10% of Northern Europe's population and demonstrated the failure of royal price controls.

Black Death

A pandemic from 1348 to 1350 that started in Italy and killed one-third of Europe, triggering a de facto wealth redistribution, higher wages, and lower prices.

Sumptuary Legislation

Strict legal regulations governing what different social ranks were permitted to wear in order to preserve established class divides.

Spiritual Franciscans

A Franciscan faction insisting on a literal, radical rejection of all property following St. Francis, which was ultimately condemned as heretical.

Conventual Franciscans

A Franciscan faction that lived more accommodated communal lives with all property owned legally by the papacy.

Avignon Papacy

The period beginning in 1309 when the papacy relocated to Avignon, resulting in expanded papal bureaucracy, increased taxation, and growing charges of avarice.

Western Schism

A division caused by rival papal claimants Urban VI and Clement VII following Gregory XI's return to Rome, eventually addressed by the Councils of Pisa and Constance.

Conciliarism

The doctrine asserting that supreme Church authority resides in an ecumenical council rather than in the individual office of the pope.

Council of Constance

The ecumenical council that resolved the Western Schism by ending competing papal claims and electing Pope Martin V.

Concordats

Formal agreements made between popes and secular political rulers that ceded ecclesiastical and jurisdictional control.

Conspicuous Consumption

The visible expenditure on luxury items, such as spending up to 40% of wealth on clothing, utilized by urban elites to signal and maintain social superiority.

Renaissance Humanism

An intellectual movement focusing on classical Greek and Roman thought, human capabilities, civic virtue, and the potential positive uses of wealth.

Antonino of Florence

A Dominican friar who viewed the Renaissance through the mendicant solution, warning in Dives et pauper that the wealthy forfeit eternal life if they misuse riches.

Julius II

Renaissance pontiff known as the Warrior Pope who led troops into battle in full armor and was satirized as being excluded from heaven.

Leo X

Pope who more than doubled the sale of papal offices to 2,100 to fund ambitious architectural projects.

Ecclesiastical Pluralism

The corrupt practice within the Church hierarchy of a single individual holding multiple ecclesiastical offices simultaneously.

Observantine Movement

A reform current across several religious orders (Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines) supported by wealthy elites to restore their founders' original strict visions.

Devotio Moderna

A spiritual movement founded by Gerard Groote emphasizing personal meditation, interior spirituality, and the simple life of early Christians.

Sola Scriptura

The Protestant principle that the Bible is the sole authoritative source for Christian faith and life, superseding Church doctrine and tradition.

German Peasants' War

A 1524 to 1525 uprising where peasants radicalized Christian liberty to attack socioeconomic hierarchy as unchristian, supported by Thomas Müntzer and opposed by Martin Luther.

Weber Thesis

The 1864 sociological thesis stating that anxiety over predestination produced innerworldly asceticism and singleminded entrepreneurial activity, fueling modern capitalism.

Magisterial Protestantism

Protestant movements, namely Lutheranism and Reformed Protestantism, that cooperated with established political magistrates and taught salvation through the five solas.

Confessionalization

The long-term historical process of consolidating distinct and rival Catholic and Protestant confessional identities.

Homo Viator

The medieval concept of man as an earthly pilgrim, illustrating the spiritual danger of lavish self-indulgence while ignoring the urgent physical needs of others.