AP European History, General Terms/Events

Benvenuto Cellini

A goldsmith and sculptor who wrote an autobiography, famous for its arrogance and immodest self-praise.

Condottiere

A mercenary soldier of a political ruler.

Humanism

The recovery and study of classical authors and writings.

Individualism

The emphasis on the unique and creative personally.

New Monarchs

The term applied to Louis XI of France, Henry VII of England, and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who strengthened their monarchical authority often by Machiavellian means.

Rationalism

The application and use of reason in understanding and explaining events.

Renaissance

The period from 1400 to 1600 that witnessed a transformation of cultural and intellectual values from primarily Christian to classical or secular ones.

Secularism

The emphasis on the here and now rather than on the spiritual and otherworldly.

Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457)

A humanist who used historical criticism to discredit an eighth-century document giving the papacy jurisdiction over Western lands.

Virtu

The striving for personal excellence.

Baroque

The sensuous and dynamic style of art of the Counter Reformation.

Brethren of the Common Life

Pious laypeople in sixteenth-century Holland who initiated a religious revival in their model of Christian living.

John Calvin (1509-1564)

A French theologian who established a theocracy in Geneva and is best known for his theory of predestination.

Charles V (1519-1556)

Hapsburg dynastic ruler of the Holy Roman Empire and of extensive territories in Spain and the Netherlands.

Council of Trent

The congress of learned Roman Catholic authorities that met intermittently from 1545 to 1563 to reform abusive church practices and reconcile with the Protestants.

Index

A list of books that Catholics were forbidden to read.

Indulgence

Papal pardon for remission of sins.

Inquisition

A religious committee of six Roman cardinals that tried heretics and punished the guilty by imprisonment and execution.

Jesuits

Also known as the Society of Jesus

John Knox (1505-1572)

Calvinist leader in sixteenth-century Scotland.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

German theologian who challenged the church's practice of selling indulgences, a challenge that ultimately led to the destruction of the unity of the Roman Catholic world.

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)

Renaissance humanist and chancellor of England, executed by Henry VIII for his unwillingness to recognize publicly his king as Supreme Head of the church and clergy of England.

Nepotism

The practice of rewarding relatives with church positions.

Peace of Augsburg (1555)

Document in which Charles V recognized Lutheranism as a legal religion in the Holy Roman Empire. The faith of the prince determined the religion of his subjects.

Pluralism

The holding of several benefices, or church offices.

Simony

The selling of church offices.

Theocracy

A community, such as Calvin's Geneva, in which the state is subordinate to the church.

Usury

The practice of lending money for interest.

Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632)

Swedish Lutheran who won victories for the German Protestants in the Thirty Years War and lost his life in one of the battles.

Duke of Alva (1508-1582)

Military leader sent by Philip II to pacify the Low Countries.

Armada (1588)

Spanish vessels defeated in the English Channel by an English fleet, thus preventing Philip II's invasion of England.

Vasco de Balboa

First European to reach the Pacific Ocean, 1513.

Catherine de Medici (1547-1589)

The wife of Henry II (1547-1559) of France, who exercised political influence after the death of her husband and during the rule of her weak sons.

Christopher Columbus

First European to sail to the West Indies, 1492.

Concordat of Bologna (1516)

Treaty under which the French Crown recognized the supremacy of the pope over a council and obtained the right to appoint all French bishops and abbots.

Fernando Cortez

Conqueror of the Aztecs, 1519-1521.

Defenestration of Prague

The hurling, by Protestants, of Catholic officials from a castle window in Prague, setting off the Thirty Years' War.

Bartholomew Diaz

First European to reach the southern tip of Africa, 1487-1488.

Dutch East India Company

Government-chartered joint-stock company that controlled the spice trade in the East Indies.

Edict of Nantes (1598)

The edict of Henry IV that granted Huguenots the rights of public worship and religious toleration in France.

Elizabeth I (1558-1603)

Protestant ruler of England who helped stabilize religious tensions by subordinating theological issues to political considerations.

Prince Henry the Navigator

Sponsor of voyages along West African coasts, 1418.

Henry IV (1589-1610)

Formerly Henry of Navarre

Huguenots

French Calvinists.

Ferdinand Magellan

Circumnavigator of the globe, 1519-1522.

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

The treaty ending the Thirty Years' War in Germany

Philip II (1556-1598)

Son and successor to Charles V, ruling Spain and the Low Countries.

Francisco Pizarro

Conqueror of Peru, 1532-1533.

St. Bartholomew's Day (August 24, 1572)

Catholic attack on Calvinists on the marriage day of Margaret of Valois to Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV).

Prince William of Orange (1572-1584)

Leader of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands.

Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)

Minister to Louis XIII. His three-point plan helped to send France on the road to absolute monarchy.

Absolutism

The theory that the monarch is supreme and can exercise full and complete power unilaterally.

Bill of Rights (1689)

English document declaring that sovereignty resided with Parliament.

Charles I (1625-1649)

Stuart king who brought conflict with Parliament to a head and was subsequently executed.

Charles II (1660-1685)

Stuart king during the Restoration, following Cromwell's Interregnum.

Colbert (1619-1683)

The financial minister under the French king Louis XIV who promoted mercantilist policies.

Constitutionalism

The theory that power should be shared between rulers and their subjects and the state governed according to laws.

Oliver Cromwell (1559-1658)

The principal leader and a gentry member of the Puritans in Parliament.

Diggers and Levellers

Radical groups in England in the 1650s who called for the abolition of private ownership and extension of the franchise.

Divine right monarchy

The belief that a monarch's power derives from God and represents Him on earth.

Frederick the Great (1740-1786)

The Prussian ruler who expanded his territory by invading the duchy of Silesia and defeating Maria Theresa of Austria.

Frederick William (1640-1688)

The "Great Elector," who built a strong Prussian army and infused military values into Prussian society.

French Classicism

The style in seventeenth-century art and literature resembling the arts in the ancient world and in the Renaissance.

Fronde

The last aristocratic revolt against a French monarch.

Glorious Revolution

A reference to the political events of 1688-1689, when James II abdicated his throne and was replaced by his daughter Mary and her husband, Prince William of Orange.

Habeas corpus

The legal protection that prohibits the imprisonment of a subject without demonstrated cause.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

Political theorist advocating absolute monarchy based on his concept of an anarchic state of nature.

Interregnum

The period of Cromwellian rule (1649-1659), between the Stuart dynastic rules of Charles I and Charles II.

James I (1603-1625)

Stuart monarch who ignored constitutional principles and asserted the divine right of kings.

James II (1685-1688)

Final Stuart ruler

John Locke (1632-1704)

Political theorist who defended the Glorious Revolution with the argument that all people are born with certain natural rights to life, liberty, and property.

Louis XIV (1643-1715)

Also known as the "Sun King"

Maria Theresa (1740-1780)

Archduchess of Austria, queen of Hungary, who lost the Hapsburg possession of Silesia to Frederick the Great but was able to keep her other Austrian territories.

Mercantilism

Governmental policies by which the state regulates the economy, through taxes, tariffs, subsidies, laws.

New Model Army

The disciplined fighting force of Protestants led by Oliver Cromwell in the English civil war.

Peace of Utrecht (1713)

The pact concluding the War of the Spanish Succession, forbidding the union of France with Spain, and conferring control of Gibraltar on England.

Peter the Great (1682-1725)

The Romanov czar who initiated the westernization of Russian society by traveling to the West and incorporating techniques of manufacturing as well as manners and dress.

Petition of Right (1628)

Parliamentary document that restricted the king's power. Most notably, it called for recognition of the writ of habeas corpus and held that only Parliament could impose new taxes.

Puritan Revolution

A reference to the English civil war (1642-1646), waged to determine whether sovereignty would reside in the monarch or in Parliament.

Puritans

Protestant sect in England hoping to "purify" the Anglican church of Roman Catholic traces in practice and organization.

Restoration

The return of the Stuart monarchy (1660) after the period of republican government under Cromwell—in fact, a military dictatorship.

Test Act (1673)

Law prohibiting Catholics and dissenters to hold political office.

Versailles

Palace constructed by Louis XIV outside of Paris to glorify his rule and subdue the nobility.

War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713)

The last of Louis XIV's wars involving the issue of succession to the Spanish throne.

William of Orange (1672-1702)

Dutch prince and foe of Louis XIV who became king of England in 1689.

Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology

The geocentric view of the universe that prevailed from the fourth century B.C. to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and accorded with church teachings and Scriptures.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Inductive thinker who stressed experimentation in arriving at truth.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Polish astronomer who posited a heliocentric universe in place of a geocentric universe.

Deism

The belief that God has created the universe and set it in motion to operate like clockwork. God is literally in the wings watching the show go on as humans forge their own destiny.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Deductive thinker whose famous saying "cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") challenged the notion of truth as being derived from tradition and Scriptures.

Enlightenment

The intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century in which the philosophes stressed reason, natural law, and progress in their criticism of prevailing social injustices.

Galileo (1564-1642)

Italian scientist who formulated terrestrial laws and the modern law of Inertia

Laissez-faire

The economic concept of the Scottish philosophe Adam Smith. In opposition to mercantilism, Smith urged governments to keep hands off the operation of the economy.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

English scientist who formulated the law of gravitation that posited a universe operating in accord with natural law.

Philosophes

Social critics of the eighteenth century who subjected social institutions and practices to the test of reason.

Royal Society of London and French Academy of Sciences

Organized bodies for scientific study.