Ancient History Honors Final

feudalism

A political system in which nobles are granted the use of lands that legally belong to their king, in exchange for their loyalty, military service, and protection of the people who live on the land

Saint Benedict

Italian monk who founded the Benedictine order

Middle Ages

Also known as the medieval period, the time between the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD and the beginning of the Renaissance in the fourteenth century.

Interdict

in the Roman Catholic Church, excommunication of an entire region, town, or kingdom

Charlemagne (Charles the Great)

was founder of the Holy Roman Empire (760) and considered the ideal ruler

Primogeniture

A system of inheritance in which the eldest son in a family received all of his father's land. The nobility remained powerful and owned land, while the 2nd and 3rd sons were forced to seek fortune elsewhere. Many of them turned to the New World for their financial purposes and individual wealth.

Inquisition

A Roman Catholic tribunal for investigating and prosecuting charges of heresy - especially the one active in Spain during the 1400s.

Magna Carta

the royal charter of political rights given to rebellious English barons by King John in 1215

Thomas Becket

the archbishop of Canterbury, close friend of Henry who later opposed his attempt to bring Church/clergy into royal court system. Murdered by Henry's knights, then declare a saint by the Church

Manorialism

Economic system during the Middle Ages that revolved around self-sufficient farming estates where lords and peasants shared the land.

Alfred the Great

King of Wessex from 871 to 899; he defeated Danish invaders and united Anglo- Saxon England under his control. He compiled a code of laws and promoted learning.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

powerful French duchess; divorced the king of France to marry Henry II of England and ruled all of England and about half of France with him

Mosque

A Muslim place of worship

Caliph

successor to Muhammad as political and religious leader of the Muslims

Moors

Spanish Muslims

Muhammad

the Arab prophet who founded Islam

Bedouins

Arab nomads

Muslims

Followers of Islam

Al-Razi

Greatest Muslim physician

MInaret

A distinctive feature of mosque architecture, a tower from which the faithful are called to worship.

Hijrah

Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina

Jihad

A holy struggle or striving by a Muslim for a moral or spiritual or political goal

Tariq

Berber general who led a Muslim army across the Mediterranean and conquered Spain

Quran

The holy book of Islam

Crusades

A series of holy wars from 1096-1270 AD undertaken by European Christians to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule.

Agincourt

English victory near Arras in Flanders (1415) that led to English reconquest of Normandy.

Great Schism

the official split between the Roman Catholic and Byzantine churches that occurred in 1054

Joan of Arc

French heroine and military leader inspired by religious visions to organize French resistance to the English and to have Charles VII crowned king

Scholasticism

A philosophical and theological system, associated with Thomas Aquinas, devised to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy and Roman Catholic theology in the thirteenth century.

Urban II

Pope that called the First Crusade in 1095; appealed to Christians to mount military assault to free the Holy Land from the Muslims.

Geoffrey Chaucer

English poet remembered as author of the Canterbury Tales (1340-1400)

Domestic System

Early industrial labor system in which workers produced goods at home

Dante Alighieri

an Italian poet famous for writing the Divine Comedy that describes a journey through hell and purgatory and paradise guided by Virgil and his idealized Beatrice (1265-1321)

John Wycliffe

English scholar who argued that the Bible was the final authority for Christian life

Shakespeare

A popular English playwright and poet in the 16th century.

Craft Guilds

associations of artisans organized to regulate the quality, quantity, and price of the goods produced as well as the number of affiliated apprentices and journeymen

Renaissance

"rebirth"; following the Middle Ages, a movement that centered on the revival of interest in the classical learning of Greece and Rome

Humanists

European scholars, writers, and teachers associated with the study of the humanities (grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, languages, and moral philosophy), influential in the fifteenth century during the Renaissance.

Niccolo Machiavelli

a statesman of Florence who advocated a strong central government. He also wrote "The Prince."

Leonardo Da Vinci

A well known Italian Renaissance artist, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, and scientist. Known for the Mona Lisa.

Johannes Gutenberg

German who invented the printing press

Standard of Living

Quality of life based on ownership of necessities and luxuries that make life easier.

Michelangelo

An Italian sculptor, painter, poet, engineer, and architect. Famous works include the mural on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and the sculpture of the biblical character David.

Martin Luther

a German monk who became one of the most famous critics of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1517, he wrote 95 theses, or statements of belief attacking the church practices.

Counter Reformation

the reaction of the Roman Catholic Church to the Reformation reaffirming the veneration of saints and the authority of the Pope (to which Protestants objected)

Broadsides

Single printed sheets, distributed by publishers, that might contain a royal decree, news of a crime, or some other event

Almanacs

book-length collections of useful facts, calendars, and advice

Reformation

A religious movement of the 16th century that began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the creation of Protestant churches.

Galileo

Italian astronomer and mathematician who was the first to use a telescope to study the stars

Astrolabe

An instrument used by sailors to determine their location by observing the position of the stars and planets

Drake (Sir Francis not Aubrey Graham)

Discovered that Tierra del Fuego, the land south of the Magellan Strait, was not another continent as Europeans believed, but instead a group of islands

Ducat

formerly a gold coin of various European countries

Heliocentric

Based on the belief that the sun is the center of the universe

Florin

A gold coin minted by the city of Florence

Ferdinand Magellan

Portuguese navigator who led the Spanish expedition of 1519-1522 that was the first to sail around the world.

Christopher Colombus

An Italian sailor who believed he could find an all-water route to Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic, but actually landed in the Americas.

Vasco Da Gama

Portuguese explorer. In 1497-1498 he led the first naval expedition from Europe to sail to India, opening an important commercial sea route.

Geocentric

A model of the universe in which Earth is at the center of the revolving planets and stars.

Joint Stock Company

A company made up of a group of shareholders. Each shareholder contributes some money to the company and receives some share of the company's profits and debts.