Unit 1 Vocab

Babylonian Captivity

The period from 1309 to 1376 when the popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome.

Black Death

Plague that first struck Europe in 1347 and killed perhaps one-third of the population.

Christine de Pizan

First female professional writer.

Confraternities

Voluntary lay groups organized by occupation, devotional preference, neighborhood, or charitable activity.

Conciliarists

People who believed that the authority in the Roman Church should rest in a general council composed of clergy, theologians, and laypeople, rather than in the pope alone.

Dante Alighieri

Florentine poet; wrote The Divine Comedy, the first major work in Italian.

Edward III

King of England who accepted Parliamentary approval of new taxes.

English Peasants' Revolt

Revolt by English peasants in 1381 in response to changing economic conditions.

Flagellants

People who believed that the plague was God's punishment for sin and sought to do penance by whipping themselves.

Geoffrey Chaucer

English poet; wrote The Canterbury Tales, a pivotal work in the development of English vernacular literature.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Florentine writer; described the Black Death.

Great Schism

The division, or split, in church leadership from 1378 to 1417 when there were two, then three, popes.

Henry V

King of England; won the Battle of Agincourt.

Hundred Years' War

A war between England and France from 1337 to 1453, with political and economic causes and consequences.

Jacquerie

A massive uprising by French peasants in 1358 protesting heavy taxation.

Jan Hus

Czech theologian; brought Wyclif's ideas to Bohemia.

Joan of Arc

Religious mystic who led French troops to victory; tried and executed for heresy.

John Wyclif

English theologian who challenged key tenets of Catholicism.

Little Ice Age

Period of colder and wetter weather that began in the fourteenth century, leading to poor harvests, famine, and other problems.

Representative assemblies

Deliberative meetings of lords and wealthy urban residents that flourished in many European countries between 1250 and 1450.

Statute of Kilkenny

Law issued in 1366 that discriminated against the Irish, forbidding marriage between the English and the Irish.

Baldassare Castiglione

Author of The Courtier, a guide to aristocratic behavior.

Christian humanists

Northern humanists who interpreted Italian ideas about classical antiquity and humanism in terms of their own religious traditions.

Commercial Revolution

The transformation of the European economy as a result of changes in business procedures and growth in trade.

Communes

Sworn associations of free men in Italian cities led by merchant guilds.

Courts

Magnificent households and palaces where signori and other rulers lived, conducted business, and supported the arts.

Debate about women

Debate among writers and thinkers in the Renaissance about women’s qualities and proper role in society.

Desiderius Erasmus

Dutch humanist, author of In Praise of Folly.

Ferdinand of Aragon

Male ruler of Spain; completed the Reconquista, expelled the Jews.

Francesco Petrarch

Poet; 'father of humanism'.

Francois I

King of France; negotiated the Concordat of Bologna with the pope.

Henry VII

First Tudor king of England.

Humanism

A program of study designed by Italians that emphasized the critical study of Latin and Greek literature with the goal of understanding human nature.

Isabella of Castile

Female ruler of Spain; completed the Reconquista, expelled the Jews.

Johann Gutenberg

Inventor of the printing press.

Leonardo Bruni

Historian, civic humanist, chancellor of Florence.

Leonardo da Vinci

Universal genius, inventor, engineer, painter of the Mona Lisa.

Lorenzo de' Medici

'Il Magnifico', de facto ruler of Florence, great patron of the arts and letters.

Marsilio Ficino

Founded the Platonic Academy in Florence.

Michelangelo

Sculptor of the David, architect, painter of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

New Christians

A term for Jews and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula who accepted Christianity.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Author of The Prince, political chancellor, Florentine Chancellor.

Patronage

Financial support of writers and artists by cities, groups, and individuals, often to produce specific works or works in specific styles.

Renaissance

A French word meaning 'rebirth,' used to describe the rebirth of the culture of classical antiquity in Italy during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.

Savonarola

Dominican friar, briefly head of Florentine government; critic of materialism and secularism.

Signori

Government by one-man rule in Italian cities such as Milan; also refers to these rulers.

Thomas More

English humanist, author of Utopia.

Virtù

The quality of being able to shape the world according to one’s own will.

Conquistadors

Armed Spaniards who sought to conquer people and territories in the New World for the Spanish Crown.

Caravel

A small, maneuverable, two- or three-masted sailing ship developed by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century.

Ptolemy's Geography

A second-century-CE work that synthesized classical knowledge of geography and introduced concepts of longitude and latitude.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 treaty that settled competing claims to new discovered Atlantic territories between Spain and Portugal.

Aztec Empire

A large and complex Native American civilization in modern Mexico and Central America.

Inca Empire

The vast and sophisticated Peruvian empire centered at the capital city of Cuzco.

Viceroyalties

The name for the four administrative units of Spanish possessions in the Americas.

Encomienda system

A system whereby the Spanish crown granted conquerors the right to employ groups of Indians.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of animals, plants, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds.

Bartolome de las Casas

Dominican monk who praised the native population and criticized Spanish colonization practices.

Philip II

King of Spain, oversaw the Spanish empire in the New World and Philippines.