Medieval Europe: Architecture, Education, Thought, and Religion

Vocabulary flashcards detailing key medieval topics, including architecture styles, university life, scholastic thinkers, vernacular literature, religious orders, and religious trials.

Romanesque Style

An architectural style characterized by rectangular buildings with long rounded ceilings called barrel vaults and small windows that let in light.

Barrel Vaults

Long, rounded ceilings featured in Romanesque architecture.

Gothic Style

An architectural style featuring stone arches that supported building weight for greater height, thinner walls, and large stained glass windows depicting scenes from Jesus's life and teachings.

Slates

Portable chalkboards that medieval university students used to take notes.

Scholasticism

A way of thinking that combined faith and reason to show that ideas accepted on faith did not have to contradict ideas developed by reason.

Thomas Aquinas

An Italian friar, devoted scholar, and philosopher whose goal was to find agreement between Aristotle's teachings and Christian teachings.

Summa Theologica

Thomas Aquinas's major work, which summarized knowledge on Christian theology and examined opposing ideas.

Natural Law

A concept described by Thomas Aquinas that gives people basic rights, including the right to live, learn, worship, and marry.

Latin

The language of the educated, the Catholic Church, and teachers or scholars in medieval Europe.

Vernacular

The everyday spoken language of a specific region, which writers began using around 1100 C.E.

Troubadour Poetry

Vernacular love poems written around 1100 C.E., especially focusing on the love of a knight for a lady.

Heroic Epic

Vernacular stories telling of bold knights fighting in the service of kings or lords.

Mendicant

A term for begging religious orders whose members chose to live in poverty.

Cistercian Order

A religious order founded in 1098 C.E. by monks who desired a simpler, more spiritual way of life focused on worshiping, praying, and farming.

Friars

Members of new medieval religious orders who took a vow of poverty, lived by rules, and worked directly within the community.

Franciscans

A friar order characterized by being cheerful and having a love of nature.

Dominicans

A friar order whose main duty was to defend the teachings of the Church.

Sacraments

Church rituals that medieval Christians took part in alongside attending regular mass.

Heresy

Ideas that conflicted with Church teachings, considered a serious crime in medieval Europe.

The Inquisition

A Church court established in 1233 C.E. tasked with questioning and dealing with people accused of heresy.

Anti-Semitism

Hostility towards Jews, which led Christians to discriminate against, persecute, and kill Jewish people during hard times.

Ghettos

Separate neighborhoods where Jewish people were forced to live.