Medieval European Agricultural Revival and Political Development

Flashcard set containing 50 vocabulary terms covering agricultural innovations, dietary developments, economic growth, and political structures in High Medieval Europe based on the lecture sources.

Water Mills

A power technology introduced in the early middle ages whose use was expanded by European peoples during the high middle ages.

Heavy Plows

Agricultural tools introduced during the early middle ages that saw expanded usage in the high middle ages to cultivate European soils.

Horseshoe

A simple tool introduced during the high middle ages that helped prevent softened and split hooves on horses working in moist European soils.

Horse Collar

A device that placed the burden of heavy loads on an animal's chest and shoulders rather than its neck, allowing horses to pull heavy plows without choking.

Oxen

Slower draft animals used for pulling plows prior to the widespread adoption of horses equipped with horseshoes and horse collars.

Gruel

A grain product that, along with bread, constituted almost the entire European diet during the early middle ages.

European Diet (1000–1300)

A diet that saw meat, dairy products, fish, vegetables, and legumes become much more prominent alongside staple grains.

Hard Durum Wheat

A high middle ages crop disseminated through the Islamic world that became prominent in Mediterranean European diets.

Islamic Mediterranean Crops

Crops including rice, spinach, artichokes, eggplant, lemons, limes, oranges, and melons that spread from the Islamic world into Mediterranean diets.

Late Tenth Century Population Pressure

A demographic condition occurring as local lords pacified territories, driving efforts to clear forests and drain swamps for agricultural expansion.

Game Preserves

Protected forest areas where nobles enjoyed hunting wild animals, causing lords to initially oppose clearing land for agriculture.

Twelfth Century Lords' Policy

The active encouragement of agricultural expansion by lords after realizing higher production yielded increased taxes and personal wealth.

Crop Rotation

Experimentation with different planting cycles to ensure maximum harvest yields without compromising soil fertility.

Beans (Legumes in High Middle Ages)

Crops cultivated extensively to provide dietary protein and enrich agricultural soil by fixing nitrogen.

Nitrogen Fixing

The soil-enriching chemical property of bean crops cultivated during the high middle ages.

Domestic Animals (High Middle Ages)

Livestock kept to serve as beasts of burden, sources of food, and providers of manure to enrich crop fields.

Fish Ponds

Man-made ponds dug during the high middle ages to raise fish as a dietary supplement.

Thirteenth Century Agricultural Treatises

Written works on household economics and farming methods that circulated widely to publicize agricultural innovations.

Vernacular Languages

The everyday local languages used in 13th-century agricultural books to make farming innovations accessible to lay readers.

Foundations of Medieval European Economic Growth

A dramatic increase in agricultural yields that underpinned urbanization, manufacturing, trade, and social development.

Four Factors of Agricultural Growth

The opening of new lands, improved techniques, new tools and technologies, and the introduction of new crops.

Urbanization and Trade Revival

Processes driven by increased agricultural yields that re-established European commercial relationships with distant lands.

Centralized Imperial Rule

The political organization of China, contrasted with medieval Europe's fragmented landscape of regional states and monarchies.

Byzantine Empire

An empire holding historical claims in southern Italy and influence over Bari prior to Norman intervention.

Holy Roman Empire

One of several major regional political entities operating in Europe during the high middle ages.

Ecclesiastical Principalities

Territories ruled by Christian church authorities as part of medieval Europe's decentralized political landscape.

Twelfth-Century Italian City-States

Prosperous urban centers that grew to dominate both their city districts and surrounding hinterlands.

Florence

A prosperous Italian city-state that emerged in the twelfth century to dominate its urban district and hinterlands.

Bologna

A prominent Italian city-state dominating its local urban region and hinterland by the twelfth century.

Genoa

A wealthy Italian maritime city-state that controlled its urban territory and surrounding countryside by the twelfth century.

Milan

A major city-state in northern Italy that dominated its surrounding hinterlands by the twelfth century.

Venice

A prosperous Italian city-state that established dominance over its urban area and hinterlands by the twelfth century.

Norman Adventurers

Cousins of the conquerors of Anglo-Saxon England who fought as mercenaries in southern Italy and Iberia.

Salerno (999 CE)

The southern Italian city where Norman pilgrims first intervened in regional affairs by helping fight off Muslim raiders in the year $999$.

Bari (1017–1018 CE)

A southern Italian city aided by Norman adventurers in its struggle for independence from Byzantine authority between $1017$ and $1018$.

Norman Mercenaries in Southern Italy

Soldiers who entered southern Italy in large numbers, operating with papal support to displace Byzantine and Muslim authorities.

Kingdom of Naples

A powerful southern Italian state founded following Norman military conquests against Byzantine and Muslim rulers.

Roman Catholic Christianity in Southern Italy

The religious sphere into which southern Italy was brought following Norman conquests backed by papal approval.

Eighth to Eleventh Century Iberia

A period during which Muslim states ruled most of the Iberian peninsula, while Christian states held only northern mountain areas.

Northern Iberian Christian States

Small Christian political units located in mountainous northern Spain that survived initial Muslim dominance.

Mid-Eleventh Century Iberian Expansion

The period when Christian adventurers began military attacks to conquer Muslim territories in Iberia.

Soldiers of Fortune (Iberia)

Norman mercenaries who traveled to Spain to join the armies of Iberian Christian kingdoms.

Castile

One of the Christian kingdoms that gained control over most of the Iberian peninsula by the late thirteenth century.

Aragon

A prominent Iberian Christian kingdom that expanded significantly against Muslim territories by the late thirteenth century.

Portugal

An Iberian Christian kingdom that, along with Castile and Aragon, controlled nearly all of the peninsula by the late thirteenth century.

Kingdom of Granada

The small kingdom that remained as the sole Muslim-controlled territory in Iberia by the late thirteenth century.

Hinterlands

The surrounding rural territories outside urban districts dominated by prosperous twelfth-century Italian city-states.

Serfs and Monks

Laborers and religious figures who cleared forests and drained swamps to expand European agricultural land.

Early Middle Ages European Diet

A dietary regimen consisting almost exclusively of grains and grain-based products like bread and gruel.

Regional States

Localized political organizations in High Medieval Europe that effectively managed public affairs as alternatives to a centralized empire.