Medieval Europe and Spanish Conquest Revision

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering the social structure, legal systems, and military tactics of Medieval Europe, alongside the engineering and conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires.

Wattle and daub

A material used to build houses for medieval peasants, typically consisting of a thatched roof and floors strewn with straw.

Distaff and spindle

Tools used by medieval peasant women to spin wool or flax into thread for clothing.

Abbesses

Powerful female religious figures who managed vast tracts of land and dealt directly with kings and bishops.

Tithings

Groups of ten men in a village responsible for community policing; if one member committed a crime, the others had to bring him to court or pay his fine.

Trial by ordeal

A judicial practice, such as carrying a red-hot iron or being thrown into water, where the outcome was believed to show God's judgment of guilt or innocence.

Neck verse

A specific verse memorized by individuals to prove they were members of the clergy and thus escape the death penalty in royal courts.

Hanseatic League

A confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Northern Europe that dominated the trade of grain, timber, and furs.

Machicolations

Overhanging openings in castle walls through which defenders could drop stones or boiling liquids on attackers.

Sapping

A siege tactic involving digging tunnels under a castle wall and burning the wooden support beams to cause the wall to collapse.

Tithe

A 10% tax paid by the population to the Catholic Church.

Chinampas

Floating gardens built by the Aztecs on Lake Texcoco for agricultural purposes.

Mita

An Inca labor tax used for public works that was later repurposed by the Spanish into a system of forced labor in silver mines.

Requerimiento

A legalistic document read by the Spanish that demanded Indigenous peoples submit to the Pope and the Spanish Crown or face 'just war'.

Taki Unquy

A millenarian protest movement where Indigenous people rejected Spanish culture and religion, believing their old gods would return to wash the Spanish away.

Letters of Credit

An early form of a check invented by Italian merchants, allowing money to be deposited in one city and withdrawn in another.