Late Middle Ages: Climate Change, Plague, War, and Social Crisis

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms, historical events, religious movements, and social crises of the late Middle Ages based on Chapter 1 notes.

Little Ice Age

The period from about 1300 to roughly 1800 in the Northern Hemisphere characterized by a colder, wetter climate that caused repeated poor harvests, scarcity, and starvation across Europe.

Black Death

A major epidemic caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis that arrived in Europe in 1347 and killed approximately one-third of the population during its initial outbreak.

Yersinia pestis

The bacterium responsible for the plague, which naturally afflicts rodents, is transmitted by fleas, and was identified in modern times through tooth pulp DNA from fourteenth-century mass graves.

Bubo

A painful, nut- or apple-sized growth in the lymph nodes of the armpit, groin, or neck that served as the classic physical symptom of the bubonic plague.

Hundred Years' War

An intermittent conflict fought between England and France from 1337 to 1453 (lasting 116 years) over land holdings, succession rights to the French throne, and economic interests.

Salic law

A sixth-century law code of the Franks used by French lawyers to argue that women and their male descendants were excluded from inheriting the French monarchy.

Joan of Arc

A French peasant girl who claimed angelic guidance, revived French fortunes by leading troops to end the siege of Orléans in 1429, and was later burned at the stake for heresy in 1431.

Babylonian Captivity

The period from 1309 to 1376 when seven consecutive popes resided in Avignon, France, under the influence of the French Crown, severely damaging papal prestige.

Great Schism

The division in Western Christendom from 1378 to 1417 when competing popes reigned simultaneously in Rome and Avignon (and later Pisa), badly damaging Christian religious faith.

Conciliarists

Fourteenth-century church reformers who held that ultimate authority in the Catholic Church rested in a general council representing all Christians, rather than in the pope alone.

Lollards

Followers of John Wyclif who taught that the Bible alone was the standard of Christian belief, translated the Bible into English, and allowed women to preach.

Jacquerie

A massive 1358 peasant uprising in northern France sparked by oppressive war taxes, countryside criminality, and battlefield failures of the nobility.

Statute of Laborers (1351)

An English law issued by King Edward III and Parliament that attempted to freeze worker wages at 1346 levels and bind peasants to their manors following post-plague labor shortages.

English Peasants' Revolt

A major 1381 rebellion across southern and eastern England ignited by the forced collection of an adult poll tax and lingering post-plague economic frustration.

Flagellants

Extreme religious ascetics during the Black Death who whipped themselves in public penance, believing the plague was God's punishment for human sinfulness.

Confraternities

Voluntary lay Christian organizations formed by occupation, neighborhood, or devotional interest that carried out religious activities and charitable works without constant priestly oversight.

Fur-collar crime

Criminal activities—including extortion, robbery, and judicial bribery—committed by noblemen and knights in the late Middle Ages to supplement declining incomes.

Statute of Kilkenny (1366)

A law enforced by the ruling English in Ireland prohibiting intermarriage between native Irish and English settlers, while banning Irish custom, speech, and church benefices in English areas.

Dance of Death

A popular late medieval artistic and literary motif depicting dancing skeletons leading away living people of all social ranks, serving as a symbolic reminder of human mortality.