World History: Unit 1 Study Guide - The Protestant Reformation & The Mercantilist Economy

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, figures, doctrines, and economic concepts from Chapter 5, Sections 5.1 and 5.3.

Simony

The practice of buying or selling lucrative Church offices, positions, or spiritual privileges, which led to unqualified leadership motivated by wealth rather than spiritual devotion.

Nepotism

The appointment of relatives to high-ranking professional or ecclesiastical positions regardless of merit, consolidating Church wealth and authority within elite families.

Indulgences

Certificates issued or sold by the Catholic Church that remitted temporal punishment in purgatory for confessed sins, drawing on a 'treasury of merit' from Christ and the saints.

Johann Tetzel

A Dominican friar commissioned by Archbishop Albert of Mainz to aggressively market and sell indulgences in German lands to fund the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Christian Humanism

A Northern Renaissance movement led by figures like Desiderius Erasmus that combined classical Greek and Hebrew scholarship with early Christian texts to awaken inner piety and reform the Church.

Desiderius Erasmus

Prominent Dutch Christian humanist who criticized Church corruption and outer ritualism, advocating for daily life guided directly by Christ's teachings and biblical translation.

Martin Luther

A German monk and theology professor at Wittenberg who sparked the Protestant Reformation in 1517 by authoring the Ninety-five Theses challenging Church abuses and papal authority.

Ninety-five Theses

A series of 95 academic propositions written by Martin Luther in 1517 protesting indulgence sales and questioning papal jurisdiction over purgatory, widely circulated via the printing press.

Sola Fide (Faith Alone)

The doctrine of justification asserting that salvation is an unearned gift of divine grace granted through personal faith in Christ alone, rather than earned through good works or Church sacraments.

Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone)

The principle that the Bible is the sole legitimate and infallible authority for Christian faith and practice, superseding papal decrees, conciliar canons, and Church traditions.

Priesthood of All Believers

The Protestant doctrine that every Christian has direct spiritual access to God without needing priestly intermediaries, elevating all legitimate secular vocations to equal spiritual standing.

Magisterial Reformation

Protestant reform movements supported and institutionalized by secular political authorities (princes, city councils, monarchs), including Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism.

John Calvin & Predestination

French theologian who established a teocratic model in Geneva; taught predestination—the belief that God has eternally chosen who will be saved ('the elect') regardless of human action.

Ulrich Zwingli

Leader of the Swiss Reformation in Zurich who called for radical scriptural purity, removing religious images and organs from churches and rejecting Catholic transubstantiation.

Radical Reformation & Anabaptists

Protestant groups (Mennonites, Amish) who rejected infant baptism in favor of adult baptism, advocated strict church-state separation, embraced pacifism, and challenged social hierarchies.

Anglican Church

The Church of England established by King Henry VIII through the 1534 Act of Supremacy after Pope Clement VII refused to grant an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Act of Supremacy (1534/1558)

English parliamentary acts establishing the reigning monarch as the supreme head of the Church of England, legally severing papal jurisdiction and nationalizing Church property.

Catholic Counter-Reformation

The Catholic Church's comprehensive response to Protestantism, combining internal reform of abuses with rigid reaffirmation of traditional Catholic dogmas and papal supremacy.

Council of Trent (1545–1563)

A major Catholic council that eliminated indulgence sales, banned simony/nepotism, and improved clerical education, while reaffirming faith plus good works, seven sacraments, and transubstantiation.

Society of Jesus (Jesuits)

A Catholic religious order founded by Ignatius of Loyola dedicated to educating Catholic youth, combating Protestant expansion, advising European monarchs, and leading global missionary work.

Peace of Augsburg (1555)

A treaty ending armed conflict in the Holy Roman Empire by establishing the principle 'cuius regio, eius religio' ('whose realm, his religion'), allowing princes to choose Lutheranism or Catholicism.

Edict of Nantes (1598)

A decree issued by French King Henry IV designating Catholicism as France's official religion while granting Calvinist Protestants (Huguenots) freedom of worship and political rights.

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

The landmark peace settlement ending the Thirty Years' War that recognized the full sovereignty of German territorial states and established the modern international system of nation-states.

Mercantilism

An early modern economic theory holding that a nation's wealth and geopolitical power are measured by its accumulation of precious metals, achieved through state regulation and exports.

Zero-Sum Wealth

The belief that global wealth (measured in gold and silver) is strictly finite; consequently, one nation's economic gain directly causes a corresponding financial loss for its rivals.

Bullionism

An economic policy that defines national prosperity exclusively by the total quantity of gold and silver bullion stored within the state's royal treasury.

Favorable Balance of Trade

The state directive to maximize high-value exports while strictly minimizing imports, resulting in a net continuous influx of foreign gold and silver bullion.

Colbertism

The systematic mercantilist policy developed by Jean-Baptiste Colbert under French King Louis XIV, emphasizing heavy state intervention, industrial subsidies, and high protective tariffs.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Controller-general of finances under Louis XIV who founded royal manufactories, regulated product quality, constructed a merchant marine, and established colonial trade monopolies.

Protective Tariffs

High government taxes levied on foreign imported goods to make foreign products more expensive, thereby shielding domestic industries ('Royal Manufactories') from foreign competition.

State Monopolies & Chartered Companies

Exclusive trading rights granted by monarchs to specific joint-stock enterprises (e.g., East India Companies) to prevent internal merchant competition and secure state revenues.

Divine Right Absolutism

A political doctrine asserting that monarchs derive their authority directly from God, providing the centralized power necessary to strictly regulate national and colonial economies.

Captive Markets

Imperial policies dictating that colonies exist exclusively to supply raw materials to the mother country and purchase its finished manufactured goods, suppressing colonial industry.

Navigation Acts

English parliamentary laws requiring all colonial trade to be conducted on English-owned ships with predominantly English crews, preventing wealth from leaking to foreign powers.

Triangular Trade

A three-legged transatlantic commercial network linking Europe (manufactured goods), West Africa (enslaved captives), and the Americas (plantation cash crops like sugar, tobacco, rum).

Middle Passage

The horrific middle leg of the triangular trade network during which millions of enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic in brutal conditions to satisfy colonial labor demands.

Adam Smith

An 18th-century Scottish philosopher whose landmark work 'The Wealth of Nations' (1776) critiqued mercantilist intervention and laid the foundations of free-market capitalism.

The 'Invisible Hand'

Adam Smith's concept that individual self-interest in an unregulated free market naturally allocates resources and promotes societal prosperity more effectively than state planning.

Laissez-Faire Economics

An economic doctrine (French for 'let us do') advocating that governments should refrain from market intervention, allowing supply and demand to naturally regulate prices and trade.

David Hume's Price-Specie Flow

Scottish philosopher David Hume's demonstration that accumulating excess bullion inflates domestic prices, making a nation's exports uncompetitive and undermining mercantilism.