Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Global Cultural Transformations

175 vocabulary flashcards covering the Protestant Reformation, global expansion of Christianity, Islamic renewal, Chinese intellectual shifts, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment based on lecture transcript notes.

Protestant Reformation

A major religious movement that began in 1517 when Martin Luther published the Ninety-Five Theses, challenging Catholic Church corruption and political authority.

Ninety-Five Theses

A document published by Martin Luther in 1517 criticizing Catholic Church corruptions, such as the selling of indulgences and the luxurious lives of popes.

Indulgences

Certificates or cleansing of sins sold by the Catholic Church, which was highlighted by Martin Luther as a major form of Church corruption.

Luther's Concept of Salvation

The Protestant belief that salvation comes through individual faith alone rather than through the Catholic Church or its rituals.

German Revolts of 1520

A series of uprisings by common people in Germany who were offended by the wealth and luxury enjoyed by Catholic popes and bishops.

Protestant Veneration Changes

The end of veneration toward Mary and other saints in Protestantism, establishing Christ as the sole figure of worship.

Monastery Closures

The closing of monastic communities due to Protestant opposition to celibacy, eliminating a traditional venue where women escaped traditional gender roles and marriage.

Quakers

The only Protestant denomination during the Reformation era that offered women an official role in their church.

Printing Press in the Reformation

The technological invention that enabled the rapid spread and subsequent fragmentation of Protestant ideas into various churches.

Protestant Denominations

New independent Christian churches formed during the Reformation, including Anglican, Quaker, and Anabaptist, none of which pledged allegiance to the pope.

Huguenots

French Protestants who engaged in violent religious conflict against French Catholics for more than 30 years.

Thirty Years War

A destructive European conflict beginning in the Holy Roman Empire that pitted European states against one another over religious and political differences.

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

The peace treaty resolving the Thirty Years War, establishing state sovereignty and allowing each state to control its own internal religious affairs.

Catholic Counter-Reformation

The Catholic Church's response to the Protestant Reformation that clarified doctrines, corrected administrative corruption, and cracked down on dissidents.

Council of Trent

A Catholic council published during the Counter-Reformation that clarified doctrines rejected by Protestants, including papal authority and saint worship.

Society of Jesus (Jesuits)

A Catholic brotherhood order extended from the Church to reform education, crack down on dissidents, and conduct international missionary work.

Skepticism of Authority

A cultural mindset shift resulting from the successful Protestant challenge to the powerful Catholic Church, leading people to question all forms of power.

Religious Individualism

The Reformation concept encouraging believers to read and interpret scriptures for themselves rather than relying on institutional church authority.

Reconquista Overseas Mentality

The belief held by Catholic Spanish and Portuguese explorers that overseas voyages would complete the historic liberation of territory from Muslim control.

New England Puritans

Protestant colonial settlers in North America who emphasized education and strict morals without seeking native conversions, opting instead to drive native populations out.

Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans

Organized Catholic missionary societies that actively sought to convert native populations across the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

Portuguese Missionary Geographic Scope

The global regions of Africa and Asia where Portuguese Catholic missionaries conducted the majority of their operations.

Spanish and French Missionary Geographic Scope

The global region of the Americas where Spanish and French Catholic missionaries concentrated their efforts.

Russian Orthodox Missionaries

Religious agents who accompanied Russia's territorial expansion, supported by hunters who donated furs to the church.

Conversion Factors in Spanish America and Philippines

A combination of large European military presence, forced labor, social disruption, disease, and active missionary work that led to widespread baptism.

Illiteracy and Conversion Success

The structural factor making small-scale religious populations easier to convert than societies deeply rooted in written traditions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or Confucianism.

Native View of European Conquest

The acceptance of Christianity by conquered Mesoamericans and Andeans who viewed European military victory as proof of the Christian god's superior power.

Women in Latin American Clergy

The systemic exclusion of indigenous and local women from church leadership roles despite the prominent Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary.

Spanish American Convent Life

Religious monastic lifestyle in the Americas that was reserved almost exclusively for women of Spanish origin.

Extirpation Campaigns

17th and 18th-century Catholic Church actions aimed at uprooting and humiliating native religions by destroying shrines, burning idols, and punishing practitioners.

Taki Onqoy

A native religious resistance movement in Peru where dancers and teachers claimed an alliance of Andean deities (huacas) would defeat the Christian god.

Huacas

Local Andean spirits and gods invoked by Taki Onqoy dancers to inflict diseases on colonizers and overcome the Christian god.

Andean Syncretism

The practice of combining Christian and Andean spiritual elements, such as offering llama blood or crafting cloth for both the Virgin Mary and a huaca.

Cofradias

Local Mexican associations of religious laypeople that organized community festivals, funerals, and church events.

Virgin of Guadalupe

A prominent Mexican Catholic symbol representing a blend of Christian iconography with precolonial indigenous religious symbolism.

Fiscal

A native leader of the local church staff in colonial Mexico who managed church affairs and carried on older indigenous traditions.

Mexican Christian Practices

A distinct blend of Christianity incorporating precolonial traditions such as wax candles, offerings to the sun, sacrifices, and hallucinogenic drugs.

Christian Missionary Encounter in China

A targeted, non-coercive attempt to convert elite Chinese rulers during the Ming and Qing dynasties by respecting local culture rather than using military force.

Matteo Ricci

The most famous Jesuit missionary in China who mastered the Chinese language, studied Confucian texts, and dressed as a Confucian scholar.

Jesuit Accommodation Strategy

The missionary method in China of defining traditional ancestor veneration and Confucianism as secular traditions to emphasize similarities with Christianity.

Bureau of Astronomy

A imperial Chinese state institution led by Jesuit scholars for over a century due to their superior mathematical and astronomical expertise.

Conversion Rate in China

The outcome of 250 years of Jesuit efforts in China, resulting in only 200,000 to 300,000 converts out of a 300 million population.

Papal Orders of the 18th Century in China

Vatican rulings that declared Confucian ancestor veneration to be illegal idolatry, undermining decades of Jesuit accommodation work.

Emperor Kangxi's Edict (1715)

An imperial decree issued in 1715 banning Christian preaching and expelling missionaries after the papacy challenged traditional ancestor worship.

Anti-Christian Suspicions in China

Chinese concerns that Christian secret meetings signaled planned rebellions and that missionaries were spies for European forces active in the Philippines.

Syncretic Afro-American Religions

Religious practices formed by African slaves in the Americas that blended West African rituals with Catholic elements, often viewed by Europeans as sorcery.

Vodou

A syncretic religion in Haiti derived from West African traditions including drumming, spirit possession, and animal sacrifice, integrated with Catholic church attendance and candle use.

Agents of Islamic Expansion

Sufi mystics, scholars, and traders who peacefully spread Islam across sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Southeast Asia without military force.

19th-Century Brazilian Slave Revolts

Uprisings in Brazil organized and led specifically by enslaved African Muslims during the early 19th century.

Aceh Sultanate

A Muslim state on Sumatra that enforced strict Islamic dietary codes and restricted female rulers following four successive female reigns in the late 17th century.

Javanese Muslim Women

Women in Indonesia who served in royal courts and maintained traditional economic roles as buyers and sellers in local markets after converting to Islam.

Islamic Renewal Movements

18th-century movements throughout the Islamic world that criticized syncretic practices as deviations from the original teachings of Muhammad and the Quran.

Emperor Aurangzeb

The Mughal ruler who reversed Emperor Akbar's policy of religious tolerance, sparking conflicts against blended religious practices in India.

Wahhabi Movement

A prominent Islamic renewal movement established in Arabia that sought to eliminate deviations, idolatry, and non-Islamic practices across the Muslim world.

Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab

An 18th-century Arabian scholar who argued that the weakening of the Islamic world, including the Ottoman Empire, was caused by deviations from pure Islam.

Muhammad Ibn Saud

A local Arabian ruler who backed Wahhab in the 1740s, enabling the expansion of a Wahhabi reformist state across central Arabia.

Wahhabi Reforms and Prohibitions

The destruction of Sufi tombs and idols, prohibition of tobacco, musical instruments, and unauthorized taxes, alongside strict monotheistic enforcement.

Wahhabi Views on Women's Rights

The movement's emphasis on Islamic legal rights for women regarding marriage, dowry control, divorce, and commerce without mandatory full-body covering.

Egyptian Army Intervention (1818)

The military force that broke the political power of the original Wahhabi reformist state in 1818, though its ideological influence continued to spread.

Neo-Confucianism

A Ming and Qing dynastic philosophy that integrated traditional Confucianism with elements of Daoism and Buddhism.

Wang Yangming

An influential Ming thinker who argued that anyone could achieve a righteous life through internal intuitive moral knowledge without elite formal education.

Intuitive Moral Knowledge

Wang Yangming's core concept stating that moral truth is inherently possessed by all people, reducing reliance on elite scholar-gentlemen.

Kaozheng

A Chinese intellectual movement meaning 'research based on evidence' that emphasized critical analysis, accuracy, and historical document verification.

Ming vs. Qing Kaozheng

The shift in Kaozheng from practical natural focus (agriculture, medicine, botany) in the Ming dynasty to historical document analysis in the Qing dynasty.

Popular Urban Culture in China

An emerging middle-class urban entertainment industry characterized by novels, plays, paintings, short stories, and self-help manuals.

The Dream of the Red Chamber

A famous 18th-century Chinese novel containing 120 chapters and over 400 characters, mostly women, depicting popular urban literary tastes.

Emperor Akbar

The Mughal emperor who created an eclectic court culture by combining Islamic, Hindu, Zoroastrian, and Renaissance Christian elements.

Ocean of Life

A book describing Hindu yoga postures commissioned by Emperor Akbar and created by a Sufi master.

Bhakti Movement

A devotional Hindu movement that bypassed formal caste boundaries and Brahmin rituals through direct song, dance, and poetry seeking union with deities.

Mirabai

A famous high-caste Bhakti poet who rejected caste norms, refused to commit sati upon her husband's death, and selected an untouchable guru.

Krishna

The Hindu deity whom the Bhakti poet Mirabai addressed as her personal husband in her devotional poetry.

Sikhism

A monotheistic religion founded by Guru Nanak in the Punjab region that blended elements of Islam and Hinduism while rejecting caste and gender seclusion.

Guru Nanak

The founder of Sikhism who taught that 'there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim, only God' and championed social and gender equality.

Guru Granth

The sacred book ('teacher book') containing the foundational teachings and scriptures of Sikhism.

Golden Temple of Amritsar

The central place of worship and spiritual home constructed for the Sikh religion in the Punjab region.

Sikh Dress Requirements for Men

Cultural practices including wearing a turban, keeping uncut beards and hair, and carrying a short sword.

Militarization of Sikhism

The evolution of the Sikh community from a peaceful religious movement into a militant community in response to hostility from the Mughal Empire.

Scientific Revolution

An intellectual and cultural transformation between the mid-16th and early 18th centuries that abandoned Church authority in favor of evidence-based inquiry.

Corporate Rights in Europe

Legal designations that granted autonomous institutions, such as universities, the freedom to regulate their members and curriculum without Church control.

University of Paris (1215)

An early chartered corporation in Western Europe granted legal rights to admit students, establish courses, and issue teaching licenses.

Madrassas

Islamic colleges focused primarily on Quranic studies and religious law where natural sciences were often viewed with suspicion.

Civil Service Examination System

The Chinese imperial educational system focused strictly on Confucian classics, restricting higher learning to state administration rather than scientific inquiry.

European Center for Knowledge Exchange

Europe's geographic and trade position allowing it to gather and synthesize medical, mathematical, and scientific information from Islamic and Greek sources.

Geocentric Theory

The pre-scientific worldview endorsed by the Catholic Church holding that the Earth was stationary at the center of ten nested crystal spheres.

Nicolaus Copernicus

The Polish astronomer who initiated the Scientific Revolution with his book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, proposing a heliocentric universe.

Heliocentric Theory

The astronomical model proposing that the Sun is at the center of the universe and planets, including Earth, revolve around it.

Johannes Kepler

The German mathematician who demonstrated that planets move in elliptical orbits rather than perfect circles.

Galileo Galilei

The Italian scientist who improved the telescope to observe sunspots, lunar craters, and Jupiter's moons, confirming Copernican heliocentrism.

Isaac Newton

The English scientist who formulated the universal laws of motion and gravitation, proving that the same physical laws govern heaven and Earth.

Mechanical Universe Model

The concept that the physical cosmos functions mathematically on its own according to natural laws, akin to a giant clock, without constant supernatural intervention.

René Descartes

The French philosopher who advocated seeking knowledge strictly within oneself or through observation of the natural world.

Anatomical Discoveries

Early modern medical breakthroughs made by dissecting cadavers, proving blood circulation and demonstrating that the heart acts as a muscle.

Margaret Cavendish

An aristocratic woman who authored six scientific texts and became the only woman in the 17th century permitted to attend the Royal Society of London.

Maria Winkelman

A German astronomer who discovered a comet but was credited to her husband, later being denied a position at the Berlin Academy of Sciences due to her gender.

Giordano Bruno

An Italian philosopher burned at the stake by the Catholic Church for asserting that the universe was infinite.

The Starry Messenger

Galileo's published work presenting telescopic discoveries of craters, sunspots, and moons, challenging traditional views of cosmos perfection.

Christoph Clavius

The Roman Catholic Church's head astronomer who confirmed and agreed with Galileo's telescopic observations.

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Galileo's 1629 publication supporting Copernican heliocentrism, which directly provoked his trial by the Roman Inquisition.

Roman Inquisition Trial of Galileo

The 1630s trial where Galileo was convicted of teaching doctrines contrary to the Church and sentenced to lifelong house arrest.

Pope John Paul II (1992 Statement)

The 1992 declaration by the papacy formally acknowledging that Galileo's conviction was a tragedy of mutual misunderstanding between science and faith.