Medieval Urban and Commercial Growth and the Black Death

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing social hierarchy, agricultural innovations, commercial growth, urban communes, the Black Death epidemic, and the emergence of the Renaissance.

Three Social Orders of the Middle Ages

The tri-part medieval social structure composed of the Clergy (the 'head', praying for souls), the Nobility (the 'arms', waging war), and the Peasants (the 'feet', working the land).

Agricultural Innovations (11th-13th Centuries)

Technological and methodological farming advances including land clearing, mills, shoulder collars, long scythes, fertilizer, fallow/three-field crop rotation, and iron plowshares.

Bourg Fortifié

A town or borough surrounded by a defensive wall during the Middle Ages.

Bourgeoisie

A new social class originating from rural peasantry that grew wealthy from the 11th century onward through non-agricultural occupations such as craft-making, trade, and banking.

Engrais

Fertilizer used to enrich and improve the soil.

Disette

A temporary insufficiency or scarcity of food.

Famine

A total absence of food leading to extreme hunger.

Peste (Plague)

A highly contagious bacterial disease that decimated the population of Europe in the middle of the 14th century.

Défrichement

The act of clearing forest land to convert it into cultivable farmland.

Urbain

Relating to or characteristic of a town or city.

Essor

Rapid growth, expansion, or development.

Commune

A self-governing town managed by elected bourgeois city councils that successfully freed itself from feudal obligations.

Lettre de Change (Letter of Change)

A secure financial document invented by merchant-bourgeois and bankers to transport funds safely from one city to another.

14th-Century Population Decline Factors

The four main reasons for the sharp decrease in population during the 1300s: food scarcity (disette), famine, the Hundred Years' War, and the Black Death.

Three Types of Plague

The three biological forms of the plague: bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic.

Siege of Caffa

A siege in Ukraine where the Mongol army catapulted plague-infected corpses over castle walls, causing fleeing residents to carry the disease into Western Europe.

Vector of Plague Transmission

The path of contagion where humans contract the plague via bites from infected fleas that live on host rats.

Years of the Black Death in Europe

The primary period of the Black Death epidemic in Europe, lasting from 1347 to 1352.

Apocalypse (Book of Revelation)

The biblical book depicting the end of the world and featuring symbolic figures such as the Four Horsemen.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Symbolic riders representing Conquest and victory (white horse), War and blood (red horse), Food scarcity and famine (black horse), and Disease and death (pale horse).

Church Interpretation of the Black Death

The Church's explanation that the plague was a divine punishment sent by God to penalize humanity for its sins.

Danse Macabre

An artistic movement emerging after the plague that reflected darker themes, depicting skeletons dancing with the living to represent death.

Post-Plague Social and Economic Progress

The improved condition of surviving laborers, who gained access to abandoned resources, higher wages, more choice, and the freedom to refuse lord-imposed work terms.

Renaissance

The period of optimism and progress following the Black Death marked by rapid intellectual, artistic, scientific, and religious renewal, as well as a heightened critical spirit.