VOCAB
Feudalism & Middle Ages ( - AD)
Feudalism: A decentralized social system in medieval Europe where land ownership was the basis of power. Lords granted land (fiefs) to vassals in exchange for military service, usually required for days a year, and political loyalty.
Vassal: A person who entered into a mutual obligation with a lord. This relationship was sealed through a commendation ceremony, establishing a hierarchy of land tenure.
Ibn Battuta: A Moroccan Muslim scholar who traveled over miles (approximately kilometers) across the Islamic world (). His travelogue, the Rihla, provides key insights into the cultural and religious unity of the period.
Marco Polo: An Italian merchant whose accounts of his -year journey to the court of Kublai Khan in the Yuan Dynasty fascinated Europeans and increased demand for Asian luxury goods.
Charlemagne: Crowned Emperor of the Romans in AD, he initiated the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of cultural and intellectual revival in the Frankish Empire.
Neoconfucianism: Emerging during the Tang and Song Dynasties, it reinforced the civil service examination system and emphasized social harmony and filial piety as a response to the spiritual nature of Buddhism.
Lord: A nobleman who held land directly from the Crown and exercised legal and economic power over his estate and inhabitants.
Manor: The self-sufficient economic engine of the Middle Ages. It included the lord's residence, a church, a mill, and strips of land for cultivation by the village.
Mongols: Under Genghis Khan, they utilized superior horse archery and psychological warfare to conquer territories from the Pacific Ocean to Eastern Europe, eventually facilitating the Pax Mongolica.
Mali Empire(Africa): Reached its peak under Mansa Musa in the th century. His pilgrimage to Mecca in was so lavish it depressed the value of gold in Egypt for over a decade.
Monastic Scholasticism: Reconciled Christian theology with Aristotelian philosophy. Figures like Thomas Aquinas argued that reason could be used to understand divine truths.
Scribes/Monks: Primarily responsible for preserving classical Greek and Roman texts in scriptoriums before the invention of the printing press.
Serfs/Peasants: Life was governed by the Agricultural Revolution's three-field system, which increased food production by leaving only of the land fallow.
Hanseatic League: A powerful economic alliance of over cities that controlled trade in the Baltic and North Seas between the th and th centuries.
Magna Carta: Signed by King John at Runnymede, it contained clauses, including the principle of habeas corpus, ensuring no free man could be imprisoned without judgment.
Song Dynasty(China): Known for the world's first government-issued paper money and the mass production of iron, reaching output levels not matched in Europe until the late th century.
King John "Lackland": Faced a rebellion from his barons after losing ancestral lands in France and imposing high taxes to fund unsuccessful wars.
Divine Right: Said that kings were chosen to be kings by god
Renaissance, Religious Wars, & Absolutism ( - AD)
Renaissance: Sparked by the rediscovery of classical texts, it moved education away from pure theology toward the studia humanitatis, focusing on grammar, rhetoric, and history. European rebirth of classical Greek-Roman art, learning, and culture, humanism, printing press, etc.
Christopher Columbus(Italy): His voyage was funded by Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain following the Reconquista, seeking an alternate route to the spice-rich Indies.
Vasco de Gama(Portugal): His arrival in Calicut in broke the Venetian and Ottoman monopoly on the spice trade by establishing a direct maritime route. First European to reach india by sea.
Navigation: Advancements included the astrolabe for latitude, the magnetic compass, and the sternpost rudder, which improved ship maneuverability.
Printing Press: Invented by Johannes Gutenberg around , it used movable type to print the Bible, leading to a massive increase in literacy and the rapid spread of the Reformation.
Martin Luther: His Theses attacked the sale of indulgences (the payment for the remission of temporal punishment for sin) and emphasized "salvation by faith alone."
Lutheranism: Rejected the authority of the Pope and five of the seven sacraments, emphasizing the Bible as the sole source of religious truth.
Columbian Exchange: Resulted in the "Great Dying" of indigenous populations (up to % decline) while introducing high-calorie crops like potatoes to Europe, fueling population growth.
Brazil: The only South American territory under Portuguese control, it became the world's largest producer of sugar, requiring a massive influx of enslaved African labor.
Aztecs: Built Tenochtitlán, a capital city with a population of over , featuring chinampas (floating gardens) for highly efficient agriculture.
Colonization: Driven by the "Three Gs": Gold (wealth), God (conversion to Christianity), and Glory (national prestige).
Treaty of Tordesillas: Negotiated by the Pope, it drew an imaginary line in the Atlantic; land to the west belonged to Spain, and land to the east (including Brazil) belonged to Portugal. Spain and Portugal.
Cartography: Cartographers like Gerardus Mercator developed new map projections that allowed sailors to plot straight-line courses across the ocean.
Jan Hus: A reformer burned at the stake in for heresy; his followers, the Hussites, fought a series of wars against the Catholic Church in Bohemia.
Scientific Revolution: Shifted the view from a geocentric (Earth-centered) universe to a heliocentric (Sun-centered) model proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus and confirmed by Galileo.
Patron: The Medici family in Florence were notable patrons who funded artists like Michelangelo to enhance their own political prestige through culture.
Renaissance Man: Refers to individuals who mastered diverse fields; Leonardo da Vinci, for instance, excelled in anatomy, flight mechanics, and painting.
Humanism: Influenced by Petrarch, it focused on human potential and achievements rather than spiritual matters.
Virtu: Defined by Machiavelli in The Prince, it relates to the ability of a leader to act decisively and sometimes ruthlessly to maintain the state.
Secularism: Though most Renaissance art remained religious, the focus shifted toward portraying the physical world and human figures realistically.
Individualism: Encouraged artists to sign their work and authors to write in the vernacular (common language) rather than Latin.
Rationalism: Promoted by René Descartes, who famously stated, "I think, therefore I am," asserting that reason is the foundation of all logic.
Renaissance Art: Introduced the technique of linear perspective to create the illusion of three-dimensional depth on a flat surface.
Glorious Revolution: Established the supremacy of Parliament over the monarchy and ensured that England would remain a Protestant nation.
William & Mary: Signed the English Bill of Rights in , which guaranteed free speech in Parliament and outlawed cruel and unusual punishment.
Peace of Westphalia: Recognized the sovereignty of over German states and allowed each prince to choose the religion of his state (Cuius regio, eius religio).
Edict of Nantes: Ended the French Wars of Religion by granting the Huguenots (French Protestants) rights to worship and maintain fortified towns.
Years' War: Originated as a religious conflict but evolved into a political struggle involving all major European powers, resulting in an estimated million casualties.
Enlightenment & the French Revolution ( - AD)
John Locke: In his Two Treatises of Government, he argued that government exists only with the consent of the governed to protect their natural rights.
Human Rights: Evolved from the concept of natural law, suggesting that rights are universal and cannot be taken away by any government.
Natural Rights: Locke identified these as life, liberty, and property; Thomas Jefferson later adapted these into "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Separation of Powers: Designed to create a system of checks and balances where the executive, legislative, and judicial branches monitor one another.
Baron de Montesquieu: His analysis of the British constitutional system led him to believe that the concentration of power in a single person leads to tyranny.
Thomas Paine: His pamphlet Common Sense reached a wide audience due to its plain language, convincing many American colonists that a small island (Britain) should not rule a continent.
Enlightenment: Also known as the Age of Reason, it challenged traditional authority and the role of the Church in public life through critical thinking.
Absolute Monarchy: Exemplified by Louis XIV of France, who declared, "L'état, c'est moi" (I am the state), and built Versailles to control the nobility.
Constitutional Monarchy: A system where the monarch acts as a non-party political head of state under a constitution, whether written or unwritten.
Three Estates: The First Estate (Clergy) and Second Estate (Nobility) owned most of the land and paid no taxes, while the Third Estate (% of the population) bore the entire financial burden.
Years' War: Resulted in Great Britain becoming the dominant global colonial power after seizing French territories in North America and India.
Ancien Regime: Collapsed due to a combination of Enlightenment ideas, a massive national debt, and a series of poor harvests that led to famine.
Jacobins: Led by figures like Robespierre and Marat, they sought to erase all traces of the old order, including the monarchy and the Christian calendar.
Guillotine: Widely praised at the time as a more "humane" and egalitarian method of execution because it killed everyone regardless of social status.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen: Stated that "men are born and remain free and equal in rights," reflecting the Enlightenment's influence on French law.
Triangle Trade: Formed a circuit where European manufactured goods went to Africa, enslaved people to the Americas (the Middle Passage), and raw materials like sugar back to Europe.
Louis XVI: His indecisiveness and attempt to flee France (the Flight to Varennes) led to his loss of public trust and eventual execution during the National Convention.
Robespierre: Head of the Committee of Public Safety, he argued that "terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible," leading to thousands of executions.
Saint-Domingue: The world's most profitable colony due to sugar and coffee; it became the site of the only successful slave revolt in history, leading to the birth of Haiti in .
Estates General: Had not met since ; when it met in , the Third Estate broke away to form the National Assembly after a dispute over voting procedures.
Voltaire: A prolific writer who used wit and satire to advocate for the separation of church and state and the right to a fair trial.
Treatise: Often used by Enlightenment thinkers (like Locke's Two Treatises) to layout comprehensive arguments based on logic rather than tradition.
Directory: A five-member executive branch that proved weak and corrupt, eventually being overthrown in a coup by Napoleon Bonaparte in .
National Assembly: Created the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disband until they had written a constitution for France.
Napoleon: Reformed the legal system with the Napoleonic Code, which preserved many revolutionary gains but limited women's rights and restored slavery in colonies.
Battle of Waterloo: Napoleon’s final defeat by a coalition of British and Prussian forces led by the Duke of Wellington.
Industrial Revolution & Age of Ideology ( - AD)
Congress of Vienna: Re-established the balance of power in Europe after Napoleon, preventing a general European war for nearly years.
Nationalism: Transformed map borders; it was the driving force behind the unification of states with shared languages and heritage.
Zionism: Formulated by Theodor Herzl in response to widespread anti-Semitism in Europe, particularly the Dreyfus Affair in France.
Adam Smith: Wrote The Wealth of Nations in , arguing that an "invisible hand" guides the market to efficiency when individuals pursue self-interest.
Laissez-Faire: Translates to "let do"; it argues that government regulation often hinders economic growth and that the market should be left alone.
Free Market: Relies on the laws of supply and demand to set prices, rather than government mandates or price controls.
Urbanization: By , for the first time in history, more people in Great Britain lived in cities than in the countryside, leading to issues with sanitation and housing.
Simon Bolivar: Known as "The Liberator," he envisioned a "Gran Colombia"—a unified South American state similar to the United States.
Mexican Independence: Began as a social revolution of the poor and evolved into a movement led by conservative creoles who wanted to maintain their status.
Liberation of Russian Serfs: Though freed in , serfs were required to pay the government for the land they received, leaving many in deep debt.
Miguel Hidalgo: A priest who issued the "Grito de Dolores," calling for an end to Spanish rule and the protection of indigenous rights.
Social Darwinism: Distorted Darwin's biological theories to justify imperialism, arguing that "superior" races were naturally meant to dominate "weaker" ones.
Capitalism: Driven by the Industrial Revolution, it led to the rise of a new middle class (the bourgeoisie) and an industrial working class (the proletariat).
Unification of Italy: Known as the Risorgimento, it was achieved through the diplomacy of Cavour in the north and the military campaigns of Garibaldi in the south.
Women's Suffrage: Early pioneers like Mary Wollstonecraft argued for education, while later suffragettes used civil disobedience to demand the vote.
Cottage Industry: Also called the "putting-out system," it was replaced by factories because large machines like the water frame and steam engine were too big for homes.
Unification of Germany: Accomplished through three wars planned by Bismarck, who utilized the concept of Realpolitik—politics based on power and practicality rather than ethics.
Irish Potato Famine: A fungus (Phytophthora infestans) destroyed the main food source for millions, while the British government continued to export other Irish crops to England.
Division of Labor: Furthered by Henry Ford’s assembly line, it allowed for the mass production of complex goods by breaking down work into simple, repetitive tasks.
Industrialization: Moved through two phases; the first focused on textiles, coal, and iron, while the second ( onwards) focused on steel, chemicals, and electricity.
Greek Nationalism: Gained support from European intellectuals (like Lord Byron) who viewed the Greeks as the heirs of ancient Western civilization fighting against "Oriental" tyranny.
Czar Alexander II: His reforms included the creation of zemstvos (local assemblies) and legal reforms, but he was eventually assassinated by radicals in .