Middle Ages
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Papacy
- the office, dignity, or jurisdiction of the pope
- Common Law
- the system of law originating in England, as distinct from the civil or Roman law and the canon or ecclesiastical law
- Scholasticism
- the system of theological and philosophical teaching predominant in the Middle Ages, based chiefly upon the authority of the church fathers and of Aristotle and his commentators
- Feudalism
- A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the holding of all land in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.
- Fief
- a fee or feud held of a feudal lord; a tenure of land subject to feudal obligations
- Manor
- a landed estate or territorial unit, originally of the nature of a feudal lordship, consisting of a lord's demesne and of lands within which he has the right to exercise certain privileges
- Serf
- a person in a condition of servitude, required to render services to a lord, commonly attached to the lord's land and transferred with it from one owner to another
- Magyars
- A member of the principal ethnic group of Hungary
- Heresy
- opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine, esp. of a church or religious system
- Monasticism
- the monastic system, condition, or mode of life
- Crusades
- A series of wars fought from the late eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, in which European kings and warriors set out to gain control of the lands in which Jesus lived, known as the Holy Land
- Parliament
- the legislature of Great Britain, historically the assembly of the three estates, now composed of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal, forming together the House of Lords, and representatives of the counties, cities, boroughs, and universities, forming the House of Commons
- Chivalry
- rules and customs of medieval knighthood
- Excommunicate
- to cut off from communion with a church or exclude from the sacraments of a church by ecclesiastical sentence
- Interdict
- a punishment by which the faithful, remaining in communion with the church, are forbidden certain sacraments and prohibited from participation in certain sacred acts
- Hundred Years' War
- the series of wars between England and France, 1337-1453, in which England lost all its possessions in France except Calais
- Great Schism
- a period of division in the Roman Catholic Church, 1378-1417, over papal succession, during which there were two, or sometimes three, claimants to the papal office
- Black Death
- a form of bubonic plague that spread over Europe in the 14th century and killed an estimated quarter of the population
- Council of Constance
- the council in 1414-1418 that succeeded in ending the Great Schism in the Roman Catholic Church
- Avignon Papacy
- n
- Canon law
- the body of codified ecclesiastical law, esp. of the Roman Catholic Church as promulgated in ecclesiastical councils and by the pope
- Gothic Style
- nn
- Vassal
- a person granted the use of land, in return for rendering homage, fealty, and usually military service or its equivalent to a lord or other superior; feudal tenant.
- Holy Roman Empire
- a Germanic empire located chiefly in central Europe that began with the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor in a.d. 800 (or, according to some historians, with the coronation of Otto the Great, king of Germany, in a.d. 962) and ended with the renunciation of the Roman imperial title by Francis II in 1806, and was regarded theoretically as the continuation of the Western Empire and as the temporal form of a universal dominion whose spiritual head was the pope
- Estates General
- assembly of the estates of all France
- Oath of Fealty
- n
- Reconquista
- n
- Magna Carta
- the "great charter" of English liberties, forced from King John by the English barons and sealed at Runnymede, June 15, 1215.
- Guilds
- An association of persons of the same trade or pursuits, formed to protect mutual interests and maintain standards
- Charlemagne
- founder of the first empire in western Europe after the fall of Rome. His court at Aix-la-Chapelle became the center of the Carolingian Renaissance.
- Investiture Controversy
- n
- Benedict of Nursia
- Italian monk who as founder of the Benedictine order (c. 529) is considered the patriarch of Western monasticism
- Vikings
- raided the coasts of northern and western Europe from the eighth through the tenth century.
- Inquisition
- an official investigation, esp. one of a political or religious nature, characterized by lack of regard for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the examiners, and recklessly cruel punishments