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Middle Ages

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Investiture Controversy
The Investiture Controversy was at the center of a bitter dispute between popes and Holy Roman Emperors. Pope Gregory VII, in an effort to make the Church independent of secular rulers, banned lay investiture - a system under which a lay person (often the emperor) presented bishops with the ring and staff that symbolized their office. Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV argued that, because bishops held their lands as royal fiefs, he was entitled to give them their symbols of office. After nearly 50 years, the conflict was resolved in the Concordat of Worms. This treaty, signed in 1122, declared that the Church had the sole power to elect and invest bishops with spiritual authority, but that the emperor still invested them with fiefs.
Papacy
The papacy was the office of the pope - the spiritual leader of the Western Christian Church based in Rome.
Friars
Friars were monks who did not live in isolated monasteries. They traveled from town to town in Europe preaching to the poor. The first order of friars, the Franciscans, was founded by St. Francis of Assisi.
Magyars
The Magyars were a nomadic people who settled in present-day Hungary around 900 C.E. They then overran Eastern Europe and plundered Germany, parts of France, and Italy. After about fifty years, they were finally pushed back to Hungary.
Vikings
The Vikings, a Scandinavian people, were independent farmers ruled by land-owning chieftains. They were also skilled sailors. Beginning in the late 8th century C.E., the Vikings began raiding and pillaging communities along the coasts and rivers of Europe. The Vikings also engaged in trade and exploration in northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and even North America, where they briefly established a colony.
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a campaign launched by Christian kingdoms in northern Spain with the aim of driving Muslims from Spain. Centuries later, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain completed the Reconquista by defeating the last Muslim stronghold in Spain - Granada. Interestingly, Granada fell in 1492, the same year that Christopher Columbus discovered America after receiving permission from Ferdinand and Isabella to search for a western passage to the East Indies.
Magna Carta
The Magna Carta, or Great Charter, is a famous document that rebellious barons forced King John of England to sign in 1215. It asserted that the nobles had certain rights (which were extended over time to all British citizens) and that the monarch must obey the law. A free man was also protected from arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, and other legal actions, except "by legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." This clause formed the basis of the right to due process of law and the right of habeas corpus.
Chivalry
Chivalry was the code of conduct that required knights to be brave, loyal, and true to their word. Chivalry also required knights to fight fairly and to protect the weak - including peasants and noblewomen.
Parliament
King John agreed not to raise new taxes without first consulting his Great Council of lords and clergy. This council evolved into Parliament, which later became England's legislature.
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire included vast lands from Germany to Italy. In 962, the pope crowned Otto I, King of Germany, emperor after Otto assisted the pope in defeating rebellious Roman nobles. Interestingly, Charlemagne was also crowned emperor of the Romans some 162 years earlier after helping another pope to defeat rebellious Roman nobles. Otto's successors later took the title Holy Roman emperor - "holy" because they were crowned by the pope, and "Roman" because they saw themselves as heirs to the emperors of ancient Rome.
Vassal
In medieval feudalism, a vassal was a lord who received land from a greater lord in exchange for service and loyalty to that lord.
Scholasticism
Scholasticism was a method employed by Christian scholars that used reason to support Christian beliefs.
Serf
Most of the peasants who lived and worked on medieval manors were serfs. Serfs were not slaves who could be bought or sold, but they were bound to their lord's land and could not leave it without his permission.
Common Law
In England, common law was a legal system based on custom and rulings by royal courts. Unlike local feudal laws, common law applied to all of England.
Canon law
Canon law was the body of laws developed by the Church. It was based on religious teachings and governed many aspects of life, including wills, marriages, and morals. The Church also set up courts to try those accused of violating Canon law.
Black Death
The Black Death was an epidemic of the Bubonic Plague that was brought to Europe by merchants traveling from Asia. The Black Death ravaged Europe during the mid-1300s, killing one in three people.
Fief
A fief was an estate granted by a lord to a vassal in exchange for service and loyalty.
Great Schism
The Great Schism occurred in 1054 when the Byzantine and Roman Christian churches officially split. The Byzantine church became known as the Eastern, or Greek, or Orthodox Church, while the western branch became known as the Roman Catholic Church.
Inquisition
The Inquisition was a Church court set up in Spain after the Reconquista to try people accused of heresy. Jews and Muslims who had been forced to convert to Christianity could be tried by the Inquisition for practicing their religions. If found guilty, they could face punishment from the secular authorities. Many who refused to conform to Church teachings were burned at the stake, and more than 150,000 more fled Spain.
Guilds
Guilds were associations of merchants and artisans that functioned much as unions do today and held great economic and political power in medieval towns. The first guilds were merchant guilds, which passed laws and levied taxes. Less affluent artisans soon began to resent the power of the merchants. They formed craft guilds - each one representing workers in one occupation. Struggles between wealthy merchant guilds and the rival artisan guilds sometimes led to riots.
Heresy
Heresy was any religious belief that was contrary to the official teachings of the Church.
Feudalism
Feudalism was a loosely organized system of decentralized rule in which powerful lords divided their land among lesser lords, called vassals, in exchange for a pledge of service and loyalty from the vassals. This system was common throughout Europe during the Early Middle Ages.
Oath of Fealty
The Oath of Fealty was the pledge of loyalty and service that a vassal made to his lord.
Excommunicate
Excommunication was the most severe penalty imposed by the Church for disobeying Church law. A person who was excommunicated was expelled from the Church and could not receive the sacraments or a Christian burial. The person was thus condemned to an eternity in hell.
Estates General
Philip IV, King of France, created the Estates General in 1302 in an effort to rally support at home during his struggle with Pope Boniface VIII over taxation of the clergy. The Estates General was a body comprised of representatives from all three estates or classes of French society: clergy, nobles, and townspeople. While later French kings consulted the Estates General, it never gained the power of the purse or served as a balance to royal power.
Monasticism
Monasticism was the monastic life practiced by Christian monks and nuns in monasteries across Europe. Monks and nuns lived, prayed, worked, and studied in monasteries and convents. The lives of Benedictine monks and nuns were regulated by the Benedictine rule.
Charlemagne
Charlemagne, the grandson of Charles Martel, became King of the Franks in 768 C.E. He built an empire spanning present-day France, Germany, and part of Italy. A close ally of the Church, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III in 800 C.E. after helping the pope defeat rebellious Roman nobles. Charlemagne also spread Christianity to the conquered peoples on the fringes of his Empire.
Benedict of Nursia
Benedict of Nursia was a monk who organized the monastery of Monte Cassino in central Italy. The rules that he created to regulate monastic life - the Benedictine Rule - came to be used by monasteries and convents across Europe. Benedictine monks and nuns took three vows - obedience to the abbot or abbess who headed the monastery or convent, poverty, and chastity.
Gothic Style
Around 1140, Abbot Suger wanted to build a new abbey Church at St. Denis near Paris. Builders there developed the Gothic Style of architecture. The key features of Gothic buildings are flying buttresses - stone supports that stand outside the building, permitting the construction of higher, thinner walls and leaving space for large stained-glass windows.
Council of Constance
In 1417, the Council of Constance ended the schism between the Avignon and Roman papal courts by removing authority from all three popes then claiming to be the true "vicar of Christ" and electing Pope Martin V, a compromise candidate. Martin subsequently returned the papacy to Rome.
Avignon Papacy
The Avignon Papacy refers to the papal court at the city of Avignon, now located in the south of France. Pope Clement V moved the papal court to Avignon in 1309, where it remained for about 70 years under French domination. In 1378, reformers elected another pope to rule from Rome. French cardinals then chose a rival pope to rule from Avignon. This created a schism between the Avignon papacy and the Roman papacy. The crisis ended in 1417 with the Council of Constance.
Hundred Years' War
Between 1337 and 1453, France and England fought in a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years' War. The issue was territory: English rulers wanted to hold on to the French lands of their Norman ancestors, while French kings sought to extend their own power in France. England won many early victories, thanks to their new weapon, the longbow. However, France later rallied behind an unlikely leader - a young peasant woman named Joan of Arc. Joan shocked King Charles VII of France by leading the French army to several victories over the course of a year before being captured and burned at the stake by the English. The French viewed Joan as a martyr, and her execution filled them with a new resolve. By 1453, the English held only the port of Calais in northwestern France.
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of seven wars fought between Christians and Muslims, beginning in 1096 and continuing off and on for another 200 years. Christian crusaders aimed to free Christians living in the Holy Land from the threat posed by Seljuk Turks and to conquer Jerusalem so that Christians could visit the sacred sites of their religion. With the exception of the First Crusade, in which Christians captured Jerusalem, none of the crusades achieved their goals. Muslims later retook Jerusalem, although the Muslim leader Saladin did allow Christian pilgrims to visit it.
Interdict
The interdict was a Church order excluding an entire town, region, or kingdom from receiving most sacraments and Christian burial. This punishment was usually given to powerful nobles or monarchs who opposed the Church.
Manor (manorialism)
The manor was the lord's estate and the heart of the medieval economy. Manors typically contained one or more villages and the surrounding lands. The manor was generally self-sufficient - the peasants who lived and worked on the manor produced almost everything needed to sustain the manor.

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