| A | B |
|---|
| church | heart of medieval society |
| Rome | became the most important of the patriachates |
| Vulgate | the Latin translation of the Bible |
| saints | refers to Bible characters or Christians who performed a miracle |
| Peter | can not historically be proven that he served as bishop of the church in Rome |
| Middle Ages | a time of spiritual ignorance because people could not read the Bible for themselves |
| transubstantiation | the Catholic doctrine that states the wine and bread become the body and the blood of Christ |
| sacramental system | made the Catholic religion a matter of works rather than faith |
| sacrament | the Catholic term for a religious act that automatically grants peace |
| baptism | initiates one into the church by "washing away original sin" |
| confirmation | brings one into full fellowship with the church and confers upon him the Holy Spirit |
| penance | a process of earning forgiveness for sins committed after baptism |
| Holy Eucharist | also known as mass or Holy Communion |
| matrimony | unites a man and a woman as man and wife |
| Holy Orders | set an individual apart for the service of the church by ordaining him into the priesthood |
| Extreme Unction | also known as last rites; a blessing given to the ill or dying to grant absolution for any remaining sin |
| clergy | "enlisted" men into church service by Holy Orders |
| laity | men who served the church but did not go through Holy Orders |
| secular clergy | conducted religious services, administered the sacraments to the laity, and supervised the business and property of the church; often mixed the work of the church with worldly pleasure |
| regular clergy | sacrificed personal ambition; retired to a life of study,solitude hard labor, and prayer; lived in monastic communities |
| Franks | most powerful of the Germanic peoples |
| Clovis | "King of the Franks" who converted to Christianity |
| purgatory | a place of temporary punishment where souls bound for heaven must go after death to atone for the "minor" unconfessed sins or ones for which they have not done sufficient penance |
| "do-nothing kings" | nickname for the Merovingian kings |
| Charles Martel | stopped the Muslims at the Battle of Tours |
| Pepin the Short | mayor of the palace who was crowned king |
| missi dominici | Charlemagne's messengers |
| Aix la-Chapelle | Charlemagne's royal court which became a center for learning |
| Alcuin | educator from York |
| Treaty of Verdun | spilt Charlemagne's empire into three separate kingdoms |
| Lothair | Charlemagne's oldest grandson who divided his grandfather's empire with his brothers and received the title of emperor |
| Louis the German | Charlemagne's grandson who received East Frankland as his share of his grandfather's empire |
| Charles the Bald | Charlemagne's grandson who received West Frankland as his share of his grandfather's empire |
| monastaries | primary centers for studying, copying, and preserving ancient manuscripts |
| Magyars | Asiatic nomads who became known as the Hungarians |
| Vikings | also known as Norsemen, the most feared invaders |
| feudalism | most popular form of government in western Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries |
| land ownership | the basis of wealth and power of the Feudal Age |
| homage | ceremony in which a man became a vassal and eligible for a fief |
| fief | a land grant |
| lords | landholding nobles |
| feudalism | system of granting land in return for services |
| vassal | recipient of an estate |
| investiture | symbolic act of handing over land |
| aids | financial payments |
| chivalry | strict code of behavior for a knight |
| manor | self-contained farming community controlled by a lord and farmed by peasants |
| Peace of God | forbade the pillaging of church property and extended protection to all noncombatants |
| demense | the lord's land |
| serfs | majority of people living on the manor |
