| A | B |
|---|
| Bubonic Plague | Also known as the Black Plague, this diesease killed around 40% of Europe's population in the 14th century |
| schism | a split in the Catholic Church |
| Constantinople | capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, sacked by crusaders in 1204 and conquered by the Turks in 1453 |
| Hundred Years' War | conflict between English and French nobility that lasted, intermittently, from 1337-1453. Led to the development of centralized states in France and Britain. |
| William of Okham | English philosopher, scholastic and Franciscan friar best known for Okham's razor |
| Lorenzo Valla | Italian humanist, rhetoretician and educator famous for his textual and historical criticism |
| Marsilius of Padua | author of Defensor Pacis; doctor, soldier and scholar from Italy |
| rats and fleas | vectors that carried the Black Plague |
| crop failures | between 1315 and 1317 these caused the greatest famine of the Middle Ages |
| Genoa | great tradign city of Northwest Italy, rival of Pisa, future home of Christopher Columbus |
| Pisa | Western Italian city; rival of Genoa for Middle Eastern trade |
| Venice | greatest of the Italian trading cities; by the 15th century was hard pressed by the Turks in the East and Genoa and Pisa in the West |
| Doge | the leader of Venice |
| flagellants | ritual penitants who beat themselves, hoping for divine intervention to prevent the plague |
| inflation and rising prices | a result of the Black Death because of labor shortages |
| Decameron | collection of tales by the humanist Boccaccio; relates the stories of ten refugees from the plague in Florence |
| Florence | the great banking center of northern Italy |
| taille | direct tax on French peasants |
| Jacquerie | French peasant revolt during and after 1358 |
| guild | craft organization that controlled the output of luxury goods |
| Great Schism | controversy in the Catholic Church that resulte in rival popes being installed at Avignon and Rome (1378-1417) |
| Avignon | seat of the anti-pope in France; rival to the Roman pope |
| Edward III | started the Hundred Years' War by claiming the French throne |
| Philip VI of Valois | placed on the throne by French barons in 1328 in defiance of the claims of Edward III |
| Norman kings | Kings of England descended from William the Conqueror after 1066 |
| Estates General | assembly of French nobles, townspeople and clergy that leveraged the king's difficulties to broaden their own authority during the Hundred Years' War |
| long bow | the English weapon that enabled stunning English victories at Crecy and Agincourt |
| Flanders | cloth manufacturing center fought over by France and Britain in the Hundred Years' War |
| Peace of Bretigny-Calais (1360) | Edward III renounces claims to the French throne and releases King John the Good for 3 million gold crowns and recognition of English sovereignty in French territories |
| John Ball and Wat Tyler | led peasant revolts in England in 1381 |
| Treaty of Troyes | proclaims Henry V, and his son Henry VI as the heirs to the French throne; ignored by Charles VII |
| Joan of Arc | French peasant girl who rallied the French army around Orleans; executed as a heretic; declared a saint in 1920 |
| Burgundy | Duchy of France often allied with the English during the Hundred Years' War |
| plenitude of power | papal doctrine that created a centralized papal monarchy and made the papacy a secular power |
| Innocent III | Pope that elaborated the papal plenitude of power |
| Urban IV | expanded papal power through the Rota Romana |
| Cathars | Catholic heresy centered in southern France;dualistic heresy that believed that material creation was evil and the spirit was good |
| Waldensians | founded by Peter Waldo in Lyons, France, this heresy defied the authority of bureaucratic clerics |
| miasmas | theory that disease is caused and spread by "bad air" |
| Giovanni Boccaccio | author of the Decameron, describes the many reactions to the Black Death |
| pogroms | organized anti-Jewish violence; sometimes encouraged by flagellants as a remedy for the plague |
| Antisemitism | hatred of Jews |
| blood libel | accusation against Jewish communities of ritual murder of Christian children |
| Statute of Laborers | passed by Parliament in 1351; limited wages to pre-plague levels; restricted the movement of peasants |
| Charles IV (1322-1328) | last son of Philip the Fair; after his death struggles over the French throne caused the Hundred Years' War |
| fief | land held by a noble on condition of military and political obligations to an overlord |
| vassal | holder of a fief |
| Crecy | site of a great English victory over the French in 1346 |
| Poitiers | site of a crushing victory of the English over the French in 1356 |
| John II (the good) | captured by the English at Poitiers in 1356 |
| Richard II | king of England (1377-1399); deposed by Henry Bolingbroke |
| Henry V | Henry of Bolingbroke |
| John of Gaunt | Duke of Lancaster; advisor to Richard II |
| Agincourt (1419) | last of the great victories of the English long bowmen over French chivalry |
| Dauphin | heir to the French throne |
| "Maid of Orleans" | Joan of Arc |
| boyars | Russian and Slavic nobles |
| Kiev | the major city of Russia before the reign of Ivan the Great |
| Ivan III | also known as "the Great"; officially renounces Mongol rule and moves the seat of power in Russia to Moscow |
| Moscow | capital of Russia; under Ivan III replaced Kiev as the center of power in Russia |
| Tatars | Mongols |
| Goldern Horde | Mongol rulers of Southern Russia; dominated Russia |
| Slavs | language group including Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Serbs, Bulgarians and Czechs |
| steppe | grassy plains of southern Russia |
| Ghengis Khan | first of the great Mongol Emperors |
| Sarai | capital of the Golden Horde |
| Volga | the greatest river of Southern Russia and the Ukraine |
| Prince Vladimir | Prince of the Kievan Rus who made Greek Orthodox Christianity the official religion of Russia |
| Rota Romana | papal law court which tightened and centralized the church's legal system |
| benefices | church offices |
| St. Francis of Assisi | set up a religious order partially to protest the wealth and materialism of the church |
| Guelf | propapal, anti-imperial party in Italy |
| Ghibbelines | anti-papal, pro-imperial party in Italy |
| College of Cardinals | body of church officials which elects the pope |
| conclave | sequestration of cardinals to minimize corruption of the papal election process |
| Boniface VIII | pope from 1272-1307; sought to strengthen the secular and spiritual power of the papacy |
| Clericis laicos | issued by Boniface VIII; forbade taxation of the clergy withoug papal consent |
| Philip the Fair | French king who struggled with Boniface VIII over control of the French church |
| Asculta Filii | papal bull issued by Boniface VIII proclaiming to Philip the Fair the supremacy of the papacy |
| Unam Sanctam 1302 | bull issued by Boniface VIII that declared that temporal authority was subject to the spiritual power of the church |
| Nogaret | sent troops to beat up Boniface VIII; the resulting injuries killed the pope in October 1303 |
| excommunication | punishment that removes a person from communion with the church and makes it illegal to over any sacraments, prayers or spiritual comfort to that person |
| interdict | excluding groups or even nations from the rites of the church (closing churches) |
| Clement V | successor to Boniface VIII, subservient to Philip the Fair; moved the papacy to Avignon |
| Avignon | independent French city that hosted the papacy from 1309-1377 |
| Babylonian Captivity | the period when the papacy was removed from Rome to Avignon |
| annates | tax: first year's revenue of a church office |
| indulgence | pardon for sins (Clement VI began the practice of selling them) |
| simony | paying for benefices |
| pluralism | holding of multiple benefices by one person |
| John XXII | fought with Louis IV over church authority |
| Louis IV | declared John XXII deposed and had an anti-pope elected |
| William of Okham | English philosopher and theologian who supported royal and imperial authority against John XXII |
| curia | papal court |
| Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges | legally acknowledged the rights of the French king over church appointments and taxation |
| Lollards | used the writings of John Wycliffe to justify their demands for church reform |
| Hussites | followers of Jan Huss in his demands for church reform |
| John Huss | Bohemian cleric; executed at the Council of Constance after promises of free conduct |
| John Wycliffe | supporter of the rights of royalty over the church and maintained that personal merit was the true source of religious authority |
| conciliar theory | said that church councils should govern the church and regulate the behavior of popes |
| Urban VI | Italian pope; first Roman pope of the Great Schism |
| Clement VII | first French pope of the Great Schism |
| Council of Pisa | deposed both popes in the Great Schism and elected a new one, Alexander V |
| Council of Constance | 1414, ended the Great Schism; ended with election of Martin V |
| Council of Basel | settled the Hussite wars, made concessions concerning the Bohemian Church; reunited the Eastern and Western Churches; engaged in clerical reform |
