| A | B |
|---|
| Middle Ages | The period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance |
| Medieval | characteristic of the Middle Ages |
| tithe | payment to the Church of ten percent of a person's income |
| heretic | a person whose idesa were incorrect in the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church |
| illumination | decoration in the margins and of the first letter of paragraphs of Bibles and other books copied by monks in the Middle Ages |
| feudalism | a political, military, and social system based on the holding of land, with an empahsis on local protection,local government, and local self-sufficiency |
| fief | the piece of land given to a vassal by a lord |
| friar | a member of a Roman Catholic religious order, who takes the same vows as a monk, but travels about preaching instead of living in a monastery. |
| feudal contract | rules, based on traditional practices, governing the relationship between lord and vassals |
| vassal | a person who receives land from a lord and pledges military service in return |
| lord | in the feudal system, the person who makes a grant of land to another person |
| knight | an armored warrior on horseback |
| noble | a person born into the upper class, an aristocrat |
| hierarchy | a system or rank ordering with each level subordinate to the one above |
| homage | the ceremony in which a vassal pledged his service and loyalty to a lord |
| investiture | the ceremony in which a lord granted land to a vassal |
| manor | the lands, including a village and surrounding lands, and the fortified house or castle, administered by a lord |
| chivalry | a code of ideals demanding that a knight aid the poor, defend the weak, and fight bravely for his three masters - his heavenly lord, his earthly lord, and his chosen lady |
| serf | a peasant who was bound to a manor and owed duties to the lord of the manor |
| peasant | any small farmer or farm laborer |
| sacrament | one of the seven sacred rites administered by the Roman Catholic Church |
| excommunication | expulsion from the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church |
| simony | buying and selling of religious offices |
| parish | an area administered by the priest or Church, first organized during the reign of Charlemagne |
| secular | of, or relating to the world; not specifically religious |
| clergy | a group ordained to perform religous functions: priests, ministers, pastors, etc. |
| usury | the practice of lending money for interest, it was a sin for Christians in the Middle Ages |
| Inquisition | Roman Catholic Church court that sought out and tried accused heretics. Torture was often used to secure confessions |
| Primogeniture | The practice where the first-born son inherits the father's entire estate/ |
| Three-Field System | a system of crop rotation in which two fields are planted every year while the third remains fallow (unplanted). |
