Chapter 11, 12, 13

Question 1

Great Famine

Answer 1

A terrible famine in 1315–1322 that hit much of Europe after a period of climate change.

Question 2

Black Death

Answer 2

Plague that first struck Europe in 1347 and killed perhaps one-third of the population.

Question 3

Flagellants

Answer 3

People who believed that the plague was God’s punishment for sin and sought to do penance by flagellating (whipping) themselves.

Question 4

Hundred Years’ War

Answer 4

A war between England and France from 1337 to 1453, with political and economic causes and consequences.

Question 5

Representative assemblies

Answer 5

Deliberative meetings of lords and wealthy urban residents that flourished in many European countries between 1250 and 1450.

Question 6

Babylonian Captivity

Answer 6

The period from 1309 to 1376 when the popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome. The phrase refers to the seventy years when the Hebrews were held captive in Babylon.

Question 7

Great Schism

Answer 7

The division, or split, in church leadership from 1378 to 1417 when there were two, then three, popes.

Question 8

Conciliarists

Answer 8

People who believed that the authority in the Roman Church should rest in a general council composed of clergy, theologians, and laypeople, rather than in the pope alone.

Question 9

Confraternities

Answer 9

Voluntary lay groups organized by occupation, devotional preference, neighborhood, or charitable activity.

Question 10

Jacquerie

Answer 10

A massive uprising by French peasants in 1358 protesting heavy taxation.

Question 11

English Peasants’ Revolt

Answer 11

Revolt by English peasants in 1381 in response to changing economic conditions.

Question 12

Statute of Kilkenny

Answer 12

Law issued in 1366 that discriminated against the Irish, forbidding marriage between the English and the Irish, requiring the use of the English language, and denying the Irish access to ecclesiastical offices.

Question 13

Renaissance

Answer 13

A French word meaning “rebirth,” used to describe the rebirth of the culture of classical antiquity in Italy during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.

Question 14

Patronage

Answer 14

Financial support of writers and artists by cities, groups, and individuals, often to produce specific works or works in specific styles.

Question 15

Communes

Answer 15

Sworn associations of free men in Italian cities led by merchant guilds that sought political and economic independence from local nobles.

Question 16

Popolo

Answer 16

Disenfranchised common people in Italian cities who resented their exclusion from power.

Question 17

Signori

Answer 17

Government by one-man rule in Italian cities such as Milan; also refers to these rulers.

Question 18

Courts

Answer 18

Magnificent households and palaces where signori and other rulers lived, conducted business, and supported the arts.

Question 19

Humanism

Answer 19

A program of study designed by Italians that emphasized the critical study of Latin and Greek literature with the goal of understanding human nature.

Question 20

Virtù

Answer 20

The quality of being able to shape the world according to one’s own will.

Question 21

Christian humanists:

Answer 21

Northern humanists who interpreted Italian ideas about and attitudes toward classical antiquity and humanism in terms of their own religious traditions.

Question 22

Debate about women

Answer 22

Debate among writers and thinkers in the Renaissance about women’s qualities and proper role in society.

Question 23

New Christians

Answer 23

A term for Jews and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula who accepted Christianity; in many cases they included Christians whose families had converted centuries earlier.