Chapter 11, 12, 13 Flashcards
Great Famine
A terrible famine in 1315–1322 that hit much of Europe after a period of climate change.
Black Death
Plague that first struck Europe in 1347 and killed perhaps one-third of the population.
Flagellants
People who believed that the plague was God’s punishment for sin and sought to do penance by flagellating (whipping) themselves.
Hundred Years’ War
A war between England and France from 1337 to 1453, with political and economic causes and consequences.
Representative assemblies
Deliberative meetings of lords and wealthy urban residents that flourished in many European countries between 1250 and 1450.
Babylonian Captivity
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.
Great Schism
The division, or split, in church leadership from 1378 to 1417 when there were two, then three, popes.
Conciliarists
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.
Confraternities
Voluntary lay groups organized by occupation, devotional preference, neighborhood, or charitable activity.
Jacquerie
A massive uprising by French peasants in 1358 protesting heavy taxation.
English Peasants’ Revolt
Revolt by English peasants in 1381 in response to changing economic conditions.
Statute of Kilkenny
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.
Renaissance
A French word meaning “rebirth,” used to describe the rebirth of the culture of classical antiquity in Italy during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.
Patronage
Financial support of writers and artists by cities, groups, and individuals, often to produce specific works or works in specific styles.
Communes
Sworn associations of free men in Italian cities led by merchant guilds that sought political and economic independence from local nobles.
Popolo
Disenfranchised common people in Italian cities who resented their exclusion from power.
Signori
Government by one-man rule in Italian cities such as Milan; also refers to these rulers.
Courts
Magnificent households and palaces where signori and other rulers lived, conducted business, and supported the arts.
Humanism
A program of study designed by Italians that emphasized the critical study of Latin and Greek literature with the goal of understanding human nature.
Virtù
The quality of being able to shape the world according to one’s own will.
Christian humanists:
Northern humanists who interpreted Italian ideas about and attitudes toward classical antiquity and humanism in terms of their own religious traditions.
Debate about women
Debate among writers and thinkers in the Renaissance about women’s qualities and proper role in society.
New Christians
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.
