Culture, Science, and Technology, 600-1450 Flashcards
Neo-Confucianism
● Strict hierarchy and filial piety
● Syncretism of Buddhism and Confucianism
● Served as an important unifying factor in a politically dividdd China
- Ming emperors relied on it as a tool to justify their rule
Woodblock printing
● Originated as early as the 200s C.E.
● It was costly and time consuming
● A block, once carved, could be used to print only one text or image, and it could not be corrected
Movable-type printing
● Allowed individual, reusable characters to be placed in a frame, and then rearranged, arose during the 100s in Song China and was known in Korea by the 1200s
Johannes Gutenberg
● Germ inventor who designed the first workable and cost-effective movable-type press
Gutenberg press
● Especially because the small number of letters in the Latin alphabet made it easy to mass-produce texts, the Gutenberg press had an explosive effect on literacy rates, the speed at which information spread, the impact of new ideas and scientific theories, and the expansion of librearies and universities
● Also play an indispensable role in Europe’s Renaissance and Protestant Reformation
Xuanzang
● Chinese monk who journeyed to India to learn more about Buddhism
● After more than a decade and a half of visiting holy sites and libraries, Xuanzang returned with wagon loads of Buddhist art and artifacts, as well as hundreds of sacred texts in Sanskrit that he and his followers studied, translated, and distributed thorughout China
● Wu Chengen’s beloved features Xuanzang as a fictional character who travels to India in the company of the Monkey King
Marco Polo
● European merchant who traveled from Venice to Asia along the Silk Road during the mid- to late 1200s
● He befriendd Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler of China
● Played an enormous role in familiarizing medieval and Renaissance Euroeans with the riches, luxuries, and cultural advancements of Asia
Ibn Battuta
● Great explorer of the Islamic world of Morocco who began a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1325 and embarked on a journey
● Not only did he visit most of West and North Africa, along with the Middle East, he ventured throughout Central Asia, East and Southeast Asia and South Asia, going as far as the Indonesian islands
● Reveal hte remarkable diversity of customs and cultural practices among Muslim people
Zheng He
● The Chinese captain who took ships of the Ming navy on seven far-ranging voyages through the Indian and Pacific Oceans during the early 1400s
Ideal of Christendorm
● All European nations should be bound together by their allegiance to the Church
Great Schism
● 1054
● Formally divided ROman Catholicism (Latin-based and governed by the Roman papacy) from Eastern Orthodoxy (Greek-inspired and headquartered in Byzantium)
Scholasticism
● The attempt by thinkers such as Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas to reconcile Greco-Roman learning from the past with Christian teachings
● Adaptation of the former was limited for two reasons
- It was dangerous to accept Greco-Roman ideas that the Church objected to
- Most medieval scholars were less familiar with Greek than with Latin and tended to know Greek thinkers like Pato and Aristotle only through Latin translation
Geocentric theory
● The thoery that the church chose to adapt
● Proposed that the sun revolves around the earth
Renaissance
● Cultural rebirth
● Pominent in Italy between the early 1300s and the early 1500s
Classicism
● A greater emphasis than befroe on Greco-Roman influences
Secularism
● More frequently painting or writing about non-religious subjects, althought religion remained important
Humanism
● The convition that to be human is something to rejoice in
● Derived from Greco-Roman culture
● Ran counter to the prevailing medieval view that to be human was to be tainted with sin and that worldly life was less important than the heavnely afterlife
Islam
● Monotheistic faiths containing many similarities with Judaism and Christianity and possess an eventful shared history
● Arose in the Arabian Peninsula due to the efforts of Mohammed 570-632
Qur’an
● Teachings of Mohammed
● Sacred text of Islam
Arabic
● Holy langugae of Islam
Sharia
● Condification of traditional Islamic law
People of the book
● Mohammed instruced Muslims to acknowledge Jews and Christians as this
● He respected many figures from Judaism and Christianity
Five Pillars of Faith
● Muslims are to live by it
- There is no god but Allah
- Pray five times daily, facing in the direction of Mecca
- Fast during the month of Ramadan
- Givae alms to the poor (charity)
- Attempt a pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca at least once in one’s lifetime
Patriarchalism in Islam
● Required to veil themselves when in public
● Islam commanded men to treat women with respect and women in much of the Islamic world enjoyed hte right to inheirt, have dowries, and own property
● Woemn’s status remained distinctly secondary
Umma
● Political and social community of Muslims
● Linked by religious belief
Caliph
● After Mohammed’s death, the umma was governed by a caliph or “successor”
● Both a religious and political leader
● First caliph was Abu Bakr
Canon of Medicine
● By Persian physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina 980-1037)
● Became the most authoritative medical text in the Middle East and Euopre until the 1600s
Madrasas
● Chief centers of learning
● Religious colleges
● Main trust of Islamic philosophy
Averroes
● A doctor from Muslim Spain translated and analyzed the works of the Greek philospher Aristotle
● A key step in reintroducing his ideas to medieval Europe as a whole
Maimonides
● Jesish thinker whose attempted to reconcile the rationality of Greco-Roman thought with Jewish theology
Sufism
● A mystical strain of Islam that emphasizes union with Allah by means of spiritual exercises like chanting and dancing
Mud-and-timber constructions
● West Africa
● Best exemplified by the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu
● Show a unique fusion of Islamic function with local style
Architecture of Zanzibar
● On the eastern coast
● Distinguished by the use of coral to decorate buildings
Vast walls in Great Zimbabwe
● Each stone set precisely and sturdily in place wihtout mortar
African literature
● preserved by oral tradition
● griots (djeli) chronicled history and social custom
● from Mali, named after the chieftain who founded the Mali state and relating his many exploits