Key Terms Flashcards
The scholarly interest in the study of the classical texts, values, and styles of Greece and Rome. Contributed to the promotion if a liberal arts education based on the study of the classics, rhetoric, and history.
Humanism
A branch of humanism associated with northern Europe. Like their Italian counterparts, the humanists closely studied classical texts. However, they also sought to give humanism a specifically Christian content. The leaders like Desiderius Erasmus were committed to religious piety and institutional reform.
Christian humanism
The everyday language of a region or country. Miguel de Cervantes, Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante, and Martin Luther all encouraged the development of their national languages by writing in the language. Desiderius Erasmus, however, continued to write in Latin.
Vernacular
European monarchs who created professional armies and a more centralized administrative bureaucracy. They also negotiated a new relationship w/ the Catholic Church. Some of them include Charles VII, Louis XI, Henry VII, and Ferdinand and Isabella.
New monarchs
A direct tax on the French peasantry. It was one of the most impt. sources of income for French monarchs until the French Revolution.
Taille
The centuries-long Christian “reconquest” of Spain from the Muslims. It culminated in 1492 with the conquest of the last Muslim stronghold, Granada.
Reconquista
A certificate granted by the pope in return for the payment of a fee to the church. The certificate stated that the soul of the dead relative or friend of the purchaser would have his time in purgatory reduced by many years or cancelled altogether.
Indulgence
Protestants who insisted that only adult baptism conformed to Scripture. Protestant and Catholic leaders condemned this religion for advocating the complete separation of church and state.
Anabaptist
Doctrine espoused by John Calvin that God has known since the beginning of time who will be saved and who will be damned. Calvin declared that “by an eternal and immutable counsel, God has once and for all determined, both whom he would admit to salvation, and whom he would condemn to destruction.”
Predestination
French Protestants who followed the teachings of John Calvin.
Huguenots
Rulers who put political necessities above personal beliefs. For example, both Henry IV of FRA and Elizabeth I of ENG subordinated theological controversies in order to achieve political unity.
Politiques
The interchange of plants, animals, diseases, and human populations between the Old World and the New World.
Columbian Exchange
Economic philosophy calling for close govt. regulation of the econ. The theory emphasized building a strong, self-sufficient economy by maximizing exports and limiting imports. They supported the acquisition of colonies as sources of raw materials and markets for finished goods. This favorable balance of trade would enable a country to accumulate reserves of gold and silver.
Mercantilism
A preindustrial manufacturing system in which an entrepreneur would bring materials to rural ppl who worked on them in their own homes. The system enabled entrepreneurs to avoid guild regulations.
Putting-out system
A business arrangement in which many investors raise money for a venture too large for any of them to undertake alone. They share the profits in proportion to the amount they invest. English entrepreneurs used joint-stock companies to finance the establishment of New World colonies.
Joint-stock company
A system of govt. in which the ruler claims sole and uncontestable power. These monarchs were not limited by constitutional restraints.
Absolutism
The idea that rulers receive their authority from God and are answerable only to God. Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, a French bishop and court preacher to Louis XIV, provided the theological justification for the divine right of kings by declaring that “the state of monarchy is the supremest thing on earth, for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself are called gods. In the scriptures kings are called Gods, and their power is compared to the divine powers.”
Divine right of kings
French royal officials who supervised provincial governments in the name of the king. They played a key role in establishing French absolutism.
Intendants
A series of rebellions against royal authority in France between 1649 and 1652. It played a key role in Louis XIV’s decision to leave Paris and build the Versailles Palace.
Fronde
System of forced labor used in Eastern Europe. Peasants usually owed three or four days a week of forced labor. The system was abolished in 1848.
Robot
Prussia’s landowning nobility. They supported the monarchy and served in the army in exchange for absolute power over their serfs.
Junkers
The use of inductive logic and controlled experiments to discover patterns in nature. These patterns or natural laws can be described w/ math formulas.
scientific method
18th century writers who stressed reason and advocated freedom of expression, religious toleration, and a reformed legal system. They include ppl like Voltaire who fought irrational prejudice and believed that society should be open to ppl of talent.
Philosophes
The belief that God created the universe but allowed it to operate through the laws of nature. Followers believed that natural laws could be discovered by the use of human reason. (Watchmaker)
Deism
A concept in political philosophy referring to the desire or interest of a ppl as a whole. As used by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who championed the concept, it is identical to the rule of law.
General Will
A system of govt. supported by leading philosophes in which an absolute ruler uses his or her power for the good of the ppl. These monarchs supported religious tolerance, increased econ. productivity, administrative reform, and scientific academies. Joseph II, Frederick the Great, and Catherine the Great were the best-known monarchs of this type.
Enlightened despotism
The process by which British landlords consolidated or fenced in common lands to increase the production of cash crops. The Enclosure Acts led to an increase in the size of farms held by large landowners.
Enclosure Movement
The innovations in farm production that began in 18th-century Holland and spread to England. These advances replaced the open-field agriculture system w/ a more scientific and mechanized system of agriculture.
Agricultural revolution
Group of 18th century French economists led by Francois Quesnay. They criticized mercantilist regulations and called for free trade.
Physiocrats
Phrase coined by Adam Smith to refer to the self-regulating nature of a free marketplace.
Invisible hand
