Vocabulary Quiz #6

Question 1

nobiles:

Answer 1

“nobles.” The small group of families from both patrician and plebeian origins who produced most of the men who were elected to office in the late Roman Republic.

Question 2

nominalist:

Answer 2

a member of a school of thought in medieval Europe that, following Aristotle, held that only individual objects are real and that universals are only names created by humans.

Question 3

nuclear family:

Answer 3

a family group consisting only of a father, a mother, and one or more children.

Question 4

nuns:

Answer 4

women who withdrew from the world and joined a religious community; the female equivalent of monks.

Question 5

old order (old regime):

Answer 5

the political and social system of France in the eighteenth century before the Revolution.

Question 6

oligarchy:

Answer 6

rule by a few.

Question 7

optimates:

Answer 7

“best men.” Aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who generally came from senatorial families and wished to retain their oligarchical privileges.

Question 8

orders:

Answer 8

the traditional tripartite division of European society based on heredity and quality rather than wealth or economic standing, first established in the Middle Ages and continuing into the eighteenth century; traditionally consisted of those who pray (the clergy), those who flight (the nobility), and those who work (all the rest).

Question 9

organic evolution:

Answer 9

Darwin’s principle that all plants and animals have evolved over a long period of time from earlier and simpler forms of life.

Question 10

Paleolithic Age:

Answer 10

the period of human history when humans used simple stone tools (c. 2,500,000–10,000 B.C.E.).

Question 11

pantheism:

Answer 11

a doctrine that equates God with the universe and all that is in it.

Question 12

panzer division:

Answer 12

in the German army under Hitler, a strike force of about three hundred tanks and accompanying forces and supplies.

Question 13

papal curia:

Answer 13

the administrative staff of the Catholic Church, composed of cardinals who assist the pope in running the church.

Question 14

parlements:

Answer 14

provincial law courts in France.

Question 15

pasteurization:

Answer 15

a process developed by Louis Pasteur for heating a product to destroy the microorganisms that might cause spoilage.

Question 16

paterfamilias:

Answer 16

the dominant male in a Roman family whose powers over his wife and children were theoretically unlimited, though they were sometimes circumvented in practice.

Question 17

patriarchal family:

Answer 17

a family in which the husband dominates his wife and children.

Question 18

patriarchy:

Answer 18

a society in which the father is supreme in the clan or family; more generally, a society dominates by men.

Question 19

patricians:

Answer 19

great landowners who became the ruling class in the Roman Republic.

Question 20

patronage:

Answer 20

the practice of awarding titles and making appointments to government and other positions to gain political support.

Question 21

Pax Romana:

Answer 21

“Roman peace.” A term used to refer to the stability and prosperity that Roman rule brought to the Mediterranean world and much of western European during the first and second centuries C.E.

Question 22

Pentateuch:

Answer 22

the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).

Question 23

perestroika:

Answer 23

“restructuring.” A term applied to Mikhail Gorbachev’s economic, political, and social reforms in the Soviet Union.

Question 24

perioikoi:

Answer 24

in ancient Sparta, free inhabitants but not citizens who were required to pay taxes and perform military service.

Question 25

permissive society:

Answer 25

a term applied to Western society after World War II to reflect the new sexual freedom and the emergence of a drug culture.

Question 26

Petrine supremacy:

Answer 26

the doctrine that the bishop of Rome (the pope, as the successor of Saint Peter (traditionally considered the first bishop of Rome), should hold a preeminent position in the church.

Question 27

phalanstery:

Answer 27

a self-sustaining cooperative community, as advocated by Charles Fourier in the early nineteenth century.

Question 28

phalanx:

Answer 28

a rectangular formation of tightly massed infantry soldiers.

Question 29

philosophes:

Answer 29

intellectuals of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment who believed in applying a spirit of rational criticism to all things, including religion and politics, and who focused on improving and enjoying this world, rather than on the afterlife.

Question 30

Pietism:

Answer 30

a movement that arose in Germany in the seventeenth century whose goal was to foster a personal experience of God as the focus of true religious experience.

Question 31

pig iron:

Answer 31

a type of iron produced by smelting iron ore with coke; of lower quality than wrought iron.

Question 32

plebeians:

Answer 32

the class of Roman citizens that included nonpatrician landowners, craftspeople, merchants, and small farmers in the Roman Republic. Their struggle for equal rights with the patricians dominated much of the Republic’s history.

Question 33

plebiscita:

Answer 33

laws passed by the council of the plebs in the Roman Republic.

Question 34

pluralism:

Answer 34

the practice of holding several church officers simultaneously; a problem of the late medieval church.

Question 35

plutocrats:

Answer 35

members of the wealthy elite.

Question 36

pogroms:

Answer 36

organized massacres of Jews.

Question 37

polis:

Answer 37

an ancient Greek city-state encompassing both an urban area and its surrounding countryside; a small but autonomous political unit where all major political and social activities were carried out centrally.

Question 38

political democracy:

Answer 38

a form of government characterized by universal suffrage and mass political parties.

Question 39

politiquesL

Answer 39

a group who emerged during the French Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century, placed politics above religion, and believed that no religious truth was worth the ravages of civil war.

Question 40

polytheistic:

Answer 40

believing in or worshipping more that one god.

Question 41

Pop Art:

Answer 41

an artistic movement of the 1950s and 1960s in which artists took images of popular culture and transformed them into works of fine art. Andy Warhol’s painting of Campbell’s soup cans is one example.

Question 42

popular culture:

Answer 42

as opposed to high culture, the unofficial written and unwritten culture of the masses, much of which was traditionally passed down orally and centred on public and group activities such as festivals. In the modern age, the term refers to the entertainment, recreation, and pleasures that people purchase as part of the mass consumer society.

Question 43

populares:

Answer 43

“favouring the people.” Aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who tended to use the people’s assemblies in an effort to break the stranglehold of the nobiles on political offices.

Question 44

popular sovereignty:

Answer 44

the doctrine that government is created by and subject to the will of the people, who are the source of all political power.

Question 45

populismL

Answer 45

a political philosophy or movement that supports the rights and power of ordinary people in their struggle against the privileged elite.

Question 46

portolani:

Answer 46

charts of landmasses and coastlines made by navigators and mathematicians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Question 47

Post-Impressionism:

Answer 47

an artistic movement that began in France in the 1880s. Post-Impressionists sought to use colour and line to express inner feelings and produce a personal statement of reality.

Question 48

Postmodernism:

Answer 48

a term used to cover a variety of artistic and intellectual styles and ways of thinking prominent since the 1970s.

Question 49

poststructuralism:

Answer 49

a system of thought, formulated by Jacques Derrida, that holds culture is created in a variety of ways, according to the manner in which people create their own meaning. Hence, there is no fixed truth or universal meaning.

Question 50

praetor:

Answer 50

a Roman executive official responsible for the administration of the law.

Question 51

praetorian guard:

Answer 51

the military unit that served as the personal bodyguard of the Roman emperors.

Question 52

predestination:

Answer 52

the belief, associated with Calvinism, that God, as a consequence of his foreknowledge of all events, has predetermined those who will be saved (the elect) and those who will be damned.

Question 53

prefect:

Answer 53

during the reign of Napoleon, an official appointed by the central government to oversee all aspects of a local government.

Question 54

price revolution:

Answer 54

the dramatic rise in prices (inflation) that occurred throughout Europe in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Question 55

primogeniture:

Answer 55

an inheritance practice in which the eldest son receives all or the largest share of the parents’ estate.

Question 56

principate:

Answer 56

the form of government established by Augustus for the Roman Empire. It continued the constitutional forms of the Republic and consisted of the princeps (“first citizen”) and the senate, although the princeps was clearly the dominant partner.