western Europe Flashcards
the franks
are historically first known as a group of Germanic tribes that inhabited the land between the Lower and Middle Rhine in the 3rd century AD, and second as the people of Gaul who merged with the Gallo-Roman populations during succeeding centuries, passing on their name to modern-day France and becoming part of the heritage of the modern French people.
pope
is the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church.
monk
a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of other monks.
Missionary
a person sent on a religious mission, especially one sent to promote Christianity in a foreign country.
Monastery
a building or buildings occupied by a community of monks living under religious vows.
Convent
a Christian community under monastic vows, especially one of nuns.
Clovis
a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture, named for distinct stone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1920s and 1930s.
nun
a member of a religious community of women, especially a cloistered one, living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Charlemagne
also known as Charles the Great or Charles I, was King of the Franks. He united a large part of Europe during the early Middle Ages and laid the foundations for modern France, Germany and the Low Countries.
Carolingian dynasty
family of Frankish aristocrats and the dynasty (ad 750–887) that they established to rule western Europe.
Middle Ages
the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period.
Vikings
were Norse seafarers, speaking the Old Norse language, who raided and traded from their Scandinavian homelands across wide areas of northern, central and eastern Europe, during the late 8th to late 11th centuries.
Mongols
are an East-Central Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia and China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Genghis khan
was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.
Khanate
is a political entity ruled by a Khan or Khagan.
The Golden Horde
a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire.
Feudalism
the dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord’s land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.
Vassal
a holder of land by feudal tenure on conditions of homage and allegiance.
Knight
a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a monarch or other political leader for service to the monarch or country, especially in a military capacity.
Fief
an estate of land, especially one held on condition of feudal service
Chivalry
the medieval knightly system with its religious, moral, and social code.
Manor
an estate in land to which is incident the right to hold a court termed court baron, that is to say a manorial court.
Serf
an agricultural laborer bound under the feudal system to work on his lord’s estate.
