Year 8 Test 1- Middle Ages Flashcards
What is a fief?
Land was broken upon to fiefs
They included at least one village, huts for the serfs, the manor house or castle, fields for growing and woods
What is a vassal?
A knight
A person granted the use of land, in return for rendering loyalty, work, and usually military service or its equivalent to a lord or other superior
What is a serf
An unfree peasant, bound to the land. If his lord sold the land, the serf was passed on to the new landlord
What is a villein?
One of a class of feudal serfs who held the legal status of freemen in their dealings with all people except their lord.
What were nobles vassals of?
The king
Why were castles built in a hill?
So they were harder to attack and they could see everything
What was the bailey
A store house with an inner wall and outer wall
Why were the castles built with stone?
So they couldn’t burn
What was crenellation
The up and down part at the top of the castle. You would shoot out of the gaps and hide behind the bits of stone when someone shot at you
Why did castles have a rounded wall?
Because it was harder to climb up
Why were moats useful?
It could stop ladders up the wall
What was a siege tower used for?
Attacking castles. They would be rolled up and would sometimes be level with the castle wall
What was a mangonel?
A type of catapult
What are two different types of catapults?
Mangonel and trébuche
What did the catapults fire over the wall?
Stones, dead animal, heads of the enemy
What was crop rotation?
It was when common land was divided into three fields and they rotated around, allowing the other fields to repair.
What was a knight?
Knights were skilled fighters. They served their lord in many ways, but mainly by going into battle for him.
What is a page?
A 7 year old boy who went to serve another castle and learnt the basic skills of knighthood
What was a squire?
A 14 year old boy who who trained to become a knight.
They learnt about horsemanship, how to use a sword and lance etc.
They aided knights in battle and looked after their horse and armour
Feudal hierarchy
Pope, king, lords, lesser nobles, serfs
What was a peasants life?
They worked in the fields in all seasons. Their tasks included manual ploughing, sowing, weeding, harvesting and threshing
What were some medieval siege weapons?
Two types of catapults - Trebuchet - Mangonel Other weapons - Crossbow - Longbow
Types of castles
Stone castles, wood castles
What was trial by ordeal?
Trial by ordeal was when a person’s innocence was tested by putting them in a dangerous position through the use of torture. Examples of ordeals were
•swallowing poison
•pulling an object from boiling water
•walking over red-hot coals
•carrying red-hot piece of iron over a certain distance
•In these ordeals if you were burnt, then you were guilty.
What were the crusades?
a volunteer army whose goal was to retake Jerusalem. Many people volunteered. About 30,000 men left Western Europe to fight in Jerusalem.
What was the sign of the crusade?
A Red Cross
Why was the church so important
The parish church was the centre of village life. People went there nearly every day.
- Villagers went there to pick up news.
- People had lessons with the priest.
- People believed strongly in heaven and hell. They hoped that by going to church they’d get to heaven.
- Markets, festivals and games were held here.
- Criminals could seek sanctuary in a church.
- The things going on in and around the church often entertained and amused people as villagers’ lives could be quite dull!
What did they believe happened after death
They believed there were three stages
HEAVEN
You needed to be sorry for your sins and get people to pray for you
PURGATORY
This was not as good as heaven but not as bad as hell. Most people went here
HELL
bad
What were tithes
They were a tax of %10 things you recieved that went to the church
Villeins
Villein were in the social space between serfs and free men. The help with finance?
