Ch. 15 Vocabulary Terms

Medieval Europe

• 1. fjord – Steep-sided valley that is an inlet of the sea.

• 2. missionary – A person who travels to carry the ideas of a religion to others.

• 3. excommunicate – To declare that a person or group no longer belongs to a church.

• 4. concordat – An agreement between the pope and the ruler of a country.

• 5. abbot – The leader of a monastery

• 6. pope – Leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

• 7. mayor of the palace – a noble who took over the royal duties of giving out land, settling disputes, and fighting their own wars.

• 8. count – Nobles who ran the courts.• 9. scriptoria – writing rooms where monks

made copies of important works.

• 10. interdict – a decree that forbids priests from providing Christian rituals to a group of people.

• 11. feudalism – A system where landowning nobles governed and protected the people in return for services.

• 12. vassal – A noble who served a lord of higher rank in return for protection.

• 13. fief – Under feudalism, the land a lord granted to a vassal in exchange for military service and loyalty.

• 14. Knight – In the Middle Ages, a noble warrior who fought on horseback.

• 15. serf – Peasant laborer bound by law to the lands of a noble.

• 16. guild – Medieval business group formed by craftspeople and merchants.

• 17. apprentice – A person who learned a trade from a master craftsperson.

• 18. estates – Large farms.

• 19. manor – An estate belonging to a lord that included a castle, surrounding lands, and a peasant village.

• 20. three field system – A method of growing more food by rotating crops.

• 21. code of chivalry – A guide for good behavior for medieval knights.

• 22. grand jury – A group that decided whether there was enough evidence to accuse a person of a crime.

• 23. trial jury – A group that decided whether an accused person was innocent or guilty.

• 24. clergy – Religious officials, such as priests, given authority to conduct religious services.

• 25. Domesday Book – A census in Europe that counted people, manors, and farm animals.

• 26. Magna Carta – A document of rights signed by King John. Means Great Charter.

• 27. parliament – A group of people from different parts of England who gathered to advise the king and make laws.

• 28. House of Lords – High-ranking nobles and church officials who served in parliament.

• 29. House of Commons – Knights and townspeople who served in parliament.

• 30. Estates – General – France’s first parliament

• 31. crusade – A holy war.• 32. common law – A law that is the same

throughout an entire kingdom.• 33. natural law – the idea the people have

rights and that the power of the government should be limited.

• 34. mass – The Catholic worship service.• 35. heresy – Religious beliefs that conflict

with Church teachings.• 36. anti-semitism – Hatred of Jews.• 37. theology – The study of religion and

God.• 37. scholasticism – Medieval way of

thinking that tried to bring together reason and faith in studies of religion.

• 38. vernacular – Everyday language used in a country or region.

• 39. friar – A religious order of men who went out into the world to preach.

• 40. sacraments – Religious rituals in the Roman Catholic Church such as communion.

• 41. relics – Religious symbols or objects that early Christians believed had special powers.

• 42. Inquisition – A religious court that tried people suspected of heresy.

• 43. ghetto – separate communities in which Jews were forced to live.

• 44. cathedral – Very large churches.• 45. Summa Theologica – A summary of knowledge

on Theology.• 46. troubadour poetry – traveling musicians who

sang songs and told stories about love.

• 47. plague – a disease that spreads rapidly and kills many people.

• 48. Reconquista – The Christian struggle to take back the Iberian Peninsula.

• 49. Black Death – Name given to a plague that spread throughout Europe and Asia in the 1300’s.

• 50. War of the roses – A civil war over power that broke out in England among the nobles after the Hundred Years War.

• 51. Kremlin – A fortress at the center of Moscow.

• 52. czar – A shortened version of the word Caesar which means emperor in Russian.