Medieval Europe
163 flashcards by MentisLibrary
A thousand years between Rome and the Renaissance, covering feudalism and the manor, the power of the Church, the Crusades, castles and knights, the Black Death, and the rulers and charters that shaped what came next.
- What is monasticism?
- A way of life in which men or women withdraw into a community under religious vows
- Who were the Franks?
- A Germanic people who built the dominant kingdom of early medieval western Europe
- Who deposed the last western Roman emperor?
- Odoacer, a Germanic commander, who ruled Italy himself rather than appointing a successor
- Who was Theodoric the Great?
- The Ostrogothic king who ruled Italy from Ravenna while keeping Roman law and administration
- Which Frankish king converted to Catholic Christianity around AD 496?
- Clovis I
- What period do historians call the Middle Ages?
- Roughly the thousand years between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance
- What are the three usual subdivisions of the Middle Ages?
- The Early, High and Late Middle Ages
- Why is the term Dark Ages now avoided by historians?
- It implies decline and ignorance that the evidence does not support
- What was the medieval Church's role in society?
- It provided religion, education, welfare, record keeping and a shared law across kingdoms
- What was medieval medicine based on?
- The theory of four humours inherited from Galen, treated by diet, bleeding and purging
- What is the Rule of Saint Benedict?
- The guide for monastic life balancing prayer, work and study
- What was the Plague of Justinian?
- A bubonic plague pandemic that struck the Mediterranean world at the height of Justinian's reconquest
- Who were the Lombards?
- A Germanic people who invaded Italy shortly after Justinian's wars had exhausted it
- What is a tithe?
- A payment of roughly a tenth of income or produce to the Church
- Who was Gregory the Great?
- The pope who reorganized Church administration, fed Rome, and sent missionaries to England
- Who was sent to convert the English?
- Augustine of Canterbury, dispatched by Gregory the Great in 597
- Which plough transformed northern European farming?
- The heavy wheeled plough with a mouldboard
- What is an illuminated manuscript?
- A handwritten book decorated with coloured initials, illustrations and gold leaf
- When did Muslim armies conquer Spain?
- From 711, when a force crossed from North Africa and destroyed the Visigothic kingdom
- Who was Bede?
- A Northumbrian monk whose Ecclesiastical History is the main source for early English history
- Who defeated an Umayyad force at the Battle of Tours?
- Charles Martel
- What was the three-field system?
- Rotating land between a winter crop, a spring crop and fallow
- What was the Reconquista?
- The long series of campaigns by Christian kingdoms to take the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule
- What made the Viking longship so effective?
- A shallow draft and a keel that let it cross open sea and then row far up rivers
- What was the Donation of Pepin?
- Frankish king Pepin's grant of central Italian land to the pope
- What is Carolingian minuscule?
- A clear, standardized script with spaces between words and lower-case letters
- Who was Alcuin of York?
- The English scholar Charlemagne recruited to lead his palace school
- Who were the Vikings?
- Seafaring Scandinavians who raided, traded and settled across Europe and beyond
- What event traditionally opens the Viking Age?
- The raid on the monastery of Lindisfarne
- Who was crowned Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day 800?
- Charlemagne, crowned by Pope Leo III