Section 1: 1200-1450

Chapter 1

Governance 1200-1450

• Classical regimes collapsed

• Nations-states: countries as formally defined political entities, in the modern sense of the world

• Cultural spheres: defined less by political boundaries and more by ethnic similarities, shared traditions, or government by larger imperial power

• Roman Law: especially the Justinian code, compiled in Byzantium during the 500s remained a keystone in Western legal thought

• Latin was the common language in Europe’s educated classes

• Christianity was legalized and adopted by Rome in the 300s and became a cultural, intellectual, and political force because it provided unity in unstable times

• Black Death: bubonic plague epidemic from 1346-1353 which made Europe lose 20-30% of its population

• Noble Class/Aristocracy: evolved from people who got the largest pieces of land in feudalism

• Knights: elite armored cavalry, a style of combat that required wealth and lifelong training

• Chivalry: was supposed to make sure that knights acted as virtuous Christian warriors by treating the lower classes and women with delicacy and respect

• Manorial System: political, economic, and social system by which the peasants of medieval Europe were rendered dependent on their land and on their lord

• Serfs: peasants who were not technically slaves but were tied to a feudal lord’s land without the right to change profession or residence without permission

• Catholic Papacy: they had lots of political power during the Middle Ages

• Magna Carta: allowed for nobility to get various rights and ensured monarchy was not above the law

• Parliament: which made laws in conjunction with the king and gradually became more representative

• Common Law: system in England that allowed for jury trials and observing basic public liberties

• Hundred Year’s War: occurred during 1337-1453 between France and England over French territory, in which France won

• Joan of Arc: warrior maid who helped France win the Hundred Year’s War

• Habsburg Family: gained permanent control over the imperial throne of the Holy Roman Empire in 1438

• City-states: an independent sovereign city that serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory

• Renaissance: occurred in 1200s-1300s and started in Florence, Italy

• Reconquista: a series of campaigns by Christian states to recapture territory from the Moors or Muslims

• Byzantium: also known as the Eastern Roman Empire and it was the strongest and most advanced state in medical Europe

• Constantinople: capital of Byzantium and was home to around 1 million people

• Eastern Orthodoxy: a religion that is a part of the Christian branch

• Captured Constantinople: in 1453 by Ottoman Turks due to gunpowder weaponry

• Caesaropapism: a political system in which the head of the state is also the head of the church and supreme judge in religious matters

• Ideal of Christendom: the concept of Europe as a single civilization, joined by a common allegiance to the Christian church

• Heresy: belief or opinion that contradicts the church or a religion

• Excommunication: kicked out of the Church

• Holy Inquisition: a set of special courts that punished nonconformity

• Crusades: holy wars

• First Crusade: occurred from 1096-1099 and was against the Byzantine requests for aid against the Seljuk Turks who wanted to capture Jerusalem

• Saladin: skilled Kurdish general who held back the Third Crusade and recaptured Jerusalem

• Fourth Crusade: occurred during 1202-1204 and turned into a war against Christian Constantinople

• Islam: a religion that originated in the Middle East and played a heavy political and social role in daily life

• Dar al-Islam: one of the two spheres in the Islamic world where Sharia Law was dominant

• Sharia Law: allowed Muslims to worship freely

• Dar al-Harb: one of two spheres in the Islamic world where Islam was not established

• Caliph: combined political and religious power to one person who governed the Muslim world

• Circle of Justice: predated the rise of Islam but guided the caliphates and the Ottoman Empire that followed them

• Sunni-Shiite Split: occurred after the Islam civil war

• Arabic: the official language of the Muslim world

• Abbasid Caliphate: occurred during 750-1258 and presided over the golden age of Islamic culture and built many centers of learning

• Baghdad: capital of Abbasid Caliphate

• Madrasas: religious centers of learning

• Mongols: captured Baghdad in 1258 and killed the last Abbasid caliph

• Mamluk: elite cavalry

• Black Death: came from China and was a bubonic plague epidemic

• Ottoman Turks: Middle Eastern dominant power that arouse during the 1300s

• Devshirme: also known as the blood tax which forcibly recruited boys from non-Muslim families and placed them in positions of privileged servitude

• Janissary: a member of an elite corps in the standing army of the Ottoman Empir

• Fall of Constantinople: occurred in 1453 due to gunpowder weaponry by the Ottomans

• Mamluk Sultanate: a breakaway state that was founded by elite soldiers who served the Abbasids

• Berbers: nomadic camel herders

• Ghana: important in trans-Sharan trade due to large deposits of gold

• Sundiata Keita: founded Mali’s empire

• Timbuktu: capital of Mali

• Mansa Musa: Mali’s most powerful ruler who was a devout Muslim

• Swahili city-states: self-ruling urban centers that flourished during 1000-1500 that was off of the East African Coast

• Grand Canal: a vital artery that connected the Yellow and Yangzi rivers

• Song Empire: one of the longest dynasties, 960-1279. They created gunpowder, magnetic compass, moveable typewriting, and paper money

• Neo-Confucianism: the idea that commoners owed obedience to their superiors who in turn owed them just treatment

• Civil-Service Exams: how Song China would choose scholar-officials

• Genghis Khan: founder of the Mongol empire

• Red Turban Revolts: broke out in the 1340s leading to the final rebellion that overthrew the Yuan happened because of government’s unwillingness to aid serfs after floods and sharp rise in taxes

• Forbidden City: center of Beijing

• Tributary System: how nearby states to China avoided being captured by allowing China to dictate policy

• Zheng He: expanded trade and learned about the outside world

• Sinosphere: zone of Chinese influence

• Heian Period: Japan’s classical period

• Shogun: Japanese military leaders

• Daimyo: Japanese noble warlords who worked with the shogun

• Samurai: Japanese warrior elite

• Bushido: samurai code of loyalty and honor

• Pax Mongolica: a brief period of semi-unification in Eurasia

• Arabic Numerals: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

• Caste System: how society was ranked

• Sati: a ritual where women of certain castes were burned alive after their husbands died

• Jizya: the nonbeliever’s tax that occurred in Muslim-ruled areas

• Pre-Columbian Era: years before 1492 in the Americas

• Pueblos: complex dwellings where people lived

• Maize: corn

• Maya: Mexican classical period was full of city-states and kingdoms, they created the concept of zero and the long-count calendar

• Aztecs: ruled much of Mexico and had a huge population, they practiced human sacrifice and pyramid building

• Quipu: a knot-tying system of writing

• Feudalism: system in which monarchs awarded land to loyal followers, or vassals, and in return vassals guaranteed that the land would be governed and protected

Chapter 2

Cultural Developments and Interactions From 1200-1450

• Cross-cultural Exchange: the sharing of ideas, art, literature, and traditions from different cultures

• Marco Polo: a European merchant who traveled from Venice to Asia on the Silk Road

• Ibn Battuta: a great Islam explorer who traveled for 30 years around the world

• Margery Kempe: she was one of the most traveled women of her era and she came from England

• Zheng He: he was a Chinese captain who took ships of the Ming navy in the Pacific and Indian Oceans

• Renaissance: a cultural revival era in Europe, prominent in Italy during the 1300s-1500s and occurred in Europe 1400s-1600s

• Medieval Period: used to be known as a period lacking culture, but is now known as a period of increase in culture

• Scholasticism: philosophy in the Middle Ages and it was an attempt to reconcile Greco-Roman teachings with Christian teachings

• Universities: centers of religious learning and places to learn about law and medicine

• Johannes Gutenberg: created the movable-type printing press

• Humanism: the conviction that to be human is something to rejoice in

• Islamic Golden Age: a period when the Middle East was under the Abbasid Caliphate and there were advancements in artistic and intellectual life

• Avicenna: a Persian physician who was the most authoritative medical text in the Middle East until the 1600s

• Averroes: a doctor from Muslim Spain who translated Aristotle’s works

• Maimonides: a Jewish thinker who wrote a book called The Guide to the Perplexed and which attempted to reconcile the rationality of Greco-Roman thought with Jewish theology

• Sufism: a mystical strain of Islam that emphasizes union with Allah by means of spiritual exercises such as chanting or dancing

• Oral Tradition: traditions, practices, and stories were passed on through word of mouth

• Griots: professional African storytellers

• Zen: emphasized self-discipline which caught the attention of the Samurai class and it also promised a heavenly afterlife which also appealed to lower classes

• Bhakti Movement: a significant religious movement in medieval Hinduism that sought to bring religious reforms to all strata of society by adopting the method of devotion to achieve salvation

• Polynesian Migrations: people who occupied much of Oceania during the 1200s

• Taboos: Polynesian word for ritually forbidden behaviors

Chapter 3

Technology and Innovation 1200-1450

• Scientific Method: created during the 1500s-1600s which is when scientists would start to experiment with their ideas rather than just using thoughts or ideas from philosophers

• Geocentric Theory: the idea that the sun revolves around the earth

• Galen: an ancient Greek scientist who had some correct ideas but some also turned out to be wrong

• Water Clocks: an 80-foot tall structure that was able to tell what time of day it was, the month, positions of the sun and moon, and major stars and was powered by water

• Overland Transport: it was a way for people to reach places that were far from rivers and coastlines; took a long time but was cheaper

• Caravans: large processions of pack animals and/or vehicles

• Water Transport: it was a way for people to travel by using oceans, seas, and rivers to get to other places

• Maritime Technology: advances that made traveling in water easier and more efficient

• Galley: the principal vessel that was powered by oars and a small square sail

• Astrolabe: measured the sun’s position in the sky to calculate latitude

Chapter 4

Economic Systems 1200-1450

• Transregional Trade Routes: consisted of the Silk Road, Trans-Saharan Caravan, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean

• Silk Road: a route that linked the Middle East with Asia, and the Middle East with Europe and Africa and it flourished in the 1400s

• Caravanserais: roadside settlements providing safety and shelter

• Missionary Efforts: people who would try to spread their religion and faith to people from different countries

• Mediterranean Sea Lanes: water-based trade route that connected and supported trade between Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East

• Venice: the most powerful and advanced Italian city-state

• Hanseatic League: an organization founded by north German towns and German merchant communities abroad to protect their mutual trading interests

• Trans-Saharan Caravan Routes: land-based trade route that connected parts of Africa together

• Oases: sources of water; especially in a desert

• Arab/Berber Traders: they played an economic role by trading but they also spread Islam throughout Trans-Saharan Africa

• Indian Ocean Trade Network: one of the most vibrant and culturally diverse trade routes and it connected Africa, Europe, and Asia

Chapter 5

Social Interactions and Organization 1200-1450

• Urbanization: movement of populations from rural to urban areas

• Social Mobility: the ability to move from different classes

• Patriarchy: is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men

• Diasporic Communities: a large group of people who share a cultural and regional origin but are living away from their traditional homeland

• Elite Classes: consists of clergy and aristocrats and makeup around 10-15% of the population

• Commoners: people who worked as scribes, lawyers, and physicians

• Middle Class: commoners would eventually make up this class and consist of merchants and bankers

• Peasant Class: unskilled laborers, farmers, and peasants

• Untouchables: people at the bottom of the social class and consisting of enslaved people and unfree laborers

• Arab Slave Trade: started in Africa and would later grow into the Atlantic Slave Trade

• Furusiyya: involved military and cultured behavior; equitation

• Corvee Labor Projects: when serfs had to do work such as building roads and cutting down forests

• Mit’a: the Americas form of coerced labor

• Dowry: provided women with slight economic security where she got money on her wedding day

• Harem: started in Ottoman Turkey and it was women’s quarters

• Foot Binding: a women’s beauty practice where their feet would be tightly bound and w

Chapter 6

Humans and the Environment 1200-1450

• Vikings: Germanic and Asiatic peoples who came from the east and north and invades European states and were the most influential

• Polynesian Migrations: populated a 20,000-mile expanse in the Pacific

• Outrigger Canoes: allowed the Polynesians to travel long distances over water

• Horse Collar: used to distribute the load around a horse's neck and shoulders when pulling a wagon or plow and allowed for improved agricultural production

• Chinampa: a Mesoamerican technique for growing crops on the floating islands in lakes

• Medieval Climate Optimum: a harsh warming trend between 800-1300

• Little Ice Age: after 1300 there was global cooling

Section 2: 1450-1750

Chapter 7

Governance 1450-1700

• Nation-states: multiethnic land empires

• State-building Techniques: massive displays of art and architecture

• Bureaucratic Elites: a governing class that controls the organizational functioning of the state through a hierarchical structure, procedures, personnel recruitment, and behavioral compliance with the superiority of a legal-rational order

• Trading-Post Empires: a strategy where nations would take over large ports rather than entire nations

• Cape of Good Hope:

Heimler’s Histories

Unit 1

State Buiding in Song China

• The Song Dynasty remained in China from 960-1279

• Song emperors built a state structure that would last for over 1000

• Confucianism’s main ideology was that the world was naturally structured

  • Everyone had their own place in society and behaves accordingly to where they are ranked

• People were subject to rulers, women were subject to men, and children were subject to fathers

• The major achievement of the Song Dynasty was the revival of the civil service exam