Medieval Europe & Plague
This decentralized political and military system structured medieval life entirely around land ownership and mutual obligations of loyalty.
What is feudalism?
This term describes a critical historical moment or event that fundamentally alters the political, social, or economic trajectory of human history.
What is a turning point?
Meaning "rebirth," this cultural movement marked a transition from the Middle Ages by celebrating classical Greco-Roman learning, individualism, and human potential.
What was the Renaissance?
Gold, Glory, and God serve as the historical summary for these three primary motivations of European maritime exploration.
What are the 3 G's?
This massive global transfer brought life-saving caloric crops like potatoes to Europe, but simultaneously introduced devastating Old World diseases like smallpox to the Americas.
What was the Columbian Exchange?
In an era of political fragmentation, this single powerful institution served as the primary moral, political, and unifying social authority across Western Europe.
What was the Catholic Church?
Internal succession crises, bitter administrative infighting, and extreme overexpansion across Eurasia directly triggered the fracture and fall of this massive empire.
What was the Mongol Empire?
Unlike the flat, symbolic, and purely religious artwork of the Middle Ages, Renaissance art introduced these distinctive stylistic traits.
What are realism, three-dimensional perspective, and secular themes?
The travel logs of Marco Polo, technological innovations funded by Prince Henry the Navigator, and the fall of Constantinople all combined to inspire this historic maritime era.
What was the Age of Exploration?
European slave traders successfully involved certain African rulers in the enslavement process by exploiting regional conflicts and offering these highly desired trade goods.
What are firearms and manufactured goods?
This highly destructive pandemic spread rapidly across Eurasia due to bacteria-carrying fleas on rats moving along active maritime and overland trade routes.
How did the Black Death spread?
The expansion of this empire brought major long-term impacts, including the secure trade era known as the Pax Mongolica, the spread of technologies, and the accidental transmission of the plague.
What were the impacts of the Mongol conquests?
By visually emphasizing the beauty, anatomy, and emotional depth of individual human beings, Renaissance art helped widely popularize this core philosophy.
What is humanism?
While the former was a maritime navigator focused on charting and mapping new trade routes, the latter was a military conqueror explicitly looking to subjugate indigenous civilizations.
What is the difference between an explorer and a conquistador?
This brutal forced migration institutionalized race-based chattel slavery, providing the massive labor force that drove the development of the American plantation economy.
What was the Atlantic slave trade?
These specific holy wars were launched by European Christians to reclaim Jerusalem, ultimately expanding trade networks but leaving a legacy of deep religious animosity.
What were the Crusades?
In 1453, Sultan Mehmed II deployed massive cannons to breach the legendary walls of this strategic capital, permanently ending the Byzantine Empire.
What was the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople?
The corrupt sale of indulgences, simony, and the luxurious lifestyles of upper clergy members sparked massive protests against this powerful institution.
What was the Catholic Church?
This navigator's legacy is deeply polarized: some celebrate his linking of global hemispheres, while others condemn his brutal enslavement and exploitation of indigenous Taino populations.
Who was Christopher Columbus?
Rather than wealth or military rank alone, these two deeply biased biological factors served as the absolute foundational basis for the Spanish colonial social hierarchy.
What are race and geographic birthplace (ancestry)?
Weakening the power of nobles, collapsing the feudal labor system, and driving up peasant wages are the long-term political and economic impacts of this catastrophe.
What were the impacts of the Black Death (or Plague)?
The Ottoman victory at Constantinople became a major turning point because it blocked traditional European overland routes to Asia, forcing nations to do this.
What is look to the oceans for new maritime trade routes?
Figures like Martin Luther and John Calvin led the initial protest, while the Catholic Church fought back against this religious shift through the Council of Trent and the Inquisition.
What was the Protestant Reformation (and the Catholic Counter-Reformation)?
This dominant economic theory asserted that a nation's global power depended entirely on its wealth in gold and silver, directly driving European nations to aggressively conquer colonies.
What is mercantilism?
In the Spanish caste system, European-born Peninsulares held top political offices, while these bottom-tier groups were stripped of legal rights and forced into harsh labor.
Who were the indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans?