Michael McCormick uses this ingenious source to infer the transportation infrastructure of the early medieval world.
What are pilgrim and travelers accounts?
100
This Norse Viking is said to have been the first to discover North America in the 10th century, nearly 5 centuries before Christopher Columbus.
Who is Leif Eriksson?
100
The political, economic, and social system through which peasants depended for their land on a lord and strove to remain outside of the market to the greatest extent possible.
What is manorialism?
100
The material Vikings used to make yellow and black striped beads, demonstrating their skill as artisans.
What is glass?
100
Now a culinary staple, eating this was a symbol of wealth in the Middle Ages, as it required an oven and was thus more expensive to make than other foods with similar ingredients.
What is bread?
200
This document is executed after the death of a feudal lord with no male heir to assess the lands held and the rights of a successor.
What is an Inqusition post mortem?
200
A Belgian historian who theorized that the Roman Empire was destroyed by the rise of Islam and the arrival of Germanic tribes.
Who is Henri Pirenne?
200
Member of the lower nobility in the Spanish Empire who was exempt from direct taxes, while enjoying several social, political, and legal privileges.
What is a Hildalgo?
200
This rudimentary technology, invented in China, was essential to enabling the transfer and preservation of knowledge, as well as facilitated trade.
What is paper?
200
The outcome of cream and a bit of agitation.
What is (real) butter?
300
This ecumenical council enforced the Catholic practice of maintaining parish records which became useful for historical demography.
What is the Council of Trent?
300
According to Fossier, this poor fellow suffered the suspicions of the villagers who employed his services. They feared that he would report any discrepancies in their taxes to the lord.
Who is the miller?
300
This ideology aimed to curb the violence of the 10th century. It was a response to the decay of royal authority.
What is Pax Dei or the Peace of God?
300
Popular type of pottery made in the Netherlands to imitate expensive Chinese porcelain during the 17th and 18th centuries.
What is Delftware?
300
This type of plant, widely available in the Middle Ages, is notable for restoring nutrients back into the soil, especially nitrogen.
What are legumes?
400
Giovanni Boccaccio’s collection of tales set in Italy during a plague outbreak.
What is the Decameron?
400
This Nobel Prize winner demonstrated that modern famines result from a lack of food entitlements rather than an absolute lack of food.
Who is Amartya Sen?
400
In this popular style of farming, a lord would allow a tenant to cultivate a piece of his land as if it were his own, on the condition that he also cultivated the lord's land
What is input sharing?
400
The plan of St. Gall, a 9th century hypothetical monastery layout, suggests that a self-sufficient community nonetheless lacked this major industry.
What is the textile industry?
400
Commodities whose existence supports the assertion that the emergence of globalization in the early modern world was driven by a wide demand for exotic goods.
What are used tea leaves and coffee beans?
500
After the making of this in 1086, the number of people living in England had trebled by the eve of the Black Death.
What is the Doomsday Book?
500
The 17th century English diarist who famously remarked that a population of 4 million people is more likely to produce a genius than a population of 400,000 (DUH!), and thus the rate at which new ideas emerge is positively limited to the size of the population.
Who is Samuel Pepys?
500
The reason Venice was unable to match the low cost of production displayed by England in outsourcing their labor to rural areas.
What are guilds?
500
McCormick used the presence of these large mechanical devices near major estate centers as a means to argue that the “dark ages” were not as economically stagnant as we thought.
What are water mills?
500
This tea of the lowest quality imported into Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries was consumed primarily by the lower classes.