Medieval Europe
A political, economic, and social system based on the relationship between lord and vassal in order to provide protection.
Feudalism
A knight’s code of honor in medieval Europe.
Chivalry
– Institutions that handled the financial transactions of a variety of merchants as well as of ecclesiastical and secular officials.
Banking houses
A Mongol ruler/a Mongol kingdom
Khan
Name given to a group of sub-Saharan African peoples whose migrations altered the society of sub-Saharan Africa through language, iron technology, and farming.
Bantu-Speaking Peoples
. Lateen Sail
A triangular sail attached to a short mast.
The revival of learning in Europe beginning about 1300 and continuing to about 1600
Renaissance
In medieval Europe, a grant of land given in exchange for military or other services
Fief
A representative assembly.
Parliament
– Commodities traded along the Silk Road network that were ideal for trade and long-distance transportation because they were typically compact and high in value due to enormous demand from low supply.
Luxury goods
The period from about 1250 to 1350 in which the Mongols ensured the safety of Eurasian trade and travel
Mongol Peace (Pax Mongolica)
Great Zimbabwe
Ancient city in southeastern Zimbabwe that supported a Bantu-speaking Shona population of 10,000 to 20,000. With an economy based on cattle husbandry, crop cultivation, and the trade of gold on the coast of the Indian Ocean, it was the heart of a thriving trading empire from the 11th to the 15th centuries.
Diasporic Communities
Settlements of people (usually merchants) away from their homeland where settlers introduced their own cultural traditions into indigenous cultures and vice-versa.
Geocentric theory
The belief held by many before the Scientific Revolution that the earth is the center of the universe.
In medieval Europe, a person who pledged military or other service to a lord in exchange for a gift of land or other privilege.
Vassal
- Architecture of the twelfth-century Europe, featuring stained-glass windows, flying buttresses, tall spires, and pointed arches
Gothic Architecture
The payment of a tax in the form of goods and labor by subject peoples
Tribute
A group of travelers, as merchants or pilgrims, journeying together for safety in numbers passing through deserts, hostile territory, etc.
Caravan
Storytellers and historians of sub-Saharan Africa who carried on oral traditions.
Griots
Region where Africans and Arabs mixed to create a unique identity, often referred to as Swahili Culture. Eventually, the entire coastal area blossomed into several important and independent trading cities which included Kilwa, Mombasa, Mogadishu, and Zanzibar
Swahili coast
– City that became the capital of the empire of Timur (Tamerlane), who made it the most important economic and cultural center in Central Asia. The city prospered from its location on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean and was noted for being an Islamic center for scholarly study.
Samarkand
A peasant tenant farmer in medieval Europe/Condition in which a peasant tenant farmer was bound to a hereditary plot of land and to the will of his landlord.
Serf/Serfdom
The practice of the Roman Catholic and other Christian churches of prohibiting participation in the sacraments to those who do not comply with church teachings or practices
Excommunication
. Hanseatic League
– An organization of cities in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia for the purpose of establishing a commercial alliance.
Caravanserai
Roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa, and southeastern Europe, especially along the Silk Road.
Hausa Kingdoms
Dynasty that ruled the great entrepôt of Malacca (Melaka) and its dependencies and provided Malay history with its golden age
Sultanate of Malacca
- A dry grassland/The skill of political survival and dominance in the world of steppe nomads; it involved the knowledge of tribal and clan structure and often used assassinations to accomplish its goals.
Steppe/Steppe Diplomacy
Manorial system
Economic and social system of medieval Europe under which peasants' land tenure and production were regulated, and local justice and taxation were administered.
Magna Carta
- A document written in England in 1215 that granted certain rights to nobles; later these rights came to be extended to all classes.
Usury
the practice of lending money and charging an interest rate that was prohibited by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. With the expansion of trade in the 13th century and the Protestant Reformation in the 15th century, the demand for credit increased, and the practice became more acceptable.
Alphabet that flourished through the 15th century in Central Asia and parts of Iran, but it was eventually replaced by the Arabic script in the 16th century. In the early 13th century, under Genghis Khan, the Mongols created a vertical script
Uyghur script
Stateless Society
A society that is based on the authority of kinship groups rather than on a central government
– Oasis city located in modern day western China that for over 2000 years served as a trading post and commanded historical caravan routes along the Silk Road.
Kashgar
- The European name for the outbreak of bubonic plague that spread across Asia, Europe, and North Africa in the fourteenth century
Black Death