Age of Exploration: The period from about 1450 to about 1750, when European explorers conducted their most significant voyages and travels around the world.
Ancestor: An earlier person in one's line of parentage, usually more distant in time than a grandparent.
Barbarian: A negative term used to describe someone as uncivilized.
Chivalry: The system of medieval knighthood, particularly its code of honor with regard to women.
Church: The entire Christian church, or more specifically the Roman Catholic Church.
Civilization: A group of people possessing most or all of the following: a settled way of life, agriculture, a written language, an organized government, and cities.
Dark Ages: A negative term sometimes used to describe the Early Middle Ages, the period from the fall of Rome to about A. D. 1000 in Western Europe.
Economy: The whole system of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in a country.
Empire: A large political unit that unites many groups of people, often over a wide territory.
Feudalism: A form of political and economic organization in which peasants are subject to a noble, who owns most or all of the land that they cultivate.
Leprosy: A disease involving the gradual wasting of muscles, deformity, and paralysis; relatively common until modern times.
Medieval: Of or relating to the Middle Ages.
Middle Ages: Roughly the period from A. D. 500 to 1500.
Millennium: A period of a thousand years.
Pagan: Worshiping many gods.
Papacy: The office of the pope.
Peasant: A farmer who works a small plot of land.
Reformation: A religious movement in the 1500s that ultimately led to the rejection of Roman Catholicism by various groups in Europe.
Renaissance: A period of renewed interest in learning and the arts that began in Europe during the 1300s and continued to the 1600s.
Technology: The application of knowledge to make the performance of physical and mental tasks easier.
West: Generally, Western Europe and North America, or the countries influenced both by ancient Greece and ancient Rome.
Roman economy had been based on slavery, Rome in the 300s already had the beginnings of a new system called feudalism (FYOO-dul-izm).
The Western Roman Empire fell in 476, but the Eastern Roman Empire continued as the Byzantine (BIZ-un-teen) Empire throughout the Middle Ages. By the time the Byzantine Empire fell in 1453, the medieval period was coming to an end as Europe began experiencing a full-scale transformation in the arts, science, politics, and even religion. The awakening in the arts and science was called the Renaissance (REN-uh-sahnts), or "rebirth"; similarly, the Reformation (ref-ur-MAY-shun) heralded the re-formation of religion and even politics. The Renaissance and Reformation had their beginnings in the 1300s, and gathered steam after 1450 with the invention of the printing press, which made it possible to spread ideas much more quickly. Around the same time, the Age of Exploration began with the first European voyages around the coast of Africa. These events collectively brought about the end of the Middle Ages, and the beginning of the modern world.
Many people think of the Middle Ages in terms of romance and chivalry: kings, castles, and knights battling over the hand of a fair maiden. Reproduced by permission of the Corbis Corporation.
World History
