| Term | Definition |
| Black Death | Outbreak of plague(mostly bubonic) in the mid 14th century that killed 20 to 50% to European population; caused social, political, economic and cultural revolution and upheaval |
| Giovanni Boccaccio | 1313-1375, Italian writer and poet, best know work "Decameron", wrote of reaction to the plague |
| Flagellants | popular movement in 1348, men and women who migrated and flogged themselves to win God's forgiveness |
| Pogroms | Organized massacres of Jews, the worst were carried out in Germany; started a history of deep rooted Anti-Semitism |
| "Ars Moriendi" | Book from 1415, 'The Art of Dying', offer advice on how to die well or have a good death |
| Jacquerie | 1358 French peasant revolt in Northern France, this failed and peasants massacred |
| English Peasants' Revolt | Took place in 1381 as an immediate result of taxes, poll tax was eliminated and most pardoned |
| Hundred Years' War | War that broke out between England and France because Edward III had a claim to the French Throne; England lost in the end |
| Henry V of England | King that renewed Hundred Years' War and made himself heir to the French throne via Treaty of Troyes(1420) |
| Battle of Agincourt | Battle in 1415 (Hundred Years') where the French lost 6,000 men and the English only lost 300; staggering French defeat |
| Dauphin | Heir(oldest son of the king) to the French throne |
| Joan of Arc | Young woman from Doremy that received visions from God that led her to bring a French victory to the Hundred Years' |
| House of Lords | Body of English Parliament made up of aristocrats/ high clergy men |
| House of Commons | Body of English Parliament made up of those considered 'less than the lords' |
| Estates-General | French Parliament made up of the clergy, nobility, and the Third Estate(everyone other than the other two) |
| Gabelle | Hundred Years' War French tax on salt, put in place by Phillip VI |
| Taille | Hundred Years' War French tax on the hearth, put in place by Phillip VI |
| Holy Roman Empire | Empire that's core was the lands of Germany, made up of several independent states, began to fall apart in the High Middle Ages |
| Golden Bull(1356) | Document issues by Emperor Charles IV stating four princes and three lords elected the Holy Roman Emperor |
| City-States | a city and its surrounding territory that forms an independent state |
| Condottieri | leaders of bands of mercenaries in Renaissance Italy who sold their services to the highest bidder |
| Unam Sanctam (1302) | Document issued by Pope Boniface VIII; strongest statement ever made by a pope on the supremacy of spiritual authority |
| Avignon Papacy | Residency of the popes in Avignon for 72 years (1305-1377), starting with Clement V, successor of Boniface VIII |
| Great Schism | Crisis in the late medieval church when there were first two then three popes, ended by Council of Constance(1414-1418) |
| Conciliarism | A 14th-15th century European movement that held that final spiritual authority resided with general church council, result of the Great Schism |
| Vernacular Language | Everyday language of a region vs. the language used for official documents |
| Council of Pisa (1409) | Group of cardinals that elected Alexander V to try and end the Great Schism |
| Dante Alighieri | Florentine writer of "The Divine Comedy", once a politician but exiled in 1302 |
| Petrarch | Florentine poet, wrote sonnets, the father of Renaissance humanism |
| Geoffrey Chaucer | English writer, author of "Canterbury Tales", critic of late medieval church corruption |
| Giotto | Italian painter who used a new kind of realism that inspired a new generation of artists |
