A list of terms from the textbook The Making of The West for Ms. Beach's A.P. European History class for the 2011-2012 school year.
Terms : Hide Images
| 206045818 | Renaissance | The time in Italy from the 14th to the 16th century, literally "rebirth"; in French. The first person to proclaim this term was Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). This time was age of rapid change, characterized by self-awareness and self-assertion. One new idea was humanism, which was started by Petrarch and focused on the accomplishments, abilities, and beauty of humans. The liberal arts - (vernacular) literature, philosophy, architecture, music, painting and sculpture - were given new life, while Greek and Roman classics were uncovered and used as inspiration for new art. This age started with the population declining, classic text being rediscovered, and artistic experimentation. Finally, as Spain and France invaded Italy, the Italian Renaissance spread to the rest of Europe. | |
| 206045800 | Michelangelo Buonarroti | (1475-1564) Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, and poet mainly known for his work on the Sistine Chapel and his sculptures David and the Pieta; career began at the age of 12, was forced to paint by his father; completed many pieces for the Medici Family and Pope Julius II; apprentice to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio and the sculpture school in the Medici gardens; worked with many other famous artists, who often influenced the style of his work, including Donatello and Leondardo da Vinci; especially known for the way he portrayed the human body in his pieces of art—focused on size, strength, and emotional intensity of a figure and nudeness; remembered for his religious figures and stories; served as the supervising architect of St. Peter's Basilica | |
| 206045801 | Lorenzo Ghiberti | (1378 - 1455) A Florentine sculptor and goldsmith who taught both Donatello and Filippo Brunelleschi. He is best known for two pairs of bronze doors on the San Giovanni Baptistery in Florence (associated with the Duomo, or Florentine Cathedral). He produced a single, low-relief panel to win a 1401 competition (defeating Brunelleschi among others) for the commission to design the 28 Old and New Testament-themed panels, which used linear perspective to create a sense of depth, for the north side doors of the Florence Baptsitery. After that, he was given another commission to design ten panels for the east doors. This latter work, by far his most famous, was dubbed the "Gates of Paradise" by Michelangelo. | |
| 206045802 | Filippo Brunelleschi | (1377-1446) A Florentine architect who boldly combined classical and Gothic architecture. He used geometry as the basis for his designs, focusing on spheres and planes. He built the dome on the cathedral in Florence, which was modeled after ancient Roman ruins, starting in 1420, the Oppsedale degli Innocenti (a hospital for the orphans), and the interiors of several Florentine churches. He also is given credit for being the first to understand and use perspective, although it was immediately used more clearly in sculpture and painting. | |
| 206045803 | Pope Sixtus IV | (1414-1484) born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 1471 to 1484. He put Leon Battista Alberti's idea of planning the city of Rome with proportional and aesthetic monumental buildings set in open squares. The Pope started an urban renewel in Rome, transforming the medieval town into a brilliantly-constructed geometrically proportionate town that it once was in its glory days. He founded the Sistine Chapel where the team of artists he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance to Rome with the first masterpiece of the city's new artistic age., pope who granted Ferdinand and Isabella's request to establish an Inquisition in Spain. He also instituted nepotism as a way of life in Rome, and ran the Papacy as a family operation. | |
| 206045804 | Machiavelli | (1469-1527) He was a political theorist and he wrote "The Prince," the quintessential political treatise of the 16th century, which was the first literature work to discuss the acquisition and exercising of power without reference to an ultimate moral or ethical end. In The Prince, this man recognized the importance of power in founding a state (unified Italy), whose survival ultimately rested on republican virtue. He observed the political leadership of Cesare Borgia (son of Pope Alexander VI) who had ambitions of uniting Italy under his control, stated that politically, "the ends justifies the means," stated that for rulers, "it was better to be feared than to be loved," and rulers had to be practical and cunning, in addition to being aggressive and ruthless. At times rulers should behave like a lion (aggressive and powerful) and at other times like a fox (cunning and practical). The Prince continued to influence European rulers for centuries, and is considered one of the most influence books ever written. | |
| 206045805 | Cosimo de Medici | (1388-1464) He was a wealthy as well as ruthless Florentine and an astute statesman, who brought power back to Florence in 1434 when he ascended to power although he didn't hold any formal political office; he controlled the city behind the scenes, and skillfully manipulated the constitution and influenced elections; through his informal, cordial relations with the electoral committee, he was able to keep councilors loyal to him in the Signoria (the governing body of Florence, composed of 8 councilors); he became head of the Office of Public Debt, and was the grandfather of Lorenzo the Magnificent. | |
| 206045806 | Lorenzo de Medici | (1467-1492) Also known as "Il Magnifico," he was Cosimo de Medici's grandson. He lived more elegantly than had Cosimo, and enjoyed the spotlight of power immensely. He was a patron to many artists at the time, including Michaelangelo Under his control, the Florentine economy expanded significantly and the lower class enjoyed a greater level of comfort and protection than it had before. During the period of Lorenzo's rule, from 1467 to 1492, Florence became undeniably the most important city-state in Italy and the most beautiful city in all of Europe. | |
| 206045807 | Pope Alexander VI | (1492-1503) a member of the Borgia family and probably the most corrupt pope to take the throne. He openly promoted the political careers of Cesare Borgia, who became Machiavell's model for a ruthless ruler in The Prince, and Lucrezia Borgia, the children he had before becoming pope, and placed papal policy in tandem with the efforts of his powerful family to secure power in Romagna. When he saw that the French gave him an opportunity to reestablish control over the region, he allied himself with the French. He annulled Louis XII's marriage to Charles VII's sister so Louis could marry Anne of Brittany, a political move intended to keep Brittany French. He also made the archbishop of Rouen (Louis's favorite cleric) a cardinal and agreed to abandon the League of Venice, which made it too weak to resist a French invasion. After the French invasion, he named his son Cesare "duke of Romagna." | |
| 206045808 | Cesare Borgia | (1498-1507) An illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI who inherited much power and territory from his father, known as Duke Valentino. This "new monarch" reasserted the church authority in the papal lands of Italy. Cesare began uniting the peninsula by conquering and invading the principalities making up the papal states. He is considered by Machiavelli to have been a most capable leader and the embodiment of what a prince should be. Machiavelli suggests that an ambitious prince looking for a recent model to follow should imitate Cesare Borgia. Machiavelli uses many events of Cesare Borgia's life to illustrate how and why he was successful. Machiavelli believes that Cesare Borgia would have succeeded in uniting all of Italy had he not fallen ill. Examining Cesare Borgia's life, Machiavelli concludes that in order for a prince to ultimately succeed, he needs both ability and fortune. | |
| 206045809 | Richard III | (1483-1485) a king who was in the House of York. He was made Duke of Gloucester in 1461 when his brother Edward IV deposed the Lancastrian king Henry VI as part of the Wars of the Roses. Upon Edward's death in 1483, Richard served as regent to his nephew Edward V, but likely had the boy murdered in the Tower of London that year. Two years later, Richard died at the hands of Henry Tudor's Lancastrian forces at Bosworth Field, ending the Wars of the Roses and beginning the reign of Henry VII. | |
| 206045810 | Henry VII | (1485-1509) The First Tudor king of England after gaining throne by force in the Battle of Bosworth Field from Richard III. He brought England out of War of Roses and restored order and established a strong monarchy. He promoted? many ministers from the middle classes (thereby further undermining nobility), suspended livery and maintenance, encouraged trade, balanced the budget, established the Star Chamber for law & order. He married Elizabeth of York, and secured a hereditary monarchy so that his son and two of his grand-daughters all ruled without war to determine who would inherit the crown, and he created a national feeling that consolidated the Tudor family? | |
| 206045811 | Isabella of Castile | (1479-1504) She married Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 to unite the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. Together, they subdued their realms, secured their borders, Christianized Spain and ventured abroad. They conquered the Moors and Granada and Naples in Italy. Also, they limited the privileges of the nobility and won the allegiance of and relied on the Hermandad, a powerful league of cities and towns that served them against stubborn land owners, to enforce justice and on lawyers to staff the royal council. They exercised almost total control over the Spanish church as they placed religion in the service of national unity. They appointed higher clergy and established the Inquisition, brought the reconquista to a close with a final crusade against the Muslims, arranged several anti-French marriage alliances, and promoted overseas exploration by sponsoring Christopher Columbus. | |
| 206045812 | Ferdinand of Aragon | (1479-1516) He married Isabella of Castile in 1469 to unite the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. Together, they subdued their realms, secured their borders, Christianized Spain and ventured abroad. They conquered the Moors and Granada and Naples in Italy. Also, they limited the privileges of the nobility and won the allegiance of and relied on the Hermandad, a powerful league of cities and towns that served them against stubborn land owners, to enforce justice and on lawyers to staff the royal council. They exercised almost total control over the Spanish church as they placed religion in the service of national unity. They appointed higher clergy and established the Inquisition, brought the reconquista to a close with a final crusade against the Muslims, arranged several anti-French marriage alliances, and promoted overseas exploration by sponsoring Christopher Columbus. | |
| 206045813 | Louis XI | (1461-1483) A French king who resisted the temptation to invade Italy while still keeping is dynastical claims there alive. He was Charles VII's son and successor that turned France into a great power. After Charles the Bold died at the Battle of Nancy, he and Maximillian I divided the conquered Burgundian lands between them. The dissolution of Burgundy allowed him to secure the French monarchy. Also, the acquisition of Burgundian lands as well as his Angevin inheritance allowed him to finish his reign with a kingdom twice the size of the one he inherited. He also inherited most of southern France after the Anjou dynasty died out, fomented rebellion in England, promoted industry and commerce, imposed permanent salt and land taxes, maintained western Europes first standing army, despensed with the meeting of the Estantes General, successfully harnessed the nobility, expanded the trade and industry nurtured by Jacques Coeur, created a national postal system and established a lucrative silk industry at Lyons. | |
| 206045819 | Auto de fe | Literally meaning "demonstration of faith," it was the act of the court punishing people being accused of heresy (going against accepted religious belief). Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon used this tactic to have Jews accused of heresy punished, Punishments included fines, public confession, burning at the stake, confinement to dungeons, physical abuse and torture, and banishment from public life. Those who didn't confess were burned at the stake without strangulation; those who did confess (under torture) were strangled first. | |
| 206045820 | Third Rome | This was created as a response to the fall of the Byzantine Empire and Ivan III's desire to make Moscow the new center of the Orthodox Church. The first part of this term was the capital of the Roman Catholic Church and Constantinople. Ivan III used this term as propaganda in order for the Orthodox Church to legitimize his rule and praised Ivan III's autocratic power as the best protector of the faith. Moscow was the Russian Orthodox interpretation of the city's leading role in bringing spiritual light to the world. Moscow was viewed as this term because Moscow was the political and religious center of Russia (replacing Kiev). It was called this after Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. | |
| 206045821 | Orthodox Christianity | A branch of Christianity that is very similar to Roman Catholicism except that this branch of Christianity didn't split the church and state. It split from the Catholic Church because they did not believe in Pope as supreme ruler of Church. It was the Christianity of the eastern area of the empire; Slavs were converted to this. It had no separation of church and political authority, was centered in Constantinople, and may have stunted the idea of society functioning independently of the state. The Christian church of this branch of Christianity legitimized Ivan III's autocratic power by using propaganda, the Third Rome, to say that Ivan III was the best protector of this branch of Christianity. | |
| 206045822 | Tsar | This title comes from the Roman Emperor Caesar. It is specifically a Russian title for a monarch with absolute property rights over all lands and subjects, which was first used in reference to a Russian ruler by Ivan III (r. 1462-1505). | |
| 206045823 | War of the Roses | (1460-1485) A series of wars England and France fought after peace was made between them. Two families began to fight for the English throne: the Lancasters, using a red rose for their emblem, and the Yorks, who used a white rose. The conflict became known as this war because both sides used a rose as their symbol. At first the stockists were successful. However, Edward IV (Yorkist) took the throne and won victories over the Lancastrians. But when Edward died, his son disappeared and Edward's brother, Richard III, became king. Almost as soon as he was crowned the new king, Richard III faced uprisings such as the one led by Duke of Buckingham, who had originally helped Richard III gain the throne. After Richard III's death, a member of the Tudors (family) claimed the throne. Henry Tudor, becoming Henry VII, was related to both sides of the war. As a result of this war, England's economy, particularly the cloth economy, continued to flourish, London merchants assumed greater political prominence in governing and in banking, and England's population increased slowly but steadily. | |
| 206045824 | Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges | King Charles VII of France put this in place in 1438. It established the superiority of the a general church council control over the papacy by establishing Gallicanism (allowing the King to appoint his own French bishops and to retain ecclesiastical revenues). This term also established. This caused conflict between the popes and French kings that was unresolved until the Concordat of Bologna in 1516. | |
| 206045826 | Venice, Italy | A rich city-state in northern Italy which is built on a lagoon; like Florence, it was a republic (that upheld humanistic, classically-inspired beliefs), which meant that a civic elite controlled the political and economic life of the state, had an elected duke called a doge but was actually run by a small group of wealthy merchant-aristocrats; had a tremendously profitable maritime trade empire, which benefited citizens of all social classes, and was an international power in Italy. It is known as "The Most Serene Empire" because of its lack of social tension like other republics had at the time. | |
| 206045827 | Florence, Italy | This was the dominant city in Tuscany, which had 2/3 of the area's wealth, yet less than ¼ of the population. This republic nation-state was in constant agitation, and responsive to political conflicts, new ideas, and artistic styles. Men and women had distinct social roles in the family, and women were viewed as inferior to men in almost every social situation. It was the center of the Renaissance and its cultural development, with the Medici family serving as patrons for important artists and writers, such as Michelangelo. It was also the financial center of Italy, and main place where luxury goods were made. This city was also the center of cloth making, specifically wool manufacturing. | |
| 206045828 | Papal States, Italy | A series of comprised territories under direct rule of the papacy, which was an uneasy mixture of splendor and religious austerity. At its height it covered most of the modern Italian regions of Rome, Marche, Umbria and Lazio. This governing power is commonly called the temporal power of the Pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. This nation-state represented the trend of developing a centralized power within a state (states such as France and England did this). | |
| 206045829 | Naples, Italy | At the time, it was the nation-state of rural Southern Italy and Sicily. It was fought over between Rene d'Anjou, a cousin of the king of France, and Alfonso I of Aragon (also known as Alfonso the Magnanimous because of his generous patronage of the arts) until the Aragonese established power in 15th century. Unlike the Papal States, Florence, or Venice, this nation-state was ruled by feudal barons who ruled their estates with authority and taxing power. The nation-state had little enjoyment of the Renaissance. Alfonso I's son, Ferante, continued to successfully rule this nation-state even when the nation-state tried to rebel against him, but failed miserably. | |
| 206045831 | Ottoman Empire | An empire that spanned from modern-day Hungary, the Black Sea, modern-day Greece, and modern-day Turkey. Under the rule of Sultan Mehmed II, this empire proclaimed a holy war against Christian Europe and attacked Constantinople. After 43 days of fighting, the empire pushed forward and sacked Constantinople because of the certainty of rich spoils and Allah's promise of a final victory over the infidel Rome. During this battle, Constantine Palaeologus, the last Byzantine emperor, died. After the battle, Mehmed II became remembered as "the Conquerer." | |
| 206045832 | Byzantine Empire | An empire that lasted from 395 to 1453. It's capital city was Constantinople (Istanbul is the modern-day equivalent to the capital). It was the successor to the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean. It was artistically creative and active in trade. Its emperors, especially Justinian, tried to revive the heritage of Rome throughout its previous territory but failed. Many centuries of fighting Muslims led to its fall in 1453. | |
| 206045830 | Burgundy, France | a province in France that rose to power in the early 1400s because of their military might (acquiring land in the Netherlands) and statehood, leading France into turmoil and easy prey for the English armies, and after the end of the war rose to be a major political power. This region is part of the French royal house, ruled over an array of different French-, Dutch-, and German-speaking provinces, was an artificial creation whose coherence completely depended on the skillful exercise of statecraft, developed a corrupt financial bureaucracy and one of the largest standing armies in Europe at the time. Two of the regions dukes were the art-savvy Philip the Good and his courageous son Charles the Bold. The region fell apart when Charles the Bold died without an heir to the throne, which caused the Austrian Habsburgs to seize this region's political and artistic legacy. This region, along with Poland, were examples of regions that didn't build strong, centralized states like England, France, Spain, and Muscovy did. | |
| 206045833 | Muscovy | (c.1280-c.1500) A former principality in west-central Russia (north of the Black Sea and east of Poland-Lithuania). Centered on Moscow. The principality emerged from their independence from the collapsed Mongol Empire. After the principality's fall, it was united with another principality to form the nucleus of the early Russian empire. The name was then used for the expanded territory. The first tsar (or czar) of Muscovy was Ivan III, a prince. Ivan II, also known as Ivan the Great, ruled with absolute property rights all lands and subjects, defeated the city-state of Novgorod, abolished the local civic government of this independent city, expanded his territory to the south and east by pushing back the Mongols to the Yolga River. Muscovy was considered by Muscovites to be the Third Rome. Militant Russian Orthodoxy was used to justify autocratic rule. This principality, along with England, France, and Spain, were examples of successful state-building. | |
| 206045814 | Prince Henry the Navigator | (1394-1460) Portuguese prince whose older brother was Prince Peter. The younger brother was the first European royal to heavily promote discovery and exploration, and he did this by financing many voyages out of the revenues of a noble crusading order, private monies, and Lisbon merchants. He was motivated by mercenary as well as missionary factors. He sought to promote Portuguese economic interests by challenging the Muslim monopoly of gold trade and to further Christian influence. He hoped to find the kingdom of Prester John (a legendary Christian king ruling a wealthy kingdom somewhere in Africa, which was probably a hoax/myth). He also promoted the settlement of islands in the Atlantic and exploration of the African coast and founded the school for navigators at Sagres at the southwestern tip of Portugal. | |
| 206045815 | Bartholomeu Dias | A Portuguese explorer who sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, the most southern point Africa, and thus found the route to the Indian Ocean. This helped establish an overseas trade route from Europe to India and the East Indies, which provided Europeans with the cargoes of jewels and spices they desired very much. | |
| 206045816 | Ferdinand Magellan | (1480-1521) A Portuguese navigator. He sailed under the service of the Spanish Crown and tried to find a route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. He led the first expedition to circumnavigate the world. However, he was killed in a battle in the Philippines, but this voyage ended up being the first successful circumnavigation of the earth, ending in 1522. | |
| 206045817 | Christopher Columbus | An Italian explorer responsible for the European discovery of America in 1492. He had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain, under the patronage and funding of the king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, hoping to find a westward route to India. In his first voyage, his ships were the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. He made four voyages to the New World, visiting the Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad, Venezuela, and the coast of Central America. He dreamed of reaching the gold and spice-abundant lands of khan (the Mongol Empire), and died thinking he reached the East Indies. After his voyages, Portugal's maritime interests clashed with Spain's. As a solution to this clash, the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas was created with Pope Alexander being the mediator of the Portugal's and Spain's conflict. | |
| 206045825 | 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas | A treaty that was signed by the Portuguese and the Spanish in 1494 that established a dividing line, which was 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, of two lands that Spain and Portugal were allowed to explore. All territory west of the line belonged to Spain, which was almost all of the the Americas, and all the territory east of the line, which was a sliver of eastern South America (which later became modern-day Brazil) and the Indies, belonged to Portugal. It did not include lands already ruled by Christian monarchs. The people in the territory owned by Spain (most of the Americas) were made subjects of Ferdinand and Isabella. |
