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| 6549284289 | Aristocracy | An upper class whose wealth is based on land and whose power is passed on from one generation to another though hereditary titles to large estates. AKA nobles, or gentry. The oldest son would inherent the entire estate to keep the wealth of the family intact. Younger sons would often secure jobs in the military or bureaucracy, while daughters married sons of other wealthy nobles. This group had legal privileges until around the time of the French Revolution where they were eliminated as a legal class in 1791. | 0 | |
| 6549284290 | Civil Service Exam | Began under the Han Dynasty as a method of filling the ranks of the bureaucracy with persons of merit. During the Qing Dynasty the empire's one million degree holders competed for twenty thousand official civil service positions. Those who passed only the district exams had few opportunities for bureaucratic employment and usually spent their careers "plowing with the writing brush" by teaching local schools or serving as family tutors. Those who passed the metropolitan examinations, however, could look to powerful positions in the imperial bureaucracy. | 1 | |
| 6549284291 | Centralized vs Decentralized | Centralized power is in the hands of the few, and it is a government run by a capital city such a Persepolis in the Persian Empire. Decentralized power is spread out, in the hands of many, and many different elites control their smaller, local territory without any allegiance to a more powerful king or emperor. India was governed this way before the Mauryan Empire (and after the Gupta Empire) and Europe after the fall of Rome. | 2 | |
| 6549284292 | Eastern Orthodox | Christianity that emerged from the city of Constantinople after it became the new capital of Rome in 330 C.E. It viewed the emperor as the God-anointed ruler and head of the Church. this dual Caesar and pope role is called caesaropapism. Emperors treated the church as a department of the state and appointed the Patriarch, the highest official of the church hierarchy. This Christianity emphasized the role of Icons and church member believed that icons conveyed divine power. Followers spoke Greek, were allowed to grow beards, and priests married. Official Schism with the Roman Catholic Church occurred in 1054 as leaders of both churches excommunicated each other. The Slavic kingdom of Kievan Rus (early Russia) adopted this faith circa 980 C.E. to unite its diverse kingdom. | 3 | |
| 6549284293 | Infrastructure | Modern administrative and bureaucratic structures facilitated colonial control; communication and transportation such as railroads, motorways, ports, telegraphs, and postal services ; they moved products to the world market. Examples would be the Roman Aqueducts, the Royal Road of Persia, and the rail lines used to extract mineral wealth out of Africa during the age of Imperialism in the 19th century. | 4 | |
| 6549284294 | Meritocracy | A society where social positions are achieved by the individual merit, such as educational qualifications, talents and skills as opposed to a society were social positions are inherited by a wealthy elite. The Civil Service Exam in Han China, operating in accord with Confucian philosophy, transformed China into a meritocracy, while the elimination of the Aristocratic privileges after adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789 had a similar effect of 18th century France. | 5 | |
| 6549284295 | Middle Ages/Dark Ages | The time between the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD and the beginning of the Renaissance in the fourteenth century. Dominated by men: nobles in the middle ages were the Kings, Dukes, counts, bishops and archbishops. Great Lords and Ordinary knights came to form a common group in the aristocracy. In the early period, Europe had a relatively small population. By the late or high middle ages, population increased dramatically. The number of people almost doubled between 1000 and 1300, from 38 million to 74 million people. Food production increased because of a change in climate during the High Middle Ages. More land was cultivated. The middle Ages witnessed an explosion of labor-saving devices. For example, the people of the middle ages harnessed the power of water and wind to do jobs once done by human or animal power. | 6 | |
| 6549284296 | Primogeniture | A system of inheritance in which the eldest son in a family received all of his father's land. | 7 | |
| 6549284297 | Schism (Roman Catholic/Orthodox Christianity) | a formal split within the Christian religious organization into hostile factions. Occurred in 1054 as the Pope in Rome and the Patriarch in Constantinople formally excommunicated each other. Each side effectively declared the other side to be heretical and un-Christian. Points of disagreement included: role of icons as aids to spiritual devotion, western practice of shaving beards and the Roman Pope's assertion of papal authority over all Christians. The tensions were also increased by political and economic rivalry between the two states. The Crusades launched in 1095 by the Catholic pope also made things worse as western crusaders engaged in frequent conflict with local people of the Byzantine empire, and then during the 4th crusade, western forces looted Constantinople, which confirmed Orthodox Christian views that Roman Catholics were nothing more than barbarians. | 8 | |
| 6549284298 | Serfs | In the Manorial Labor System this was an agricultural laborer legally bound to a lord's property and obligated to perform set services for the lord. Could not be arbitrarily thrown off the land, and were allowed to live in families. Women were generally required to weave cloth for the lord's estate. In return these laborers received a small farm and what protection a lord could provide. By the middle of the 14th century in Europe the Manorial System was in decline and these laborers were being replaced by a free peasantry that paid rents in money. The Black Death accelerated the process and lords found it convenient to deal with the peasants by granting freedom and accepting rents. However, in Russia this system was in use until the 19th century. | 9 | |
| 6549284299 | Empress Wu (T'ang China) | (r. 690-705 C.E) Born during the Tang Dynasty she worked her way up, from concubine to Empress and eventually became the Emperor of all China. She was an ardent supporter of Buddhism and Taoism and the only woman to ever rule China with her own Dynastic name (Zhou). Upon her death there was a backlash against Buddhists and women by the Confucian scholars. | 10 | |
| 6549284300 | Feudalism (Japan and Western Europe) | A political system in which nobles are granted the use of lands that legally belong to their king, in exchange for their loyalty, military service, and protection of the people who live on the land. (samurai/knights, daimyo/nobles, shogun/king) | 11 | |
| 6549284301 | Foot-Binding | practice in Chinese society to mutilate women's feet in order to make them smaller; produced pain and restricted women's movement; made it easier to confine women to the household. | 12 | |
| 6549284302 | Genghis Khan | Named Temujin, he took the this title when, in 1206, he united the Mongol clans of nomadic pastoral people on the Asian Steppe into one powerful empire. Following this unification he spent 40 years to conquer northern China and Central Asia to create the largest land-based empire in all of history. The most important institution of the Mongol state was the army, which operated as a meritocracy, in which leaders were chosen not on the basis of kinship but rather because of their talents. Mongol success as conquerors relied on outstanding horsemanship and archery, their ability to adapt and learn new military techniques from those they conquered, and also on the army's use of terror and ruthless slaughter of people who resisted. As rulers, they allowed for religious toleration, and they supported trade by keeping the silk roads safe for merchant travel. After his death, the empire broke into 4 independent states called khanates. The empire was weakened and eventually collapsed because of expensive military campaigns against Vietnam and Japan. | 13 | |
| 6549284303 | Hanseatic League | Was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe. It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period (c. 13th to 17th centuries). | 14 | |
| 6549284304 | Hundred Years War (1337-1453) | Was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 between the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois, rulers of the Kingdom of France, for control of the latter kingdom. Each side drew many allies into the war. | 15 | |
| 6549284305 | Code of Justinian | compilation of the complex system of Roman laws; became the system of laws for the Byzantine Empire. | 16 | |
| 6549284306 | Magna Carta (1215) | An English document draw up by nobles under King John which limited the power of the king. It has influenced later constitutional documents in Britain and America. | 17 | |
| 6549284307 | Mansa Musa | Emperor of the kingdom of Mali in Africa. He made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca and established trade routes to the Middle East. | 18 | |
| 6549284308 | Neo-Confucianism | A philosophy that emerged in Song-dynasty China; it revived Confucian thinking while adding in Buddhist and Daoist elements. Song emperors did not persecute Buddhists as late Tong Emperors had done, but they strongly supported Confucian studies in hopes of limiting the influence of foreign religions. The early Confucians had concentrated on practical issues of politics and morality, in their effort to organize a stable society. But during the Song dynasty scholars found much to admire in traditional Buddhist texts, which dealt with issues such as the nature of the soul and the individual's relationship with the cosmos. This development is important because this new form of Confucianism was the official creed of China from the Song dynasty to the 20th century. | 19 | |
| 6549284309 | Schism in Christianity | The East-West Schism, sometimes known as the Great Schism, divided medieval Christianity into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively. | 20 | |
| 6549284310 | Schism in Islam (Shia/Sunni) | Disagreements over succession led to the emergence of the Shia sect, which had supported Ali (Muhammad's cousin) and his hereditary descendants as caliphs after the death of Muhammad. But support for Abu Bakr was stronger and his supports formed the Sunni or "traditionalists" sect. The Shia resisted the victorious Sunni faction, and adopted distinct doctrines and rituals. They served as a base of support for opponents of Sunni leadership. | 21 | |
| 6549284311 | Tenochtitlan | Capital of the Aztec Empire, located on an island in Lake Texcoco. Its population was about 150,000 on the eve of Spanish conquest. Mexico City was constructed on its ruins. | 22 | |
| 6549484638 | Umayyad Dynasty | After the death of Muhammad a succession crisis emerged. The elders of Medina selected the first four Caliphs, which means "deputy" and would be the spiritual leader of the umma, or Islamic community, and the political leader. These 4 were close "companions of the Prophet" and seen as "Rightly Guided Caliphs." They went on the offensive against towns that rejected Islam after Muhammad's death, and reasserted their political independence. Within a year Abu Bakr had compelled them to recognize Islam and the rule of the Caliph. In the next century Islam expanded into the Byzantine and Persian Sasanid territory and beyond into India and Egypt. After the assassination of the 4th Caliph, Ali, the problem of succession was solved for a time by the Umayyads. This wealthy merchant family from Mecca moved the Islamic capital to Damascus because that thriving commercial city better enabled communication with the newly vast Islamic empire. The Umayyads ruled the Islamic empire as conquerors, and their policies enriched an Arab Military aristocracy. For Example, all bureaucratic jobs went only to Arabs. This caused resentment from all other groups in the Empire. They allowed conquered people to observe their own religions, but requireed a special tax, called the jizya. In the early 700s new Caliphs were accused of increasingly luxurious living rather than spiritual leadership, and by 750 they faced resistance from even Arab Muslims. This dynasty was toppled in 750 by the Abbasids who executed most of the clan. | 23 | |
| 6575558758 | Sui Dynasty | (589-618 CE) This short Chinese dynasty was like the Qin Dynasty in imposing tight political discipline; it built the Grand Canal which connected the two rivers of China (Yellow in N and Yangtze in S) and helped transport the rice in the south to the north, but required millions of forced laborers to build. High taxes, forced labor and military loses in Korea prompted a revolt that ended this Dynasty. | 24 | |
| 6575615288 | Tang Dynasty | (618-907 CE) This Chinese dynasty was similar to the Han, who used Confucianism to build a more fair society than the harsh Qin that had come before it. Similarly, this dynasty was more fair to the peasants than their predecessors, the Sui, which demanded high taxes and forced labor (called corvee labor). This dynasty introduced the equal-field system (which redistributed land from wealthy to peasants), a bureaucracy based on merit, and a Confucian education system, which expanded in this dynasty because of the invention of paper printing. Population grew especially because of the high-yield Champa rice strain from Vietnam, which ripened much faster and could be harvested more often. In the Early part of this dynasty Buddhism was popular, but in the late period it was persecuted as Neo-Confucianism became dominant. | 25 | |
| 9601824395 | Swahili City-States | Bustling commercial centers, such as Kilwa, Mombasa, and Zanzibar. The name of this group means "coastal people," and their language is a Bantu language that includes a lot of Arabic words. They formed a common culture through regular trading contact, similar to the Greeks of the classical age. However, they were not incorporated into any empire. These cities emerged along with the Indian Ocean trade network and were sustained by trade wealth more than agricultural surpluses. They attracted Islamic merchants around the 10th century, and traded gold, slaves, ivory, tortoise shells and leopard skins, which they exchanged for pottery and textiles from Muslim merchants. | 26 | |
| 9601895803 | Malaccan Strait | Indian Ocean trade passed through this strategic point in Southeast Asia beginning around 350 C.E., and it spread Indian culture, especially Buddhism, here as well. The Malay Kingdom of Srivijaya united the many small ports in the region from 670 to 1025 C.E. It used trade-based wealth (gold, spices, and taxes on passing ships) to pay for the bureaucracy and military needed to fund a centralized government. Srivijaya grew into a major center of Buddhist observance and teaching, attracting thousands of monks and students from throughout the Buddhist world. | 27 | |
| 9603767883 | An Lushan Rebellion | In 755 the Tang emperor neglected public affairs in favor of his interest in music and his mistress, and this event is named for the military commander that rebelled against the Emperor and captured the capital at Chang'an. The rebellion weakened the Tang dynasty because the Emperor had invited a foreign army of Uighurs to crush the rebellion and ransack the capital as their reward. After this the Tang imperial house never regained full control of the Empire. The equal field system deteriorated, and dwindling tax receipts failed to meet dynastic needs, and imperial armies failed to stop nomadic invaders from the north. | 28 | |
| 9604559232 | Tribute System | The traditional Chinese diplomatic order, in which China imagined itself as the Middle Kingdom, a powerful realm with the responsibility to bring order to lesser lands, and neighboring lands would recognize Chinese Emperors as their overlord. To show this, visitors from outside states would present gifts to the Emperor and preform the kowtow (a ritual bowing in which subordinates knelt before the emperor and touched their foreheads to the ground). In return, the outside visitor received lavish gifts and the right to trade in Chinese trade cities. This system was important because it normalized relations between China and neighboring lands and it brought people together for trade and cultural exchange. In practice, this system sometimes was used by powerful nomadic groups like the Xiongnu (during the Han Era) to demand huge payments of grain, wine, and silk, which were officially termed "silk." In this twist of the system, the Chinese were really paying vast riches to keep the nomads from raiding their cities. | 29 | |
| 9618714725 | Song Dynasty | The imperial dynasty of China from 960 to 1279; noted for art and literature and philosophy. They never built a very militarily powerful state. They placed emphasis instead on civil administration, industry, education, and the arts. The first emperor, Song Taizu, who was a military commander, persuaded his generals to retire to a life of leisure, which prevented them from overthrowing him and led this dynasty to tightly control the military. This dynasty greatly expanded the number of civil service jobs (aka state bureaucratic jobs) and paid them even better than previous dynasties. This led to many more people seeking a Confucian education and taking the civil service exam. This also increased social mobility and allowed more people to move from a peasant life to a wealthy professional class. However, it was too expensive to pay for this very large imperial bureaucracy, and it emptied the treasury. This caused the Emperor to raise taxes, which aggravated the peasants, who started two major rebellions in the 1100's. Additionally, the scholar bureaucrats controlled the military and without real military training, they made poor military decisions which gave room for the Mongols to build their strength and eventually overthrow this dynasty in 1279. During this Dynasty agricultural production increased because of several innovations such as iron plows and increased use of Champa rice strains, which caused the population to grow from 60 to 115 million. This increase led to urbanization, with cities of one million people, increased merchant activity, and many new innovations like gunpowder, printing, and paper money. | 30 |
