Historians’ name for the territories of Europe that

adhered to the Latin rite of Christianity and used the Latin

language for intellectual exchange in the period ca. 1000–

1500.

A rotational system for agriculture in

which one field grows grain, one grows legumes, and one lies fallow. It gradually replaced two-field system in medieval Europe

An outbreak of bubonic plague that spread

across Asia, North Africa, and Europe in the mid-fourteenth

century, carrying off vast numbers of persons

A mechanism that harnesses the energy in

flowing water to grind grain or to power machinery. It was used in many parts of the world but was especially common in Europe from 1200 to 1900.

An economic and defensive alliance of the

free towns in northern Germany, founded about 1241 and most powerful in the fourteenth century

In medieval Europe, an association of men (rarely

women), such as merchants, artisans, or professors, who worked in a particular trade and banded together to promote their economic and political interests. Guilds were also important in other societies, such as the Ottoman and

Safavid empires.

A period of intense artistic and

intellectual activity, said to be a “rebirth” of Greco-Roman culture. Usually divided into an Italian Renaissance, from roughly the mid-fourteenth to mid-fifteenth century, and a

Northern (trans-Alpine) Renaissance, from roughly the early fifteenth to early seventeenth century.

 Degree-granting institutions of higher learning.

Those that appeared in Latin West from about 1200 onward became the model of all modern universities

A mechanical device for transferring text or

graphics from a woodblock or type to paper using ink. Presses using movable type first appeared in Europe in about 1450. See also movable type.

A division in the Latin (Western)  Christian Church between 1378 and 1417, when rival claimants to the papacy existed in Rome and Avigno.

 (1337–1453)

Series of campaigns over control of the throne of France, involving English and French royal families and French noble families.

Historians’ term for the monarchies in

France, England, and Spain from 1450 to 1600. The centralization of royal power was increasing within more or less fixed territorial limit

Beginning in the eleventh century,

military campaigns by various Iberian Christian states to recapture territory taken by Muslims. In 1492 the last Muslim ruler was defeated, and Spain and Portugal emerged as united kingdoms