crusades
Beginning in the eleventh century, a series of military actions against Islam for the purpose of retaking the Holy Land.
Gregory VII
A powerful pope that instituted papal authority to punish kings and emperors and demand celibacy among the clergy to allow them to judge and guide human action.
Thomas Aquinas
A Christian theologian who combined Aristotelian logic and knowledge with Christian faith to create the "Summa Theological" to standardize Christian belief.
The Great Schism
The split of the Christian church into Catholicism in the west and Orthodoxy in the east.
St. Augustine
Author of "City of God," a work that had profound influence on Christian theology throughout the Middle Ages and beyond.
Neolithic Age
A period of human culture characterized by the rise of farming and the use of technologically advanced stone implements.
Alexander the Great
Conqueror who unites the classical cultures of Greece, Persia, and India.
caliphs
Successors" to the prophet who led Islam after Muhammad's death.
feudalism
An intricate political system that involved trading services for land use during the Middle Ages.
sacraments
In Catholic doctrine, rituals performed by the church that grant the path to salvation.
High Middle Ages
A dynamic time of growth of population, cities, government, and commerce during the eleventh century Europe.
Muhammad
He is considered b the Muslims to e the last and the greatest of God's prophets.
Parthenon
A Doric temple of classical proportions set on the Acropolis of Ancient Athens, Greece.
Forum
The vital center of Roman public life a symbol of its imperial power.
Petrine Supremacy
The growing authority of the popes in spiritual matter dating to the time of St. Peter.
serfs
Medieval peasants bound to the land and the lord who held it in return for personal protection.
lay invesiture
A practice by which the emperor or ruler, a layman not of the church, could confer spiritual authority to a bishop outside the permission of the church.
Constantine
Roman emperor who embraced Christianity and moved the primary capital of the Empire to Byzantium.
acropolis
A rock outcropping in the center of Athens.
megalith
Any stones of great size used in ancient monuments.
Caesar Augustus
The first emperor of The Roman Empire.
Charlemagne
The greatest of the Carolingian kings who when crowned by the pope became the leader of the Holy Roman Empire.
guilds
Associations formed by merchants and craftsmen to supervise specific trades or crafts to guarantee quality and to train future craftsmen.
shiite
A sect within Islam that accepted only the descendants of Ali as the true rulers of Islam.
Hellenistic AGe
A time period from the fourth century BC to the first century BC when many classical cultures were united.
three fields system
A system of crop rotation that was devised to increase crop yield during the middle ages.
Phillip of Macedon
Conqueror of Greece uniting the city-states for the first time
Qur'an
Religious revelations from the prophet Muhammad and the holy book of Islam.