Medieval Europe – Guided Notes
1. The historical period known as the _______ ______ or Medieval Times began after the _______
Empire fell to Germanic tribes in _____ AD and would continue for the next 1,000 years in some
places.
2. The fall of Rome caused a dramatic decrease in ______ among the people of Europe as they
were forced to abandon the cities pillaged by the Barbarians and retreat to live in the more rural
areas to fend for themselves.
3. In the northernmost regions of the Empire, the invaders that took over the lands were the
__________ from Scandinavia like the Rus.
4. These Norsemen, or people of the North, were so set on conquering good farmland that around
the year 1,000, their leader ______ __________ briefly est. a colony as far away as North
America.
5. Although Western Roman Civilization was destroyed and now at the mercy of several
barbarian/Germanic tribes, the _________ side of the empire survived as Greek speaking
Christians that would come to be known as the ________________ Empire.
6. The Fall of the Western Roman Empire, however, established an immediate sense of fear, chaos,
and weak ______________ all throughout western Europe. This uncivilized way of life is why at
least the first half or 500 years of the Middle Ages is also known as the Dark Ages. As a result,
the majority of the Middle Ages in Europe was defined by lack of a central government and
therefore lack of access to classical or traditional Roman culture. As a result Latin was not only
no longer written, but began to no longer be spoken as it gradually mixed with the Germanic
tongues of the barbarian tribes to produce what are known mostly as Romance languages
today.
7. Around 800, a Germanic Ruler finally came along who tried to bring stability once again. Charles
the Great, or ________________ , King of the Franks; tried to re-unite the lands of the former
Roman Empire as Western Europe’s first ____________ Emperor since the fall of Rome.
8. After his death, Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire was split apart by his descendants and as
each generation thereafter began to fight over who’s part of the Empire was who’s, A system
known as _____________ took root that would dominate Europe for the rest of the Middle
Ages. This system of mutual obligation is based on _____ in exchange for __________ and
military service.
9. In this system, any person who owns land is a _______ and is therefore part of the nobility or a
Feudal ______.
10. A Medieval Lord could sometimes own or control a lot of land, but the portion of it on which he
lived and that provided for his family was called the ________.
11. The peasants or landless farmers who lived on, worked, and maintained the lord’s manor were
called ________.
12. This ____________ System was established or otherwise functioned because the majority of
folks needed ____________.
13. If attacked by the army of an enemy _______, everyone living on the manor would run inside
the lord’s __________, who’s main purpose was to function as a ________ _______.
14. Serfs were provided not only ___________ by their lord, but with access to materials to build
_________ and enough ______ and livestock to feed their families.
15. In return the serf worked the lord’s ________, maintained his manor, and paid him _______
from his portion of the crop.
16. Every lord is noble because his ______ was granted to him by another lord. This makes him a
_________ to that lord. The only nobles who are possibly not vassals are ______.
17. The land granted from a lord to his vassal is called a _______. In exchange for this land the
vassal must provide military service himself or protection for his lord.
18. Vassals/Lords/Nobles that provide the military protection themselves in exchange for their land
are called ________. They prided themselves on this fact and lived by a Code of Conduct known
to this day in our culture as ____________.
19. This Code required that he always fight for not only his feudal lord, but for his ___________
Lord, as well as his chosen ______. The son of a noble who wished to become a knight would
begin his training at age 7 when he would go to live as a page or servant in the knight’s home.
At age 14, the boy became a squire and truly began directly serving the knight and formal
training for knighthood around the age of 21 or at his first opportunity to prove himself worthy.
20. Since the Church placed limits on times of War, a knight stayed mentally and physically prepared
by training for and participating in _______________, that included events such as sword
fighting and the main even; jousting.
21. These events could not prepare them for every aspect of Medieval Warfare, however. As most
battles took place not on open ground but were attacks or sieges on _________, weapons such
as catapults, battering rams, and siege towers were also used.
22. The main reason that people accepted Medieval society the way it was and their position in it;
the majority of people being serfs, was that they believed it was God’s will. During the middle
ages, the only force that had always been there, that had survived the Fall of Rome, and
therefor provided unification and _____________ for the people was the Roman
_____________ _________.
23. As a result, almost everyone in Medieval Europe displayed religious devotion or piety toward
the ______, the Head of the Church, no matter what their situation. One way in which this piety
was displayed was by giving 1/10 of what they owned or earned to the Church as a tithe.
24. People who did not obey canon or church laws such as tithing risked __________________, the
severe punishment of being kicked out of the church altogether. Money from tithing combined
with the influence of the culture of the Germanic peoples that had gradually turned to
Christianity during the Middle Ages such as the Visigoths & the Ostrogoths , led to an
architectural style of building Churches known as Gothic; which contained elements such as
flying buttresses, pointed arches, and stained glass windows.
25. This Germanic influence on the Church of Rome may have played a role in the first official split
or separation within the Christian religion in 1054. Known as the _______ ________, the original
Christian Church in Rome became officially known as the __________ Church while the
Byzantine Empire’s Church based in _______________ became known as the Eastern
____________ Church.
26. Not long after this split, the ______ (Urban II) saw an opportunity to come to the aid of
Christians in the East and reunite the faith by launching or calling for the 1st ____________.
27. The Crusades were several attempts by ______________ knights from Europe to free the
_______ ________ from rule by the _________ Seljuk Turks.
28. Although the first Crusade was a huge success, Christians were overmatched in the 2nd by
Muslim leader __________, the Seljuk Turk who recovered the Holy Land from them.
29. During the 3rd Crusade, __________ the ______-_________, King of England, led the Christians
against Saladin and was able to recover some territory lost to him in the 2nd, but not the Holiest
City, ____________, which remains for the most part under Muslim control to this day.
30. The Crusades had a few very positive effects on Europe, however, including increased _______
from the Middle East and the outside world in general which helped to improve technology and
started to weaken ______________ as a result of that as well as the loss in knight population.
31. Due to these factors, the Late Middle Ages saw serfs leaving the manor to become
_________and ________ in newly formed trade centers in Germany called burghs. There they
formed associations to protect their new trades or professions from being taken away from
them called _________.
32. The most destructive impact of the Crusades on European society was unfortunately the result
of these positive ones. It was not the loss of life in the battles, but the Black Death or the
_________ ___________ that would decrease Europe’s population by ___. It was these
__________ or merchants bringing goods to Europe from the Middle East at first and then
traveling from there and selling their goods that are most responsible for spreading the Plague
throughout Europe.
33. So many serfs died of plague that the ____________ system was almost completely destroyed
as those who survived simply left the manor to try and escape it. Not only did the lords lose
control of their serfs but so did the monasteries, as its doors were closed to the sick in many
cases, prayers for healing went unanswered, and it did not avoid the clergy either. No doubt the
Bubonic Plague did its greatest damage to the reputation and prestige of the __________
___________ in Europe.
34. The ________ Death was one of the main things that led to the decline and eventual death of
__________ society.
35. Another key factor in bringing feudalism and the ___________ ________ to an end was the
_____ ________ _______ between England and France.
36. ________ of _____ brought the Hundred Years War to a decisive turning point by leading and
inspiring _________ troops to victory.
37. However, she was captured by the ________ and tried by the _______________, a court
created by the Catholic Church to find and try people for _______. She was found guilty because
she said she had spoken with an angel of the Lord and she was burned at the stake.
Renaissance & Reformation – Guided Notes
1. Thanks to its location in the Mediterranean, the Renaissance began in _______ due to the fact
that it was the first stop for wealthy ___________ from the Middle East as trade began to
increase after the Crusades. As a result several new _______ began to spring up and thrive
there. But its central city was still ______ which was not open to new ideas so as these cities
began to flourish, they did so by revitalizing _________ culture of Ancient Greece & Rome.
2. However, some new ideas of other cultures inevitably had an influence on this Renaissance, or
________ of classical culture, as can be seen in the more __________ paintings and sculptures
of its artists.
3. The study of the classics, or the culture/history/art/literature etc. of the Ancient Greeks and
Romans during the Renaissance was known as ______________, because its purpose was to
enable a person or society as a whole to achieve or reach their full human potential.
4. The Italian or the ______ Renaissance has come to be associated or defined mostly by the works
of ___________ da Vinci, _____________ Buonarroti, and _____________ Sanzio.
5. The first of these three men more than anyone else in history, defines what it is to be a true
________________ _____ because of his vast display of skills and knowledge in so many areas
from painting, to sculpture, to architect, to engineer, to scientist, etc…
6. His most famous paintings are the _______ ________ and the ______ ____________, perhaps
the two most famous paintings in the world to this day.
7. The second of these artists, _______________, is most famous for lying on his back for 4 years
while painting the ceiling of the _____________ ________ in this famous trio’s hometown of
Florence, Italy. In addition, his sculpture of _________ is perhaps the most famous in the world.
The third and youngest of these artists, ____________, is famous for his paintings of the
_____________, or Virgin Mary (mother of Jesus).
8. The Italian Renaissance was not limited, however, to just paintings and sculpture. Perhaps the
most important author of the period was Niccolo __________________ who wrote The
_________. This book is still considered one of the best sources for leaders who want to know
how to gain and maintain power.
9. This book was one of the first to be written in the language of everyday speech in that region
since the Fall of Rome or in the Italian _____________. The first was Dante’s Inferno by Dante
Alighieri. The first English vernacular author was Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote the Canterbury
Tales.
10. Unfortunately for King John I of England, the Prince was written not only in Italian, but about
300 years too late, as he was forced by his noble subjects to sign a document in 1215 known as
the _________ _________ , or Great Charter in Latin. This document was eventually used to
strengthen the idea that the power of a ____________ was not _____________ but limited by
the will of the people. Eventually, the people of England would be represented by a body
known as Parliament with the power over that of the king to pass laws and grant taxes.
11. None of these works of Renaissance ______________ would have had even a fraction of the
impact they did on the future of Western Civilization without the invention of the __________
___________ in 1440 by a German named Johann ______________. Perhaps the greatest
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
invention of all time, allowing Renaissance ideas to spread at an exponential rate, he first used it
to print thousands of copies of the Bible to be translated into the many different vernaculars.
It was not a coincidence that it was in Germany that people first started to be able to read the
Bible on their own, nor that it was there on the doors of the church in Wittenburg that the Priest
_________ __________ posted his ___ Theses attacking the abuses and corruption of the
Catholic Church and its power, in particular the sale of ______________. This marked the
beginning of the ______________ ________________.
An indulgence is basically freedom from ____ or the need to ask for ______________ as a result.
Named for the man who first spoke out in protest of such Church abuses of power, the first
Christians to be non-Catholics in the Western world or _____________ called themselves the
______________, and still do.
____________ became the first country or nation as a whole to become Protestant when King
________ ______ broke away from the Catholic Church because the Pope denied his request to
__________ his marriage or divorce his wife (Still against canon law to this day). So they
became a theocracy, with the king as head of the Anglican Church instead of the Pope.
To ________ this Reformation by various groups of Protestants throughout Europe, an effort to
stand up for and spread _______________ was led by a Spanish Priest who came to be known
as __. ______________ of ___________. He did so by founding a group of ______ or catholic
missionaries that would spread Christianity all over the World called the Society of Jesus or the
__________.
As a result of the Reformation, Europe was no longer united by ____________ as several
denominations of ______________ churches began to flourish and individual _____________
like Henry VIII of England gained power.
But whether one chose to be or was forced to be Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern ___________;
they could at least find peace and common ground in knowing that they like everyone else in
Europe was at least still a _______________. They just had different ways of practicing and/or
interpreting what that meant.