Chapter 7

Confucian Classics-the ancient texts recovered during the Han Dynasty that Confucian scholars treated as sacred scriptures.

Silk Road- the trade routes across central Asia through which Chinese silk and other items were traded

Eunuchs-castrated males who played an important role as palace servants

Age of division- the period after the fall of the Han dynasty when china was politically divided

Grand canal- a canal, built during the Sui dynasty that connected the yellow and Yangzi Rivers. Notable for strengthening china’s internal cohesion and economic development

Pure land- a school of Buddhism that taught that calling on the Buddha Amitabha and his chief helper, one could achieve rebirth in Amitabha’s pure land paradise

Chan-a school of Buddhism that rejected the authority of the sutras and claimed the superiority of mind-to-mind transmission of Buddhist truths

Nara- Japan’s capital and the first true city; it was established in 710 and modeled on the Tang capital of Chang’an
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Chapter 8

Corpus Juris civilis- the “body of civil law,” it is composed of the code, the digest and the institutes.

Dioceses- geographic administrative districts of the church, each under the authority of a bishop and centered around cathedral

Arianism- a theological belief, originating with Arius, a priest from Alexandria that denied that Christ was co-eternal with god the father.

Popes- heads of the Roman Catholic Church, who became political as well as religious authorities. The period of a pope’s term in office is called a “pontificate.”

Orthodox church- another name for the eastern Christian church over which emperors continued to have power

Iconoclastic controversy-the conflict over the veneration of religious images in the Byzantine Empire

Sacraments- certain rituals of the church believed to act as a conduit of god’s grace, such as the Eucharist and baptism

Penance- ritual in which Christians asked a priest for forgiveness for sins, and the priest set certain actions to atone for the sins

Saints-people who were venerated for having lived or died in a way that was spiritually heroic or noteworthy

Wergild-compensatory payment for death or injury set in many barbarian law codes.

Merovingian- a dynasty founded in 481 by the Frankish chieftain Clovis in what is now France.
Merovingian derives from Merovech, the name of the semi legendary leader from who Clovis claimed decent

Carolingians- a dynasty of rulers that took over the Frankish kingdom from the Merovingian in the seventh century; Carolingians drives from the Latin work\d for “Charles,” the name of several members of this dynasty.

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Treaty of Verdun- a treaty ratified in 843 that divided Charlemagne’s territories among his three surviving grandsons; their kingdoms set the pattern for the modern states of France, Italy and Germany
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Chapter 9

Diwan- a unit of government

Imam- the leader in community prayer

Emirs- Arab governors who were given overall responsibility for public order, maintenance of the armed forces, and tax collection

Shari’a- Muslim law, which covers social, criminal, political, commercial and religious matters.

Vizier- the caliph’s chief assistant

Dhimmis- a term meaning “protected people”; they included Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians

Madrasa- a school for the study of Muslim law and religious science

Mozarabs- Christians who adopted some Arabic customs but did not convert
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Chapter 10

Sudan- the African region surrounded by the Sahara, the gulf of guinea, the Atlantic Ocean and the mountains of Ethiopia

Mogadishu- a Muslim port city in east Africa founded between the eighth and tenth centuries; today it is the capital of Somalia

Ghana- from the word for ruler, the name of a large and influential African kingdom inhabited by the Soninke people

Koumbi Saleh- the city in which the king of Ghana held his court

Timbuktu- originally a campsite for desert nomads, it grew into a thriving city under Mansa Musa, king of Mali and Africa’s most famous ruler

Aksum- a kingdom in northwestern Ethiopia that was a sizable trading sate and the enter of Christian culture

Swahili- the east African coastal culture, named after a Bantu language whose vocabulary and poetic forms exhibit strong Arabic influences

Kilwa- the most powerful city on the east coast of Africa by the late thirteenth century

Great Zimbabwe-a ruined South African city discovered by a German explorer in 1871; it is considered the most powerful monument south of the Nile valley and Ethiopian highlands.
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Chapter 11

Mesoamerica- the term used by scholars to designate the area of present day Mexico and central America

Khipu- an intricate system of knotted and colored strings used by early Peruvian cultures to store information such as census and tax records.

Olmecs- the oldest of early advanced Mesoamerican civilizations

Maya- a highly developed Mesoamerican culture centered in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. The Mayans created the most intricate writing system in the western hemisphere

Popul vuh- the book of council, a collection of mythological narratives and dynastic histories that constitutes the primary record of the Maya civilization

Mississippian- an important mound building culture that thrived between 800 and 1500 c.e. in a territory that extended from the Mississippi river to the Appalachian mountains. The largest mound produced by the is culture is found at Cahokia, Illinois

Nahuatl- the language of both the Toltecs and the Aztecs
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Mexica- the dominant ethnic group of what is now Mexico, who created an empire based on war and religion that reached its height in the mind 1400s; in the nineteenth century the people became known as Aztecs

Tenochtitlan- a large and prosperous Aztec city that was built starting in 1325

Moche- a Native American culture that thrived along Peru’s northern coast between 100 and 800 c.e. the culture existed as a series of city-states

Incas- the Andean people who created a large empire that was at its peak around 1500 and was held together by an extensive system of roads

Quechua- the official language of the Inca, it is still spoken by most Peruvian today
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Chapter 12

Nomads- groups of people who move from place to place in search of food, water, and pasture for their animals, usually following the seasons

Steppe- grasslands that are too dry for crops but support pasturing animals; they are common across much of the center of Eurasia

Yurts- tents in which the pastoral nomad lived; they could be quickly dismantled and loaded onto animals or carts

Protected people- the Muslim classification used for Hindus, Christians and Jews; they were allowed to follow their own religion but had to a pay a special tax

Jati- the thousands of Indian caste

Sati- a practice whereby a high-caste Hindu woman would throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre

Sanskrit’s- India’s classical literary language

Srivijaya- a maritime empire that held the Strait of Malacca and the waters around Sumatra, Borneo and java
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Chapter 13

Movable type- a system of printing in which one piece of type is used for each unique character

Concubine- a woman contracted to a man as a secondary spouse; although subordinate to the wife, her sons were considered legitimate heirs

Cloistered government- a system in which an emperor retired to a Buddhist monastery but continued to exercise power by controlling his young son on the throne

The tale of Genji- a Japanese literary masterpiece about court life written by lady Murasaki

Esoteric Buddhism- a sect of Buddhism that maintains that the secrets of enlightenment have been secretly transmitted from the Buddha and can be accessed through initiation in to the mandalas, mudras, and mantras.

Shogun-the Japanese general in chief, whose headquarters was the shogunate

Bushido- literally, the “way of the warrior”; the code of conduct by which samurai were expected to live

Zen- a school of Buddhism that emphasized meditation and truths that could not be conveyed in words
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Chapter 14

Serf- a peasant who lost his or her freedom and became permanently bound to the landed estate of a lord

Heresy- an opinion, belief, or action counter to doctrines that church leaders defines as correct; heretics could be punished by the church

Reconquista- a fourteenth century term used to describe the Christian crusade to wrest Spain back from the Muslims from 722 to 1492; clerics believed it was a sacred and patriotic mission

Crusade- holy wars sponsored by the papacy for the recovery of the holy land from the Muslims

Chivalry- a code of conduct that was supposed to govern he behavior of a knight

Craft guilds- associations of artisans organized to regulate the quality, quantity and price of the goods produced as a well as the number of affiliated apprentices and journeymen

Commercial revolution- the transformation of the economic structure of Europe, beginning in the eleventh century, from a rural, manorial society to a more complex mercantile society.

Gothic- the term for the architectural and artistic style that prevailed in Europe from the mid twelfth to the sixteenth century

Troubadours- medieval poets in southern Europe who wrote and sang lyrical verses.

Black death- the plague that first struck Europe in 1347, killing perhaps one-third of the population
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Chapter 15

Christian humanists- humanists from northern Europe who thought that the best elements of classical and Christian cultures should be combined and saw humanist leaning as a way to bring about reform of the church and deepen people’s spiritual lives

Debate about women- a discussion that attempted to answer fundamental questions about the gender and to define the role of women in society

Protestant reformation- a religious reform movement that began in the early sixteenth century that spilt the western Christian church

Indulgence- a papal statement granting remission of a priest- imposed penalty for sin
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Chapter 16

Bride wealth- in early modern Southeast Asia, a sum of money the groom paid the bride or her family at the time of marriage, in contrast to the husband’s control of dowry in China, India and Europe

Caravel- a small, maneuverable, three-mast sailing ship developed by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century that gave the Portuguese a distinct advantage in exploration and trade

Ptolemy’s geography- second century work that synthesized and introduced the concepts of longitude and latitude.

Treaty of tordesillas- the 1494 agreement giving Spain everything west of an imaginary line drawn down the Atlantic and giving Portugal everything to the east

Conquistador- Spanish solider-explorer, such as Cortes and Pizarro who sought ot conquer the new world for the Spanish crown

Mexica empire- (Aztec empire) a large and complex Native American civilization that possessed advanced mathematical, astronomical and engineering technology

Inca empire- the vast and sophisticated Peruvian empire centered at the capital city of Cuzco