History

• Pope


  The head of the Catholic Church, he was considered God's living representative on earth.
• Catholic


  A form of Christianity which has the Pope as the head of the Church.
• Purgatory


  The space between heaven and hell where people, who are not destined for hell, spend time to pay for their sins before they can get into heaven.
• Bishop


  A senior member of the Christian clergy.
• Pilgrimage


  A difficult journey to a Holy Place.
• Holy Land


  The lands of the Middle East surrounding Jerusalem, modern day Israel, Palestine and Syria.
• Jerusalem


  A city that was considered the centre of Christianity, the city was also a place of religious significance for Muslims.
• Taking the Cross


  The term for when a Christian decided to go on crusade, devoting themselves to the armed pilgrimage.
• Archbishop


  The head bishop in a country or area.
• Excommunication


  When the Pope would exclude someone from the Church.
• Pennance


  Going through suffering to purify oneself from the sins that they have committed.
• Cannonise


  Someone is cannonised when they are made into a saint. This can only happen if they have died for their faith.
• Piety


  The strength and purity of someone's faith.
• Literacy


  Being able to read and write. As not many people were literate in the Middle Ages, they depended on monks to read the bible for them.
• Chronicles

  Medieval texts that recorded everything happening at the time. Most of our written records from the medieval period come because the monks wrote these. The monks also made copies of ancient texts which is why we have them now too.
• Abbess


  The head of a nunnary. The nuns could vote them in.
• Protestant


  The Christians that protested against the Pope and the Catholic Church. While they were still Christian, they had their own beliefs about Christianity that was more focused on getting into heaven based on receiving God's grace rather then good deeds.
• Martin Luther

  The German priest who became famous for criticising the Catholic Church as corrupt, greedy and devoid of piety.
• Antichrist


  This is the opposite of God's grace, a representation of the devil. This is how Martin Luther described the Pope.
• Latin


  All Catholic bibles were written in latin in the Medieval period and the clergy could read latin, and the clergy did not think that the average person should need to read the bible as they could follow the teachings of their priest and the Pope.
• Vernacular


  The language of a given country. So, when bibles were written in the vernacular in Britain, they were being written in English.
• Indulgence


  A pardon from the clergy, paid for by the person wanting forgiveness.
• 95 Theses


  The list of points that Martin Luther nailed to the church door in Wittinberg, Germany, 1517, to criticise the Catholic Church.
• Monarch


  The king or queen. In Protestantism a country's monarch was the head of the religion there, not the pope.
• Printing press


  The first printers. It allowed for the fast spread of books, specifically those made by Martin Luther and bibles in vernacular.
• Living God


  Protestants believed that, instead of the Pope, God's representative on earth was the monarch. They had already been selected to rule by God.
• Clergy


  Priests, nuns and those that are part of the church.
• Laity


  People who attend church who are not part of the priests or nuns etc.
• Monasteries


  The isolated churches just for monks. Henry VIII made a deliberate effort to abolish these when he broke with Rome. He took a lot of their wealth when he did.
• Idolatry


  The worship of false religions. In Henry VIII's case this was Catholicism once he had broken with Rome.
• Vatican City


  The tiny independent city inside of Rome where the Pope is in charge and lives.
• Divine Right


  The belief that a king or queen was chosen to rule by God.
• Aragon


  The Spanish kingdom that Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine, came from.
• Annuled


  When a wedding is canceled. Henry VIII annulled his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves, the first and fouth wives.
• Succession

  The order of the royal family in terms of who will take the throne.
• Heir


  The member of the royal family selected to rule after the current monarch dies.
• Soverignty


  The exclusive power of a country or monarch to rule themselves without outside influence.
• Papal Bull


  A Pope's order or letter.
• Edward VI


  The heir to the throne after Henry VIII. He died young which led to Mary I taking the throne for a short time and then Elizabeth I.
• Renaissance

  A period of rebirth in which Europe made new discoveries and begun to question the way things had been.