Western Civilization_ Volume B_ 1300 to 1815 - Jackson J. Spielvogel [350]
infanticide the practice of killing infants.
inflation a sustained rise in the price level.
intendants royal officials in seventeenth-century France who were sent into the provinces to execute the orders of the central government.
interdict in the Catholic Church, a censure by which a region or country is deprived of receiving the sacraments.
intervention, principle of the idea, after the Congress of Vienna, that the great powers of Europe had the right to send armies into countries experiencing revolution to restore legitimate monarchs to their thrones.
isolationism a foreign policy in which a nation refrains from making alliances or engaging actively in international affairs.
Janissaries an elite core of eight thousand troops personally loyal to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
jihad “striving in the way of the Lord.” In Islam, the attempt to achieve personal betterment, although it can also mean fair, defensive fighting to preserve one’s life and one’s faith.
joint-stock company a company or association that raises capital by selling shares to individuals who receive dividends on their investment while a board of directors runs the company.
joint-stock investment bank a bank created by selling shares of stock to investors. Such banks potentially have access to much more capital than private banks owned by one or a few individuals.
justification the primary doctrine of the Protestant Reformation, teaching that humans are saved not through good works but by the grace of God, bestowed freely through the sacrifice of Jesus.
Kulturkampf “culture conflict.” The name given to Bismarck’s attack on the Catholic Church in Germany, which has come to refer to conflict between church and state anywhere.
laissez-faire “let (them) do (as they please).” An economic doctrine that holds that an economy is best served when the government does not interfere but allows the economy to self-regulate according to the forces of supply and demand.
latifundia large landed estates in the Roman Empire (singular: latifundium).
lay investiture the practice in which someone other than a member of the clergy chose a bishop and invested him with the symbols of both his temporal office and his spiritual office; led to the Investiture Controversy, which was ended by compromise in the Concordat of Worms in 1122.
Lebensraum “living space.” The doctrine, adopted by Hitler, that a nation’s power depends on the amount of land it occupies; thus, a nation must expand to be strong.
legitimacy, principle of the idea that after the Napoleonic wars, peace could best be reestablished in Europe by restoring legitimate monarchs who would preserve traditional institutions; guided Metternich at the Congress of Vienna.
Leninism Lenin’s revision of Marxism that held that Russia need not experience a bourgeois revolution before it could move toward socialism.
liberal arts the seven areas of study that formed the basis of education in medieval and early modern Europe. Following Boethius and other late Roman authors, they consisted of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic or logic (the trivium) and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the quadrivium).
liberalism an ideology based on the belief that people should be as free from restraint as possible. Economic liberalism is the idea that the government should not interfere in the workings of the economy. Political liberalism is the idea that there should be restraints on the exercise of power so that people can enjoy basic civil rights in a constitutional state with a representative assembly.
limited monarchy (constitutional monarchy) a system of government in which the monarch is limited by a representative assembly and by the duty to rule in accordance with the laws of the land.
major domus the chief officer of the king’s household in the Frankish kingdom.
mandates a system established after World War I whereby a nation officially administered a territory (mandate) on behalf