History Terms Flashcards

Question

Gabelle

Answer 1

These were taxes placed on objects of consumption. The most important in many countries was the salt gabelle, where one could control the acquisition of minimum amounts of the product for each locality. In addition to the minimum purchase for people and animals, one could buy additional amounts from designated vendors who possessed a licence. The variation in cost from one jurisdiction to another resulted in vast rings of people selling salt from unauthorized locations.

Answer 2

With the accession of the Bourbon King Philip V to the thrones of Spain, French and Spanish armies operated combined contingents in Iberia and Italy. Gallispan was the term designating Franco-Spanish forces.

Answer 3

Originally a galley wide enough and high enough to carry cargo, Venice repurposed these to carry cannon firing from the sides and hundreds of soldiers. Slow, expensive in manpower but manoeuvrable in calm weather, these warships possessed many times the firepower of a typical galley. Ottoman galeasses were called 'mahones'.

Answer 4

These originated as heavily armoured aristocratic cavalry companies in government pay, although each gendarme was followed by a handful of retainers and volunteers. The expectation of high pay, the requirement of an expensive charger, and the cost of fill body armour limited their numbers to just a few companies after the late sixteenth century.

Answer 5

Warriors who fight to extend the influence of Islam against infidels and non-Moslems. No permanent peace could be established with unbelievers, and ghazis raided their territories even if formal peace had been signed.

Answer 6

These consisted of about 70 senior aristocratic houses, connected to each other through marriage and kinship, who dominated the French court in the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries. Each one might hold sway over large districts of the provinces.

Answer 7

An elite assault unit derived from Venetian troops at the siege of Candia. Originally specialized in throwing bombs into enemy trenches, they came to constitute sections of every regiment or even battalions and regiments detailed for especially dangerous tasks.

Answer 8

Border militias created along the southern frontier of the kingdom of Hungary. In exchange for the absence of serfdom, access to cultivated land, religious toleration of Orthodox clergy and low taxation, these farmer-sol-diers (Croatian if Catholic, Serbian if Orthodox) skirmished against Ottoman raiders and made forays of their own into Bosnia and Ottoman Serbia. They fought in loose order, and were unreliable as regular infantry in line of battle.

Answer 9

Broadly defined, haiduks were irregular infantry raised by Magyar lords from their fiefs to defend their castles and to skirmish with Ottoman invaders. Some, however, were refugees from Ottoman territories who were resettled, like the grenzers in frontier villages of eastern Hungary, free of serf-dom, in exchange for military service.

Answer 10

This Imperial War Council, a bureaucratic committee, located in Vienna after 1612, consisted of several dozen courtiers, both civilians and military. Their task was to oversee the processes of recruitment, selection and promotion of officers, provisioning of troops in the field and military procurement.

Answer 11

Feudal lords raised contingents of light cavalry in addition to haiduk infantry that would skirmish with the Ottoman invader. They fought in loose order and were not effective against tight formations of cavalry. Polish hussars, on the other hand, were armoured heavy cavalry designed for battlefield deployment.

Answer 12

The Polish and medieval Hungarian kings were kept tightly in check by powerful feudal lords, the magnates. The response to enemy threats was to declare a general mobilization of vassals led by their lords in the field. In addition, nobles in the two kingdoms enjoyed a legal right of armed rebellion against royal abuse of power. Leopold I removed this from the Hungarian consitution in 1682, but such rebellions continued until 1711.

Answer 13

Technically slave-soldiers of the sultan, they were levied as adolescents from Christian populations, primarily in the Balkans, converted to Islam and dispatched to Istanbul for training as professional soldiers. A large contingent of them resided in the capital, where they constituted a turbulent pressure group capable of overthrowing both sultans and viziers.

Answer 14

Like the Swiss mercenaries on whom they were modelled, these were professional infantry who followed German princes in the field on multiple theatres in the sixteenth century. Conscious of their value to their employers, the rank and file had considerable influence over their working conditions and the application of military justice.

Answer 15

A government licence conceded to privateers authorizing them to capture enemy ships and crews. The letters specified which banners were off limits to them and what percentage of the prizes would revert back to the government. A single letter might serve for multiple ships operating in concert.

Answer 16

Infantry and cavalry troops attached to the jurisdiction of the French court, instead of the army, designed to guard the royal household and to take part in its ceremonies. Given their proximity to the monarch, these were elite regiments with numerous aristocrats even among the rank and file, destined to become officers in other regiments. Precursor of the Napoleonic Imperial Guard, the household troops served actively on campaign.

Answer 17

Irregular bands of infantry and cavalry following their noble leaders into rebellion against the Habsburg sovereigns, Leopold I (1655-1705) and Joseph I (1705-1711). Pressed by German regular forces, they would withdraw across the Ottoman and Polish frontiers.

Answer 18

Early firing mechanisms for muskets were often too fragile for use on campaign. The matchlock was the most reliable of these: it entailed attaching a wick (burning at both ends) to the lock, which was lowered to the priming pan when pulling on the trigger. They were not substituted on a large scale by the quicker-firing flintlock until after 1700.

Answer 19

A particular jurisdiction along the eastern border of Habsburg Hungary, then the southern border with the Ottoman along the River Sava, in which the population enjoyed freedom from Magyar and Croat feudalism, a measure of religious toleration for Orthodox clergy and low taxation. The farmer-militia population served in village-based militia companies under their own leaders.

Answer 20

These were private businessmen who specialized in supplying armies. They differed from ordinary merchants in two important ways. They needed to accumulate very large amounts of a few products and then transport them over long distances quickly. Second, they might face long delays of payment by a cash-strapped government, and so needed access to credit.

Answer 21

In order to facilitate the continued rise of experienced officers to higher ranks, and to downplay the influence of senior commanders and dignitaries of the realm, Louvois and Louis XIV established a chart indicating at what point each officer was due for promotion. Undistinguished soldiers could be held back, while those showing great promise could be fast-tracked, but regularity of promotion was the principal aim.

Answer 22

Makeshift forts constructed of logs and reinforced earthworks strong enough to withstand limited artillery bombardments multiplied on both sides of the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier in the sixteenth century. They constituted command and surveillance strongpoints and served as a base for raiders. They were not built to sustain long bombardment from heavy canon.

Answer 23

A method of digging a sap that economized on labour and which afforded greater protection to the trench crews. Each parallel was dug wide enough to advance cannon and mortars forward and to protect them with infantry parties.

Answer 24

A universal instinctive reaction whereby men who survive a dangerous military operation lose heart and abandon security meas-ures. Until they recover, they will not be capable of new efforts.

Answer 25

Term designating work parties building earthworks and bridges, clearing or blocking roads, under the direction of an officer or an engineer. They might be drawn from the regular soldiers, or from the militia, or might include civilian volunteers working for pay.

Answer 26

A document modifying the constitutions of the Habsburg hereditary states (Austrian lands, Bohemia, Hungary, Naples and the Low Countries) in order to admit smooth succession of rule to a female candidate, in the absence of a male. Signed by officials from each of those subject terri-tories, most other European powers added their signatures in exchange for various advantages. Frederick II of Prussia, whose father signed the docu-ment, repudiated the treaty in 1740 and triggered the War of the Austrian Succession.

Answer 27

French non-venal officials held commissions sending them to a province for several years, with the task of supervising the smooth functioning of the royal administration so as to facilitate the levy of taxes. They corresponded daily with the central government and identified political problems as they emerged. By the early 1700s, similar officials were established in Spain and in Piedmont-Sardinia.

Answer 28

A defensive strategy that organized the frontier behind a fairly straight line of interlocking fortresses. It more clearly demarcated the border with the enemy at the same time.

Answer 29

The Holy Roman Empire was subdivided into ten different circles containing larger and smaller states. These consented to levy troops and money for collective defence under their own officers. The regiments generally fought under the direction of Imperial generals, but large states might finance their own standing armies.

Answer 30

A triangular free-standing structure placed in the ditch of a fortress, usually between two bastions so as to block the ability of guns to hit those parts of the fortification. Cannon could be placed in them in order to slow the advance of enemy sappers. Ravelins were open to the rear, enabling mus keteers in the main fortress to fire on enemy soldiers occupying it.

Answer 31

Not just composed of real estate, the domain was made up of all the prerogatives of a prince and recognized his right to monetize access to these resources. In addition to rights over public forests and to underground minerals, tolls and tariffs, the domain included pardons, legitimization of bastards, naturalization of foreign-born subjects, conferral of nobility and titles.

Answer 32

A renegade was someone who renounced God for personal advantage. The term was applied to Christians who converted to Islam freely in order to serve the Ottomans. This gave the Ottoman Empire a direct conduit to European technology.

Answer 33

Initially, these were Protestant refugees fleeing Spanish repression of the Dutch Revolt in 1567-1568. From their refuges they harassed Spanish and neutral shipping and launched pinprick attacks on the occupied Netherlands. Foreign ships and men (like French Huguenots) soon constituted a large portion of them.

Answer 34

A purpose-built warship (unsuitable for commerce) large enough to be able to take its place in the line of battle with other similar ships. A huge investment in naval capital (each one carried more cannon than a large fortress) they carried large fighting crews of seamen and soldiers.

Answer 35

Armoured cavalry of the Ottoman empire, the cost of whose horses and weapons was usually supported by a revenue-bearing timar. They fought in loose order, frequently changing horses when the animals tired, and were expert in mounted archery, like other Asian cavalry.

Answer 36

A surprise attack on the besieger's trenches by parties of troops defending a fortress. If successful, they could spike the cannon and fill in part of the works, thereby delaying the progress of a siege.

Answer 37

A series of interconnected roads passing over the Italian Alps and crossing Switzerland, Savoy, Franche-Comté, the Rhineland and Lorraine to reach Luxembourg and the Spanish Low Countries. Spanish troops and provisions raised or equipped in Lombardy regularly reinforced the Spanish Army of Flanders.

Answer 38

Originally the military governor of each province in the Nether-lands, this dignitary enjoyed command over local troops. During the Dutch revolt against Spain, five of the seven rebel provinces endowed William of Orange and his heirs with this office. The power and prestige accruing to the office made leaders of the House of Orange the uncrowned kings of the Dutch Republic.

Answer 39

A direct tax levied on each hearth, or household, assessed by local authorities on the value of its real estate, which was specified in a large register. Aristocratic and ecclesiastic landowners were not usually subject to this tax, and poor people with no land were not liable to it either.

Answer 40

Descendants of the Turkic and Mongol Golden Horde that dominated medieval Russia and the steppes of the Ukraine, they settled in and around the Crimean Peninsula where they practised a limited agriculture. Tatar leaders recognized the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan and served his armies in a mercenary capacity. Tatar raids deep into Eastern Europe took as many as two million slaves from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, who were mostly shipped to Istanbul.

Answer 41

In a period before government bureaucrats could assess the wealth of each household, the right to collect taxes was leased to individuals or a consortium of businessmen who advanced large sums of money at regular intervals to the state, and then recouped their outlay (and a profit, too) by collecting taxes door to door. A "farm" was a lease, usually obtained in a competitive bidding process. The lease usually covered several years, for harvest failures or war might reduce everyone's revenues in the short term.

Answer 42

Originally, these constituted permanent formations of professional Spanish or Italian infantry comprising ten or fifteen companies, led by a mestre de camp or a colonel holding a commission from the Crown. The long duration of standing infantry companies was a novelty in the sixteenth century and enabled them to build a large nucleus of veterans.

Answer 43

A revenue-bearing local jurisdiction created by the Ottoman sultans in Anatolia, Greece and the Balkans destined to pay the costs of a mounted sipahi and a couple of retainers or subalternate soldiers. Sipahis lost their timar if they could not serve personally on campaign or send a son or close relative in their stead), and they were rarely held for long periods of time.

Answer 44

This policy of the Spanish chief minister, or valido, Count Duke of Olivares (1623-1642), established an annual quota of men and money from each of the constituent territories of the Spanish empire in Europe, thereby spreading the weight of war more equally. The policy was resisted by force of arms in regions with long traditions of self-government and consensual taxation, such as Catalonia, Portugal and Sicily.

Answer 45

It was discovered in the early sixteenth century that wealthy people would pay money to the government for the privilege of holding government office, particularly if they could sell the position when they retired or bequeath it to their heirs. They received a small portion of that sum (three or four per cent) in the guise of a salary. In wartime, the French Crown often created hundreds of judicial offices at a time for the principal purpose of acquiring money. The same principle was extended to captains and colonels in the army.

Answer 46

Arsenals were developed to build ships and to outfit them with everything they needed. They contained not only shipyards, but rope-making and sail-making workshops and foundries, and warehouses to stock them. (Ships returning to port were 'disarmed' and the hulls were housed in sheds to protect them from the elements.) The Venice Arsenal covered a large district of the city and, in the sixteenth century, employed as many as 5,000 workers, making it Europe's largest "factory' by far.

History Terms Flashcards

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