absolutism system of ruling were monarchs reduced the political power of the landlord nobility as they gained and monopolized their own political power. (p. 569)

autocracy a form of government led by a ruler with absolute power. (p. 578)






baroque a style of art that grew out of the revitalized Catholic Church of the late sixteenth century. Its complex, emotional style was used by many rulers, including Louis XIV of France, to glorify their power. (p. 585)

Bohemian Estates the representative body of the different estates, or legal orders in Bohemia. (p. 569)

boyard nobility the nobility in the feudal division of the eastern Slavic territories. (p. 577)






Cossacks free groups and outlaw armies that were formed to fight Ivan in an attempt to escape his rule. (p. 580)






Eastern Orthodoxy religion that rejects the authority of the pope, which is the main difference in religious and moral beliefs dividing it from Roman Catholicism (p. 577)

elector of Brandenburg the leader of the Brandenburg who had the right to choose the Holy Roman emperor with six other electors bestowed prestige but had not military power (p. 573)






hereditary subjugation bound to their lords from one generation to the next as well as to the land. (p. 567)






Junkers the nobility and landowning classes of the Estates of Brandenburg and Prussia. (p. 574)






Mongol Yoke the name for the Mongolian rule over eastern Slavs for more than two hundred years. (p. 577)






Pragmatic Sanction proclaimed by Charles VI in 1713, it stated that the Habsburg possessions were never to be divided and were always to be passed intact to a single heir, who might be female. (p. 573)






serfdom system used by nobles and rulers where peasants were bound first to the land they worked and then, by degrading obligations to the lords they served. (p. 566)

service nobility a newly emerging class who held the tsar’s land on the explicit condition that they serve in the tsar’s army. (p. 579)

sultan leader of Ottoman Empire who owned all the agricultural land of the empire and exploited it as he saw fit. (p. 570)