Civilization - Answers A culture that possesses the ability to organize itself thoroughly and
communicates through written language.
Culture - Answers The set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that governs or determines a common
way of living formed by a group of people and passed on from one generation to the next.
Epic - Answers A long narrative poem in an elevated language that follows characters of a high
position through a series of adventures, often including a visit to the world of the dead.
Ritual - Answers A rite or ceremony habitually practiced by a group, often in a religious or quasi-
religious context.
Myth - Answers A story that a culture assumes is true. A myth also embodies the culture's views and
beliefs about its world.
Comedy - Answers An amusing or lighthearted play designed to evoke laughter in an audience.
Dialectic method - Answers A process of inquiry and instruction characterized by continuous
question-and-answer dialogue designed to elicit a clear statement of knowledge supposed to be held
implicitly by all reasonable beings.
Inductive reasoning - Answers A process in which, through the direct and careful observation of
natural phenomena, one can draw general conclusions from particular examples and predict the
operations of nature as a whole.
Hubris - Answers Exaggerated pride and self- confidence.
Humanism - Answers Understood, by the late fourteenth century, as the recovery, study, and spread
of the art and literature of Greece and Rome, and the application of their principles to education,
politics, social life, and the arts in general.
Bodhisattva - Answers In Buddhism, a person who refrains from achieving total enlightenment in
order to help others achieve buddhahood.
Dharma - Answers In Hinduism, good and righteous conduct that reflects the cosmic moral order
underlying all existence.
Nirvana - Answers A place or state free from worry, pain, and the external world.
Round arch - Answers A curved architectural support element that spans an opening.
Stupa - Answers A type of Buddhist burial mound.
Syncretism - Answers The reconciliation of different rites and practices into a single philosophy or
religion.
Dogma - Answers Prescribed doctrine.
Hadith - Answers The collection of the sayings of Muhammad and anecdotes about his life, accepted
as a source of Islamic doctrine.
Hajj - Answers A pilgrimage to Mecca made as a religious duty for Muslims.
Icon - Answers Literally, an image; in Byzantium, a religious image designed to elevate the mind to a
higher contemplation of God.
Troubadour - Answers A class of poets that flourished in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries in
southern France and northern Italy.
Chivalric code - Answers The code of conduct for a knight: courage in battle, loyalty to his lord and
peers, and courtesy toward women.
Feudalism - Answers The economic system that prevailed in medieval Europe; it was related to the
Roman custom of patronage and was based on land tenure and the relationship between the tenant
and the landowner.
Gregorian chant - Answers A type of liturgical chant popularized during the time of Charlemagne and
still widely used until the twentieth century.
Romanesque - Answers An art historical period so called because the architecture incorporated
elements of Roman architectural tradition.
Gothic - Answers A style of architecture and decoration prevalent in the twelfth through fifteenth
centuries in northern Europe, where, it was believed, classical traditions had been destroyed by
Germanic invaders called Goths.
Guild - Answers An association or group of people with like-minded interests or skills.
Quadrivium - Answers In medieval universities, the mathematical arts, which included music,
arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.
Scholasticism - Answers A brand of theological inquiry based on the dialectical method.