Vocabulary

• FEUDALISM: medieval economic system of transition between the slavery system and the mercantilism in which the land was divided in parcels, properties or fiefs; they were leased by the feudal landlords to the peasants so that they farm them in exchange for a supposed protection.

• TITHE: compulsory ecclesiastical tithe. One tenth of the peasant’s harvest or animal husbandry was collected by the Catholic Church in Spain and its empire in the Middle Ages.

• FRESCO: it is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment.

• TEMPLARS: knights from the military Order of the Temple that tried to combine the religious and the noble ideals. They were simultaneously monks and soldiers, who fought in Europe and the Holy Land. They became so powerful that the King Philip IV of France and the Pope Clement V disbanded the order at the beginning of the 14^th century (1312).