Chapter 15 Vocabulary Words

Chapter 12 - Vocabulary

Word	Definition
absolutism	a form of government where the sovereign power or ultimate authority rested in the hands of a monarch who claimed to rule by divine right and was therefore responsible only to God.
boyars	members of the Russian nobility crushed by Ivan the Terrible as he expanded the authority of the tsar in the sixteenth century.
divine-right monarchy	a monarchy based on the belief that monarchs receive their power directly from God and are responsible to no one except God.
gentry	well-to-do English landowners below the level of nobility many converted to Puritanism.
intendants	royal officials in seventeenth-century France who were sent into the provinces to execute the orders of the central government.
mercantilism	an economic theory that held that a nation's prosperity depended on its supply of gold and silver and that the total volume of trade is unchangeable therefore, advocated that the government play an active role in the economy by encouraging exports and discouraging imports, especially through the use of tariffs.
procurator	lay official of the Russian church represented the interests of the tsar and extended control of the tsar over the church.
Puritans	English Protestants inspired by Calvinist theology who wished to remove all traces of Catholicism from the Church of England.