OCR GCSE History B key terms

A fortified enclosure protecting the approach to a castle entrance.

Exchanging goods directly for other goods rather than paying with money.

Animals used to carry supplies and equipment rather than riders.

A particular area or route regularly patrolled by a police officer.

A legal privilege originally associated with clergy which allowed eligible offenders to escape the ordinary penalties of secular criminal justice.

A senior church leader responsible for a diocese, supervising its clergy and administering Church affairs.

A large grazing mammal of the Great Plains that supplied food, hides and other resources to Indigenous communities; often called buffalo in historical accounts.

Laws introduced by Southern states after the Civil War to restrict African Americans' freedom, including their employment and legal rights.

The devastating plague epidemic that reached England in 1348; its main forms were bubonic and pneumonic plague.

Hills sacred to the Sioux and protected by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. The arrival of gold prospectors there helped cause the Great Sioux War.

Speech or behaviour regarded as insulting God or showing disrespect towards sacred things.

The cutting off of routes into and out of a place to prevent supplies or reinforcements reaching it.

The ritual drawing of a person's own blood as an offering to the gods, without necessarily killing the person.

The name given to the expanding collection of laws that made many offences, including property crimes, punishable by death in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

A Viking religious sacrifice or celebration intended to gain the gods’ goodwill in return for offerings.

A school where pupils live as well as study. Schools used in assimilation policies separated Native American children from their families and discouraged their languages and traditions.

A local body organised to respond to threats to health, including monitoring outbreaks and distributing advice.

Goods and valuables seized during warfare.

An institution for young offenders which combined strict discipline with education, training and physical activity.

Paid officers based at Bow Street in London who investigated crimes and pursued suspects during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

A protest in which people refuse to use or buy something to put pressure on an organisation to change its behaviour.

A route to the Montana goldfields that crossed Sioux hunting grounds in the Powder River country; US attempts to protect it helped cause Red Cloud’s War.

A small sailing warship. Cortés used thirteen brigantines on Lake Texcoco during the attack on Tenochtitlan.

Territories and peoples ruled or controlled by Britain beyond Britain itself.

A system of government in which appointed officials carry out specialised administrative duties.

An Anglo-Saxon fortified town or settlement, designed to protect people against attack.

The eastern continuation of the Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople.