Deck 10: Crisis,unrest,and Opportunity,1300–1500

Question 1

In the early fourteenth century,the agricultural economy in Europe had begun to:

A) fail due to papal restrictions on monastic houses.
B) fail due to climate change and excessive cultivation.
C) regain levels achieved in the late Roman Empire.
D) improve due to rising average temperatures.
E) improve due to more sophisticated trade patterns.

Answer 1

fail due to climate change and excessive cultivation.

Question 2

The most important factor in the rise of Spain as a major European power was the:

A) exile of Jews from Spain.
B) end of the Hundred Years' War.
C) unification of the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile.
D) defeat and annexation of Muslim Granada.
E) construction of the Great Armada to subjugate the other European powers.

Answer 2

unification of the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile.

Question 3

The combined effects of famine,war,and plague in the fourteenth century reduced the total population of western Europe by:

A) 10 to 15 percent.
B) 25 percent.
C) at least one half.
D) at least two-thirds.
E) 90 percent.

Answer 3

at least one half.

Question 4

The battle of Agincourt and its aftermath represents the apex of English supremacy over France in the Hundred Years' War as:

A) the battle was a crushing defeat for the French and from which they never recovered.
B) it led to the French king recognizing Henry V as the heir to the French throne.
C) it secured English control over Normandy,Aquitaine,and Burgundy.
D) the French king,Charles VI,was forced to abdicate in favor of the English king,Henry V.
E) the English retained control of northern France from that point.

Question 5

One means by which the nobility of Europe asserted themselves was through membership in chivalric orders founded by the rulers of various countries.An example of such an order would be the:

A) Knights of the Garter.
B) Order of the Phoenix.
C) Knights of Malta.
D) Teutonic Knights.
E) Knights of the Temple of Solomon.

Question 6

Compared to the western Europe of 1300,the western Europe of 1450 had _________ people and a(n)_________ standard of living.

A) more; higher
B) fewer; higher
C) fewer; lower
D) more; lower
E) equal; equal

Question 7

England's good fortunes in the Hundred Years' War turned for the bad when:

A) Edward III was taken captive by the dauphin at Crecy.
B) the French acquired large siege cannons with which to batter English cities.
C) the French acquired longbows.
D) the use of chevauchee ruined the land and brought on a famine.
E) Edward III died,leaving a young Richard to rule.

Question 8

The general peace and prosperity of Italy was broken in 1494 when it was invaded by:

A) Ottoman Turks.
B) Germany.
C) France.
D) Spain.
E) England.

Question 9

In late-medieval France,which dynasty eventually replaced the Capetians as rulers?

A) the Hohenzollern
B) the Habsburgs
C) the Medici
D) the Windsors
E) the Valois

Question 10

The Holy Roman Empire might be said to be anything but an empire due to:

A) the continual fighting between the territorial princes.
B) periodic fighting between the princes and the emperors.
C) the division of territory by princes among their heirs.
D) the selfish protection and expansion of individual territories by princes.
E) all of these

Question 11

After 1450,European towns grew significantly in size and economic power because they:

A) banned monasteries and offered tax breaks for married couples and families.
B) successfully controlled price variations and limited business risk.
C) developed strategies for managing outbreaks of the plague.
D) attracted more people and developed specialized products and services.
E) offered tax incentives to new businesses to locate in the towns.

Question 12

Spain was made whole with the reconquest of 1492 but was not truly a single nation until:

A) 1525.
B) 1648.
C) 1714.
D) 1812.
E) 1918.

Question 13

The largest multiethnic empire of the premodern world was:

A) the Mongol empire.
B) Byzantium.
C) Russia.
D) the British empire.
E) China.

Question 14

The first phase of the Hundred Years' War was marked by:

A) successive French victories over the English.
B) inconclusive battles,which were the reason for the great length of the war.
C) successive English victories over the French.
D) a few victories by the English over the Prussian allies of France.
E) an indecisive siege of Paris by the English.

Question 15

During the rise of national monarchies,which modern country resisted unification and remained divided among dozens of independent principalities throughout the later Middle Ages?

A) Germany
B) England
C) France
D) Poland
E) Portugal

Question 16

The social mobility of the fourteenth century was made possible largely due to the:

A) Crusades.
B) Black Death.
C) English Peasants' Revolt.
D) beginning of the Hundred Years' War.
E) creation of the Holy Roman Empire.

Question 17

A "noble" in Europe was defined as:

A) an individual who had been born into the class.
B) someone who had achieved the rank by his deeds in war.
C) a person who had achieved wealth through commerce.
D) one who lived according to a particular lifestyle.
E) an individual who had been made such by his king.

Question 18

Captured by the Burgundians and condemned by the theologians of Paris as a witch,Joan of Arc was:

A) tried for heresy by an English ecclesiastical court.
B) sent into exile in Spain.
C) judged and condemned by a special papal court of inquiry.
D) freed by French peasants from her English captors and went into hiding in Switzerland.
E) sent to England to be imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Question 19

Which lower-class rebellion in the later Middle Ages involved the revolt of workers in the cloth industry who sought greater participation in local government?

A) the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381
B) the "Jacquerie" uprising of 1358
C) the Florentine Ciompi revolt of 1378
D) the Lübeck "taxpayers" revolt of 1408
E) the German Peasants' revolt of 1424

Question 20

The English Peasants' Revolt differed from other revolts and rebellions of the fourteenth century as it was fueled by:

A) a protest against higher taxes.
B) a demand for full employment.
C) governmental corruption.
D) a demand for the end of serfdom.
E) perceived corruption in the Church.

Question 21

Although Jan Hus adopted the ideas of John Wyclif,he did diverge from Wyclif in his view:

A) of the centrality of confession.
B) of the primacy of the pope in setting dogma.
C) on the Eucharist being fully available to all people.
D) on Baptism,which he believed was only for adults.
E) on the need for a priesthood.

Question 22

The rebellion of the Mongol leader Timur the Lame created a power vacuum that allowed:

A) the Byzantine emperor to reclaim territory lost to the Mongols the previous century.
B) the Muscovite grand duke,Ivan III,to launch a series of conquests to forward his imperial agenda.
C) Poland-Lithuania to begin its expansion eastward.
D) the Khanate of the Golden Horde to reclaim its territory surrounding Moscow.
E) the Holy Roman Empire to expand eastward to encompass the lands of the orthodox church.

Question 23

When it fought against Poland-Lithuania in the late fifteenth century,Moscow appealed to its citizens by:

A) asking the pope in Rome for help.
B) joining forces with the Ottoman Turks.
C) emphasizing the Roman Catholicism of Poland-Lithuania.
D) emphasizing the Orthodox beliefs of Poland-Lithuania.
E) emphasizing the large proportion of Jews living in Poland-Lithuania.

Question 24

Just as Boccaccio wrote about a group of people telling stories to one another while sitting out the Black Death,_________ wrote about a group of people telling stories to one another while on a pilgrimage.

A) Augustine
B) Chaucer
C) de Pisan
D) di Bondone
E) More

Question 25

One way people of the medieval period came to understand the divine in their own lives was through:

A) Magister theologia by Master Eckhart.
B) The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.
C) Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love by Julianna of Norwich.
D) The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis.
E) The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe.

Question 26

The thirteenth century had witnessed the development of the philosophical belief that the world was rational,organized,and comprehensible to human beings.In the fourteenth century,William of Ockham:

A) denied that human reason could prove fundamental theological truths.
B) confirmed such a belief theologically.
C) argued that theological questions could all be resolved through reason,but questions concerning the natural world could not all be so resolved.
D) determined that human reason could resolve nothing with regards to the world,with the exception of the truths of mathematics,provided the axioms were correct.
E) argued that the only knowledge human beings could attain came through divine revelation alone.

Question 27

Compared to the High Middle Ages,the later Middle Ages:

A) was a highpoint for the authority and prestige of the papacy.
B) signaled the beginning of vernacular poetry and popular stories of courtly romance.
C) witnessed the dissolution of significant national governments and bureaucratic institutions.
D) identified nature less with God and more as an entity that could be manipulated to meet human needs.
E) signaled the end of the authority of the Church within Europe.

Question 28

Master Eckhart taught that:

A) there was a spark of the divine within every human soul.
B) secular leadership of the Church would purify its doctrine and discipline its clergy.
C) the laity should stop attending church and focus instead on the miracles of Christ.
D) the most practical devotional act for the laity was pilgrimage.
E) the laity should renounce marriage and enter monasteries and convents.

Question 29

The English Lollards were the lay followers and successors of which late-medieval theologian?

A) Jan Zizka
B) Jan Hus
C) Master Eckhart
D) John Wyclif
E) Ulrich Zwingli

Question 30

During the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the fourteenth century,the papacy was:

A) divided between two rival popes.
B) moved to Avignon,France.
C) disbanded for seventy-five years.
D) controlled by the Persian aristocracy.
E) removed from Rome to Babylon.

Question 31

The Roman Catholic Church during the later Middle Ages:

A) remained essentially unchanged from the late Roman Empire.
B) came very close to being supplanted by orthodoxy.
C) underwent a radical transformation with the power of the papacy completely dissipated.
D) changed a great deal as it suffered from the same economic hardships caused by the Black Death as the rest of Europe did.
E) returned to its earliest manifestation as a decentralized community of believers who held all property in common.

Question 32

Before the fall of Constantinople in 1453,the Byzantine empire tried to shore up its defensive position against the Ottoman Turks by:

A) restoring the ancient office of tsar (Caesar).
B) forging a peace treaty with Ivan the Great.
C) submitting to papal (Roman)authority in religious matters.
D) equipping foot soldiers with hand-held firearms called muskets.
E) agreeing to a mutual defense treaty with England and France.

Question 33

After 1300,the Mongols ruled Russia by:

A) moving their power base to Moscow.
B) controlling local Slavic states and demanding tribute from them.
C) acquiring the grand duchy of Lithuania and using it as a buffer state.
D) adopting western Christianity and receiving assistance from the pope.
E) the systematic use of terror on the civilian population.

Question 34

Boccaccio's Decameron is historically significant because it:

A) recounts an actual pilgrimage trip from London to Canterbury.
B) is written in the vernacular and portrays men and women as they really were.
C) represents the culmination of the late-medieval Latin prose style.
D) describes with great creativity the Church's position on sin,salvation,and hell.
E) recounts the trip the author took through the inferno,purgatory,and paradise.

Question 35

The Great Schism ended in 1417 when the:

A) papacy moved its administrative offices back to Rome.
B) Council of Basel dismissed all rival popes.
C) pope defeated the consular movement.
D) Council of Constance elected a new pope.
E) French king returned the pope to Rome.

Question 36

What is the central theme of Christine de Pisan's The City of Ladies?

A) The book is an attack on the patriarchal social organization of feudalism.
B) The book describes a mythic journey through Africa in search of powerful "Amazon" women.
C) The book is a courtly romance about love,sacrifice,and betrayal in the tradition of Romance of the Rose.
D) The book is an attack on the failures of the late-medieval clergy.
E) The book is an allegory that defends women against the misogynistic claims of men.

Question 37

The Golden Horde was the:

A) Mongol dynasty that controlled Russia.
B) payment for release of King John of France.
C) name of the Black Prince's new chivalric order of knights.
D) nickname given to the first Spanish ship to return from the New World.
E) gold amassed by the English crown after the Hundred Years' War.

Question 38

The sacraments of the Church:

A) were valid only if administered by an upstanding priest of good moral character.
B) could be administered by any Christian regardless of his position within the Church.
C) could be negated by an individual who no longer professed to be a Christian.
D) were reserved for those Christians who had passed through all levels of initiation.
E) were valid if administered by a properly ordained priest.

Question 39

Moscow replaced _________ as the center of Russian power in the late Middle Ages.

A) Saint Petersburg
B) Kiev
C) Odessa
D) Novgorod
E) Vladivostok

Question 40

The theological system called nominalism was based on William of Ockham's fundamental insight that:

A) God is limited in his ability to control human events and circumstances.
B) there was no necessary connection between knowledge gained from studying the natural world and the ability to know the essence of God.
C) knowledge gained through experiment is the only trustworthy source of information.
D) the characteristics of a single object can be inferred by making reference to a group.
E) nothing truly exists except in the mind of God.

Question 41

The later Middle Ages saw an important development in the literary world in that:

A) Christine de Pisan could write for a larger audience defending the character and history of women.
B) Geoffrey Chaucer could give voice to a variety of people representing different classes and outlooks on life.
C) increasingly innovative and ambitious ideas appeared in books.
D) professional authors could make their living with their pens.
E) all of the above

Question 42

A fresco painting is essentially:

A) pigment mixed with plaster that is applied to a wall.
B) pigment mixed with egg white that is applied to a wood panel.
C) pigment mixed with oil that is applied to a stretched canvas.
D) an image that is modeled and executed on an outside wall.
E) pigment mixed with oil that is applied to a wall.

Question 43

The Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden expressed piety and the ever present message of the Bible by:

A) portraying biblical figures in contemporary settings.
B) placing contemporary figures in biblical settings.
C) presenting idealized settings of sites in the Holy Land for his portraits.
D) depicting biblical figures in otherworldly settings.
E) renouncing painting and entering a monastery.

Question 44

Henry IV's seizure of the crown from Richard was met with a series of rebellions and made it impossible for him to engage in the war with France.

Question 45

The invention of movable-type printing and the printing press made possible the:

A) creation of a bureaucratic class in the major European countries.
B) founding of universities,not possible prior to printed books.
C) start of the entirely new business of bookstores.
D) Protestant Reformation in the following century.
E) rise of the modern nation-state.

Question 46

When merchants were ennobled by a king or prince,they were expected to abandon their old employment and take up a noble lifestyle.

Question 47

The Middle Ages gave rise to few if any intellectual or artistic achievements; such would have to wait until the Renaissance.

Question 48

Realism and naturalism were the key trends in both art and literature in the late Middle Ages,as opposed to Romanticism.

Question 49

The title tsar means "caesar."

Question 50

In the later Middle Ages naturalism in literature extended itself to art as well,causing artists to:

A) focus almost exclusively on depicting Jesus.
B) eliminate religious themes from their art all together.
C) refrain from any sort of diversification,concentrating solely on natural orthodoxy.
D) pay closer attention to how things really looked.
E) find abstract ways of depicting natural realities such as the divinity of God.

Question 51

The late Middle Ages was a period of aristocratic crisis and peasant prosperity.

Question 52

The medieval painter Giotto is remembered especially because he:

A) rendered architectural details with photographic precision.
B) specialized in individual portraits,which were highly lifelike.
C) developed a new technique for painting on canvas with oil paints.
D) brought a deep humanity and naturalism to his religious images.
E) developed a new technique for painting on wood using pigment mixed with egg white.

Question 53

The conversos were a group of Christians who had secretly converted to Islam in Spain and were the subject of the Inquisition.

Question 54

In the rule of the Papal States the pope,as a churchman,was unable to lead armies or make alliances with other princes.

Question 55

The development of artillery in late-medieval Europe affected military strategy in that:

A) foot soldiers were no longer useful on the battlefield.
B) mounted knights became more useful on the battlefield.
C) stone castles became less viable as defensive strongholds.
D) national monarchies could no longer control rebellious aristocrats.
E) monasteries could now defend themselves as well as any town.

Question 56

The Jacquerie was a group of French nobles who were effective in passing legislation against peasant demands for lower prices and an end to serfdom.

Question 57

Jews were victims of attack by both Christians and Muslims during the plague.

Question 58

It is more a mark of helplessness in King Charles's position than his faith in Joan that he gave troops and authority to Joan of Arc in 1429.

Question 59

The Lollard movement gained great support in the fourteenth century from the noble class.

Question 60

The invention of mechanical time-keeping machines (clocks):

A) resulted in lengthening the days into uniform lengths.
B) gradually led to the creation of new concepts regarding labor and productivity.
C) challenged biblical explanations of time.
D) reorganized the Catholic Church around set times for prayers.
E) shortened the distance between cities as travel time was recalculated.

Question 61

Why did Russia develop so differently from western Europe?

Question 62

How did people respond to the plague?

Question 63

What circumstances account for the rebellions between 1300 and 1450?

Question 64

What determined nobility in the late Middle Ages?

Question 65

Compare and contrast the effect of the plague on the towns as opposed to the countryside.

Question 66

What were the causes of the Hundred Years' War?

Question 67

In what ways did people of the late Middle Ages show their piety?

Question 68

How did the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella change Spain?

Question 69

What events sparked the Great Schism,and how was it resolved?

Question 70

What impact did the Hundred Years' War have on the English and French monarchies?