Deck 11: The Late Middle Ages: Crisis and Recovery

Question 1

What was Ockham's "razor"?

A) a technological breakthrough that allowed for more efficient shaves
B) a philosophical method for eliminating superfluous information
C) a literary device used by critics to dissect poetry
D) a military formation employed during the Hundred Years' War

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What was the Great Schism?

A) the roughly forty-year period in which there were two and sometimes three popes, each claiming papal authority
B) the roughly seventy-year period when the popes ruled from Avignon
C) the split in the church when the Orthodox separated from Roman Catholicism
D) the division in the church between Protestants and Catholics, started by Martin Luther

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Among the most important expressions of the "new devotion" or devotio moderna were the works of

A) John Wycliffe.
B) Thomas à Kempis.
C) Jan Hus.
D) William of Ockham.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Which was a consequence of the Hundred Years' War?

A) England was forced to cede its overseas lands to France.
B) The dukes of Burgundy were brought under French control.
C) France acquired Brittany through marriage.
D) All these answers are correct.

Question 5

Which was an important technological innovation made in the late Middle Ages?

A) the wheel
B) the steam engine
C) the printing press
D) gunpowder

Question 6

Which was a threat to papal power during the late Middle Ages?

A) unhappiness with the location of the Avignon papacy
B) the Great Schism
C) the conciliar movement
D) All these answers are correct.

Question 7

Which of the following cities was NOT a source of claimed papal authority during the years of the Great Schism?

A) London
B) Rome
C) Pisa
D) Avignon

Question 8

The Black Death of the fourteenth century was

A) AIDS.
B) tuberculosis.
C) bubonic plague.
D) smallpox.

Question 9

Which heroic figure emerged in the Hundred Years' War?

A) Joan of Arc
B) Henry II
C) Philip II
D) Henry VII

Question 10

As a result of the devastating plague, the leading image in late medieval art and literature became the

A) Dance of Death.
B) Final Judgment.
C) Garden of Eden.
D) Fountain of Youth.

Question 11

In late medieval theology, the via moderna

A) urged the combination of faith and reason.
B) ignored reason altogether and concentrated on faith.
C) advocated the complete separation of faith and reason.
D) supported the system of Thomas Aquinas.

Question 12

Late medieval religion was characterized by all of these EXCEPT

A) the rise of lay piety.
B) powerful monastic reform.
C) the emergence of new heresies.
D) the Inquisition.

Question 13

What was the Inquisition?

A) a crusade dedicated to recapturing Christian sites in Palestine from Muslims
B) a church court devoted to identifying and eliminating heretics in Europe
C) a university committee that tested graduate students prior to awarding doctoral degrees
D) a pilgrimage route stretching from southern France to the cathedral in Santiago, Spain

Question 14

Which was the leading industry of the late Middle Ages?

A) manufacture of rag paper
B) the iron industry
C) leather tanning
D) hand-loomed textile manufacturing

Question 15

During most of the fourteenth century, the popes ruled the church from

A) Rome.
B) Avignon.
C) Milan.
D) Madrid.

Question 16

Which was the worst of the calamities that befell Europe in the late Middle Ages?

A) economic depression
B) the plague
C) widespread famine
D) ravaging by renegade feudal armies

Question 17

Which medieval thinker pioneered the experimental system in science?

A) Roger Bacon
B) William of Ockham
C) Duns Scotus
D) John Wycliffe

Question 18

Which two countries fought in the Hundred Years' War?

A) England and Spain
B) England and Italy
C) Italy and Germany
D) England and France

Question 19

Who of the following is most closely associated with an altarpiece completed for the cathedral at Ghent and involving more than a dozen hinged panels?

A) Jan van Eyck
B) Giotto
C) Cimabue
D) Claus Sluter

Question 20

The Hussite heresy flourished among the ________ people.

A) English
B) Czech
C) Polish
D) French

Question 21

The hallmark of late Gothic builders was to

A) return to the basics of the Gothic style.
B) treat in a balanced manner the Gothic style's fundamental elements.
C) push the Gothic style to extravagant limits.
D) continue the aesthetic goals of the High Gothic style.

Question 22

In which of the following nations was the late Gothic style of architecture known as the Perpendicular style because of its dramatic emphasis on verticality?

A) Italy
B) Spain
C) France
D) England

Question 23

Christine de Pizan, in The Book of the City of Ladies, argues that women should

A) have financial independence.
B) be educated.
C) be given the right to vote.
D) give up their traditional role.

Question 24

Which fourteenth-century thinker used logic and theoretical models to demonstrate that the Earth could revolve around the sun (though he ultimately rejected his own arguments)?

A) Roger Bacon
B) William of Ockham
C) Duns Scotus
D) Nicholas Oresme

Question 25

Fifteenth-century Flemish art was primarily concerned with

A) achieving reality through symbolic detail.
B) psychological truth.
C) abstract purity.
D) idealized perfection.

Question 26

A unique feature of England's late Gothic architecture was

A) calligraphic ornamentation.
B) fan vaulting.
C) circular towers.
D) atriums in the vestibules.

Question 27

Which artist or artists contributed to the rise of printmaking in late medieval Germany?

A) Jan van Eyck
B) Hans Memling
C) the Limbourg brothers
D) the Housebook Master

Question 28

Which of the following reflected the social tensions caused by the 1381 Peasants' Revolt?

A) Petrarch's My Secret
B) Boccaccio's The Decameron
C) Langland's The Vision of Piers Plowman
D) Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Question 29

The painter Giotto achieved all of the following EXCEPT

A) a three-dimensional art.
B) full expression of human emotions.
C) naturalistic treatment of figures.
D) mathematical perspective.

Question 30

________ turned painting in a new direction, one that led to the Renaissance.

A) The Limbourg brothers
B) Cimabue
C) Giotto
D) Jan van Eyck

Question 31

What is the setting for The Canterbury Tales?

A) a castle outside Canterbury
B) a journey to Canterbury
C) a harem at Canterbury
D) a monastery at Canterbury

Question 32

Chaucer's pilgrims intend to visit whose tomb?

A) Sir Thomas More
B) William of Kent
C) John of Gaunt
D) Thomas Becket

Question 33

Which of the following is the more formal name for a church's bell tower?

A) buttress
B) campanile
C) narthex
D) nave

Question 34

Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims

A) are drawn exclusively from the upper classes.
B) are drawn exclusively from the lower classes.
C) represent all walks of medieval society.
D) represent idealized portraits of medieval types.

Question 35

Machaut's Notre Dame Mass was the first version of the Mass Ordinary by a known composer that was of what nature?

A) polyphonic
B) monophonic
C) secular
D) ars nova

Question 36

The Decameron helped bring into existence the modern

A) novel.
B) short story.
C) verse-drama.
D) comic play.

Question 37

Who of the following wrote a collection of love lyrics and sonnets known as the Canzoniere, or Songbook?

A) Giovanni Boccaccio
B) Francesco Petrarch
C) Geoffrey Chaucer
D) Christine de Pizan

Question 38

Late Gothic architecture in England is called the

A) Flamboyant style.
B) Perpendicular style.
C) Exuberant style.
D) Vertical style.

Question 39

Late Gothic architecture in France culminated in the

A) Flamboyant style.
B) Perpendicular style.
C) Exuberant style.
D) Vertical style.

Question 40

The author of The Decameron was

A) Petrarch.
B) Boccaccio.
C) Langland.
D) Chaucer.

Question 41

The paintings of Hans Memling can be characterized as

A) serene and graceful religious images, filled with symbolism.
B) scenes of domestic life.
C) ambiguous in their moral message.
D) foreshadowing High Renaissance art.

Question 42

Discuss the contributions of Flemish artists in the fifteenth century, concentrating on the works of Jan van Eyck.

Question 43

Discuss the political, social, and religious changes from 1300 to 1500. How did these changes affect the arts of the period? Use at least two examples from painting, architecture, literature, or sculpture.

Question 44

Using an example of literature from the late Middle Ages, show how the work reflected the changing values of this period.

Question 45

Compare and contrast the works of Boccaccio and Chaucer.

Question 46

How did developments in late medieval science and philosophy foreshadow the end of the medieval world and the beginning of a new era in intellectual life?

Question 47

Why did the church decline during the late Middle Ages? How did this religious decline affect the age's society?

Question 48

Why were the English and French rulers able to unify their countries in the fifteenth century? Why did other rulers want to imitate them?

Question 49

Identify the characteristics of late Gothic sculpture. Choose a work by Pisano or Sluter and show how it expresses this style.

Question 50

What condition, beginning in 1315, exacerbated the effects of the plague in Europe?

A) invasion by Muslim armies
B) famine
C) rampant civil wars
D) a string of bitter winters
Essay Questions

Question 51

In what way were the foundations of the modern world laid in the late Middle Ages?

Question 52

What state or region was most successful in imitating the French and English model of state centralization and government?

A) Scandinavia
B) Germany
C) Spain
D) Italy

Question 53

Hams Memling was particularly celebrated for what aspect of his Madonna paintings?

A) secular vision
B) realism
C) piety
D) symbolism

Question 54

What natural and human calamities occurred during the fourteenth century?

Question 55

What were the most significant technological advances of the late Middle Ages?

Question 56

Which of the following artistic methods involved using a sharp tool to draw an image onto a metal plate overlaid with wax, dipping the plate in acid, and then printing it?

A) illumination
B) engraving
C) drypoint
D) sculpting