Deck 6: The Late Middle Ages

Question 1

Which statement best describes Marie de France?

A) patron of Chrétien de Troyes and inspiration of the Arthur romances
B) greatest female writer of the medieval romances called lais
C) wife to a French and an English king, queen of southern France
D) idealized love of Dante in his Divine Comedy

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which is the term for the late medieval form of song that often mixed voices singing different poetic texts?

A) duplum organum
B) terza rima
C) Minnesang
D) motet

Answer 2

D

Question 3

What statement best describes Christine de Pisan?

A) author of a philosophical dialogue praising women
B) the Jewish author of a work on Aristotle and Hebrew scripture
C) a Cluniac monk who later became an important pope
D) a Chaucer character of frank sensuality and practicality

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which figure benefited most directly from the "new Aristotle"-writings rediscovered through Arabic scholarship and translation?

A) Dante Alighieri
B) Thomas Aquinas
C) Giotto
D) Léonin

Question 5

Which of these figures employed the technique of fresco?

A) Giotto
B) Abbot Suger
C) Beatriz de Dia
D) Marie de France

Question 6

What best defines the term tenor?

A) melodic line based on traditional plainchant
B) supporting pier of a ribbed vault
C) melody of a courtly love song
D) central post of a door on a Gothic cathedral

Question 7

What best describes Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica?

A) a synthesis of medieval knowledge about God and nature
B) a collection of organal music compiled by Léonin
C) a commentary by Dante on the Divine Comedy
D) an organization of university professors

Question 8

Where in a Gothic cathedral would one expect to find a life-size sculpture standing on a pedestal or attached to a column?

A) rose window
B) archivolt
C) door jamb
D) tympanum

Question 9

The Gothic style originated in architectural innovations at what site?

A) the Alhambra in Spain
B) Arena, or Scrovegni, Chapel
C) abbey church of St. Denis
D) Chartres Cathedral

Question 10

What would have attracted most pilgrims to Chartres cathedral?

A) Dante's advice in the Divine Comedy
B) a Crusade to regain Jerusalem from Muslims
C) the fear of Viking invaders sweeping through Europe
D) the chance to see a relic of the Virgin Mary

Question 11

Where were the rose windows of a Gothic church located?

A) decorating the lintels
B) above the three portals
C) decorating the buttress
D) along the door jambs

Question 12

Which of these themes was most important in Abbot Suger's development of the Gothic style?

A) the church as a fortress against sin
B) the renunciation of all material wealth
C) the mysticism of light
D) the discovery of Aristotle

Question 13

Where would one most likely encounter a troubadour?

A) studying Aristotle in a medieval university
B) serving an Ottonian emperor in Germany
C) singing love songs at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine
D) instructing pilgrims at a Gothic cathedral

Question 14

What was the theologian Thomas Aquinas's goal in his life work?

A) restore the validity of Church doctrine
B) establish Latin as a universal language
C) harmonize human reason and divine revelation
D) challenge the pope's authority over church offices

Question 15

Which statement best describes the late Middle Ages' fervent devotion to the Virgin Mary?

A) helped inspire the construction of many Gothic cathedrals
B) led to greater social equality for medieval women
C) corresponded to the Egyptian cult of the goddess Isis
D) had died out in Italy by the time of Dante

Question 16

What writings were "discovered" by Europe's scholars through Arabic translations and commentaries, prompting an intellectual revival in medieval schools and universities?

A) Aristotle's natural philosophy
B) the Dead Sea scrolls
C) the Books of Moses
D) Plato's dialogues

Question 17

A practitioner of scholasticism would most likely be found doing what?

A) courting a young lady at the court of the French king
B) chanting a polyphonic chant at Cluny
C) dramatizing the "Slaughter of the Innocents" in a monastic church
D) disputing a question of logic in a university class

Question 18

Which figure was a composer of bittersweet love songs in the troubadour tradition of southern France?

A) Léonin
B) Christine de Pisan
C) Geoffrey Chaucer
D) Beatriz de Dia

Question 19

Which of these figures is most closely associated with triplum organum?

A) Abbot Suger
B) Bernart de Ventadorn
C) Pope Gregory the Great
D) Pérotin

Question 20

Which of these figures was most influential in the development of the codes and customs of courtly love?

A) Abbot Suger
B) Ibn Sina
C) Eleanor of Aquitaine
D) Geoffrey Chaucer

Question 21

What is the term for the verse form employed by Dante throughout his medieval epic, the Divine Comedy?

A) duplum organum
B) terza rima
C) Minnesang
D) motet

Question 22

In what did Giotto's greatest achievement as a painter lie?

A) creating emotionally and spatially unified scenes
B) painting secular themes instead of religious images
C) perfecting the combination of Italian and Byzantine styles
D) applying the Gothic mysticism of light

Question 23

In Dante's medieval epic, the Divine Comedy, what does the figure of Virgil symbolize?

A) the punishment of sin
B) romantic love
C) divine revelation
D) human reason

Question 24

What best describes Geoffrey Chaucer's most significant achievement?

A) decorating the Scrovegni Chapel
B) composing medieval England's greatest poem
C) perfecting the International Gothic style
D) writing a philosophical dialogue praising women

Question 25

Standing in the triforium gallery of a Gothic church, one could look down and see what?

A) buttress
B) nave arcade
C) clerestory window
D) a tympanum sculpture

Question 26

What was depicted in a typical morality play, such as Everyman?

A) the vivid life and death of a Christian saint
B) a scene from the Old or New Testaments
C) the struggle between vice and virtue over a sinner's soul
D) the reenactment of Christ's death and resurrection

Question 27

Which name is best associated with troubadour poetry and courtly love?

A) Abbot Suger
B) Bernart de Ventadorn
C) Christine de Pisan
D) Pérotin

Question 28

Which term or topic is best associated with the International Gothic style?

A) Doge's Palace, Venice
B) Ars nova
C) chivalric tournaments
D) Dante's Paradiso

Question 29

What would one find in the Magnus Liber Organi?

A) a collection of bawdy medieval tales
B) examples of polyphonic sacred music
C) the rediscovered works of Aristotle
D) a romantic story of courtly love

Question 30

What term or topic is best associated with the rise of a well-trained and ambitious class of professional warriors in late medieval Europe?

A) scholasticism
B) chivalry
C) terza rima
D) lais

Question 31

What term or topic is best associated with parallel organum?

A) troubadour and trobairitz
B) musical polyphony
C) International Gothic
D) rise of Church drama

Question 32

Which of these works would be the best source of information on the daily life of peasants and nobles in the late middle ages?

A) Très Riches Heures
B) Dante's Inferno
C) Giotto's Pietà
D) Messe de Notre Dame

Question 33

Which of these was an erotic tale that was the most widely read work of the Middle Ages?

A) the Roman de la Rose
B) Dante's Divine Comedy
C) Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
D) Aquinas' Summa Theologica

Question 34

During what period and in what locale was the Gothic style of building at its height?

A) the Muslim world during the early caliphates
B) the ancient Near East about the time of Hammurabi
C) Italy in the time of Caesar Augustus
D) medieval Europe about 1250

Question 35

How is the quadrivium best defined?

A) a method of notating music
B) a verse form employed by Geoffrey Chaucer
C) part of the medieval university curriculum
D) the slow-moving ground melody of medieval chant

Question 36

What phenomenon is best described as a feature of the Gothic awakening?

A) the successful defense against Viking attacks
B) the dominance of Venice's navy in the Mediterranean
C) the vigorous growth of Europe's towns and cities
D) the resurgent power of the pope in European politics

Question 37

Describe the role of the Crusades in the cultural awakening of the late Middle Ages.

Question 38

Explain the combination of groin vault, pointed arch, and flying buttress that made possible the Gothic style in architecture.

Question 39

Identify the most important developments in the sacred music of the Gothic era.

Question 40

Characterize the influence of Arabic and Jewish scholars upon the rise of scholasticism in medieval Europe.

Question 41

Summarize the precepts of courtly love as professed in medieval literature and song.

Question 42

Briefly discuss pilgrimage as a motif in Dante's Divine Comedy and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Question 43

Identify the qualities in Giotto's work that made him the pioneer of a new age in painting.

Question 44

In the Middle Ages Christians came to believe that God could be experienced through works of art and nature. Discuss the Gothic cathedral as an attempt to experience God through the senses and intellect. In your answer refer to both the construction and decoration of the Gothic cathedral, and explain specifically how cathedral art appealed to the believer's eyes and his or her powers of understanding.

Question 45

Trace the theme of love, both worldly and religious, through the arts of the later Middle Ages. In several examples, show how love of God, love of the Virgin Mary, love of beauty, and love of woman and man were connected in the imagination of medieval poets and artists in architecture, poetry, and music.