Deck 10: The Christian Commonwealth of Byzantium

Question 1

A direct challenge to the Byzantine emperor arose in the year 800 when the pope gave an imperial crown to the Frankish king,

A)Otto of Saxony.
B)Charlemagne.
C)Basil II.
D)Cyril.
E)Hugh Capet.

Answer 1

Charlemagne.

Question 2

The term Greek fire refers to

A)the devastating fire that swept through Constantinople in 1013.
B)the passionate Byzantine loyalty to Greek philosophy.
C)the smallpox epidemic that hit Constantinople in the twelfth century.
D)the Byzantine incendiary weapon.
E)a nickname given to Justinian's brilliant general,Belisarius.

Answer 2

the Byzantine incendiary weapon.

Question 3

Justinian's most important and long-lasting political achievement was his

A)reconquest of the western half of the Roman empire.
B)democratic reforms.
C)religious compromise between the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox churches.
D)codification of Roman law.
E)establishment of a lasting peace with the Islamic world.

Answer 3

codification of Roman law.

Question 4

Constantinople withstood sieges in 674-678 and 717-718 by

A)the Sasanids.
B)the Gauls.
C)the Russians.
D)the Greeks.
E)Arabic forces.

Question 5

Byzantium was the Mediterranean basin's leading producer of

A)silk.
B)cotton.
C)tobacco.
D)gold.
E)steel.

Question 6

The theme system

A)weakened the peasantry by taking their land away.
B)made land available to the peasants in return for military service.
C)led to the break between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches.
D)limited the religious authority of the Byzantine emperors.
E)was the foundation of the Byzantine educational structure.

Question 7

Up through the eighth century,the chief foreign organized threat to the eastern Roman empire was

A)the resurgence of power by the Ptolemies in Egypt.
B)the Germanic tribes.
C)the Guptas in India.
D)the Sasanid dynasty.
E)neo-Greek military generals.

Question 8

Hagia Sophia was

A)the wife of Justinian who proved to be a wise adviser.
B)the magnificent church at Constantinople.
C)the legal foundation for Justinian's Code.
D)Justinian's most dangerous political enemy.
E)the central trading city on the silk roads.

Question 9

The most important political feature of the Byzantine state was its

A)docile acceptance of Rome's superiority.
B)republican governmental structure that resembled early Rome.
C)tightly centralized rule under a powerful emperor.
D)division of power under the tetrarchs.
E)reliance on Achaemenid ruling principles.

Question 10

According to Procopius,two sixth-century Christian monks undertook an elaborate smuggling operation to provide Byzantium with the knowledge to produce

A)steel.
B)iron.
C)ceramics.
D)gunpowder.
E)silk.

Question 11

The Byzantine ruler who led a resurgence of power in the eleventh century by crushing the Bulgars was

A)Theodora.
B)Belisarius.
C)Basil II.
D)Justinian.
E)Kleidion.

Question 12

Byzantium's major advantage was its

A)position as the greatest trading center of the Greek world.
B)huge army.
C)strategic position on the Bosporus.
D)magnificent library,which contained the cultural treasures of the Hellenistic world.
E)status as the most populous city in the Mediterranean basin.

Question 13

Justinian's issuance of the Corpus iuris civilis

A)won recognition as the definitive codification of Roman law.
B)outlawed the Greens and Blues.
C)brought immediate excommunication from the pope.
D)inspired the first crusade.
E)was immediately recognized as the greatest literary feat in Byzantine history.

Question 14

Which part of the Mediterranean basin was never part of the Byzantine empire?

A)Anatolia
B)Greece
C)Italy
D)Spain
E)Arabia

Question 15

The mixture of secular and religious authority that marked Constantine's reign as well as that of the Byzantine emperors is known as

A)Byzantine.
B)caesaropapism.
C)the Corpus iuris civilis.
D)secularism.
E)the divine right rule.

Question 16

In the year 962,Otto of Saxony

A)accepted the sovereignty of the Byzantine emperors.
B)created a written alphabet for the Slavic people.
C)expanded the scope of Byzantine influence by translating Justinian's code into German.
D)claimed to rule as emperor of the old western half of the Roman empire.
E)invaded and sacked Constantinople.

Question 17

Italy,Sicily,northwestern Africa,and southern Spain were brought back under imperial control by the military victories of

A)Theodora.
B)Belisarius.
C)Basil II.
D)Charlemagne.
E)Augustus.

Question 18

One of the causes of Byzantine resurgence was the political innovation wherein a general was given military and civil control over an imperial province or

A)theme.
B)sasanid.
C)corpus.
D)satrapy.
E)polis.

Question 19

Historians use the term caesaropapism to refer to the

A)European struggle between church and state.
B)split between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches.
C)attempt by later Roman emperors to abolish the papacy.
D)system in which the emperor has a mixture of political and religious authority.
E)bureaucratic revolution brought about by Julius Caesar.

Question 20

Basil II crushed the Bulgars in 1014 at the Battle of

A)Manzikert.
B)Kleidion.
C)Constantinople.
D)Kerbala.
E)Hagia Sophia.

Question 21

In 1071,Byzantium lost the battle of Manzikert and control over Anatolia to the

A)Saljuq Turks.
B)Arabs.
C)Ottoman Turks.
D)Bulgars.
E)Sasanids.

Question 22

In a disaster from which the Byzantine empire never really recovered,Constantinople was sacked in 1204 by the

A)crusading Normans.
B)Saljuq Turks.
C)Ottoman Turks.
D)Sasanids.
E)largest Arab force ever sent against a city.

Question 23

St.Basil of Caesarea

A)played a key role in the rise of monasticism.
B)excommunicated the pope and began the split inside Catholicism.
C)worked out a compromise between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches.
D)began the movement known as iconoclasm.
E)was the first and most famous of the "pillar saints."

Question 24

St.Basil of Caesarea played an important role in the rise of monasticism.

Question 25

By the sixteenth century,Russians had begun to think of Moscow as the

A)most important trading center in eastern Europe.
B)mightiest military center in the world.
C)third Rome.
D)last true bastion of Roman Catholicism.
E)new Athens.

Question 26

Justinian was the Byzantine emperor who attempted to reconquer the western Roman empire from the German tribes.

Question 27

The Corpus iuris civilis was Justinian's definitive codification of Roman law.

Question 28

From the sixth century on,the official language of Constantinople was

A)Latin.
B)Turkish.
C)Aramaic.
D)Greek.
E)French.

Question 29

Which of the following accurately describes education in Byzantium?

A)Byzantium fell far short of the standards set in the western half of the empire.
B)Basic literacy was widespread in Byzantine society.
C)Byzantium struggled because of the lack of a written language.
D)Only the members of the central court could read and write.
E)Byzantium made tremendous strides after its conquest of the Arabic world.

Question 30

Constantinople finally fell in 1453 to the

A)Saljuq Turks.
B)Sasanids.
C)Mongols.
D)combined armies of the English,French,and Germans.
E)Ottoman Turks.

Question 31

The Byzantine empire suffered a devastating loss to the Saljuq Turks in 1071 at the battle of

A)Kleidion.
B)Actium.
C)Manzikert.
D)Constantinople.
E)Trebizond.

Question 32

Saints Methodius and Cyril

A)converted the Slavic lands to Roman Catholicism.
B)devised the Cyrillic alphabet.
C)were responsible for a compromise between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches.
D)died while on a mission to spread the faith to Africa.
E)were highly influential "pillar saints."

Question 33

The rise of Orthodox Christianity in Russia was helped by the conversion in 989 of

A)Prince Vladimir.
B)Peter the Great.
C)Justinian.
D)Ivan III.
E)Catherine the Great.

Question 34

What city,influenced heavily by Constantinople,was most important in the early rise of Russia?

A)Moscow
B)St.Petersburg
C)Kiev
D)Moravia
E)Manzikert

Question 35

The bezant

A)was the hereditary line of priests that dominated the Byzantine religious and social worlds.
B)headed the Byzantine banking industry.
C)was the Byzantine gold coin that became the standard currency in the Mediterranean basin.
D)was one of the two main factions inside Constantinople.
E)was the Byzantine class of nobles who blocked imperial centralization.

Question 36

In 1054 the pope in Rome and the patriarch in Constantinople

A)met at the Council of Milan to settle old differences.
B)mutually excommunicated each other.
C)agreed on a joint plan to bring Christianity to Russia.
D)jointly called for a new crusade.
E)agreed on a highly controversial plan to eliminate the Protestants.

Question 37

St.Cyril helped to create a written Slavic alphabet.

Question 38

Emperor Leo III inaugurated the divisive ecclesiastical policy of

A)caesaropapism.
B)iconoclasm.
C)insisting that the patriarch of Constantinople was superior to the pope in Rome.
D)venerating religious icons.
E)translating the Bible into German.

Question 39

The fourth crusade,in early 1204,

A)recaptured Jerusalem from the Muslims.
B)suffered a disastrous defeat at the gates of Jerusalem.
C)is also known as the "children's crusade."
D)sacked Constantinople and caused extreme harm to the Byzantine empire.
E)was captured,and all the crusaders converted to Islam.

Question 40

Basil II began iconoclasm.

Question 41

In what ways was the political,intellectual,and cultural makeup of Byzantium different from that of the western half of the Roman empire? How could these differences explain greater discrepancies between eastern and western Europe?

Question 42

Examine the role that trade played in the Byzantine empire.How did the economic world of Byzantium change over the years?

Question 43

Discuss the significance of the city of Constantinople.What was life in the city like? Why would its eventual fall be seen as such a disaster?

Question 44

The Byzantine empire was the sole surviving classical society.Why were the other existing states not considered classical societies? Compare the Byzantine empire to the other classical societies.

Question 45

Examine the split between the Roman Catholic church and Greek Orthodox church.What led to this fundamental split? How did this split influence later history?

Question 46

Examine the influence of Greek thought on the Byzantine world.How was this intellectual world created,and what was its long-term influence?

Question 47

Look at the picture of the church of Hagia Sophia on page 185.What can we learn about the splendor of Justinian's reign from this picture? What is Hagia Sophia used for today,and what does this use tell us about the fate of Byzantium?

Question 48

Examine the mosaic of Justinian on page 184.How does the image reflect the Byzantine concept of caesaropapism?

Question 49

In what ways did Byzantium serve as a bridge from the classical age to the middle ages in Europe? What was its legacy?

Question 50

Examine the theory of caesaropapism.What were its origins? Explain its relation to the power of the Byzantine emperor.What influence did it have on European history?

Question 51

Discuss the rise of monasticism.What role did St.Basil of Caesarea play? What were the religious and social implications of this system?

Question 52

Examine the social structure of the Byzantine empire.Explain the theme system.Trace the changing status of peasants.

Question 53

In what ways did Byzantium carry on the legacy of Rome? What was Justinian's dream? In what ways was Byzantium different from Rome?

Question 54

Discuss the religious beliefs and structure of the Byzantine world.Examine the rise and influence of the Orthodox church.

Question 55

Discuss the influence of Byzantium on eastern Europe.In what ways did this influence shape early Russian history?

Question 56

Prince Vladimir helped convert Russia to Orthodox Christianity.

Question 57

Examine the reign of Justinian.Explain the significance of Justinian's code.In what ways did Justinian influence history?