Deck 12: Medieval Piety and the Rise of the Universities

Question 1

Which of the following was not a reason given for the shift in the European economy?

A) The formation of banks
B) The balance of trade favored the West
C) The Holy Roman Emperor set up workers' guilds
D) Money began to serve a more calculate value

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Did monasteries exemplify the gift economy?

A) Yes, they became the backbone of European trade
B) Yes, they displayed their wealth and aided the poor as a form of feudal responsibility
C) No, monastics' vow of poverty made this impossible
D) No, they were solely focused on work and prayer

Answer 2

B

Question 3

How did Peter Damian respond to the shift in culture?

A) He advocated monastic life as a flight from society
B) He negotiated treaties between the Holy Roman Empire and emerging nation states
C) He created hostels to serve the migrating poor
D) He formed the first nation-wide social service program

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Who were the Humiliati?

A) A secret branch of the Vatican
B) A collective of priests and lay people who preached radical simplicity
C) A secret society in Italy that pledged support for Rome
D) The author called them a public nuisance

Question 5

Who were the Waldensians?

A) Group of apocalyptic Christians who believed the cultural shift pointed to the end-times
B) Group that demanded reform from the pope
C) Group that preached radical poverty as the authentic Christian message
D) Group that rejected the sacraments as idol worship

Question 6

What was the great theological problem with the Cathars?

A) They advocated using a secular Bible
B) They denied every tenet of the Third Lateran Council
C) They preached universal salvation
D) They considered the body evil and needed to be divorced from the spirit

Question 7

What did the Inquisition investigate?

A) Heresies
B) Disloyalty to the Pope
C) Charges of grave sin (e.g., adultery)
D) Political intrigue

Question 8

How was the Spanish Inquisition different from the larger Inquisition?

A) It did not allow those charged to defend themselves
B) It became the vehicle for the Spanish church to break free (temporarily) from Rome
C) It became an instrument of political abuse
D) It was run by Dominicans

Question 9

Why did Dominic Guzman believe that Christianity was being led astray by heresies?

A) He thought the Inquisition made the faithful distrust the church
B) He believed that most Christians were easily swayed
C) He did not think the faithful had an intellectually compelling witness from clergy
D) He actually showed that they were not led astray by heresies

Question 10

What was the focus of Dominican ministry?

A) Preaching and education
B) Social service and care of the poor
C) Institutional reform, especially in Rome
D) Giving retreats that infused the faithful with authentic faith

Question 11

What was unique about Dominican spirituality?

A) It concentrated on prayer in one's day-to-day existence
B) It gave both lay people and religious alike a greater sense of the grandeur of creation
C) It was devoted to poverty, chastity, and obedience
D) The author says that they did not emphasize a particular style of spirituality

Question 12

What was a significant experience that Francis of Assisi had that changed his life?

A) He met the pope who challenged him to dedicate his life to the poor
B) His family disinherited him, which left him with great empathy for the poor
C) He broke his leg, and during his recovery he had a mystical experience of God
D) His experience with lepers went from bitterness to sweetness

Question 13

What does stigmata reference?

A) An eye disease, which Francis contracted
B) The wounds of Christ miraculously appearing on one's body
C) Being stigmatized for one's poverty
D) Being banished for leprosy

Question 14

Why was the first formal Rule of the Franciscans rejected by Rome?

A) It made poverty seem to be a positive good
B) It included suspicious language that may have been heretical
C) It was written in Italian and not Latin
D) It was considered too strict and idealistic

Question 15

What did the author note about the person of Francis of Assisi?

A) He is admired by members of other religions
B) He went from being irascible (angry) to becoming utterly gentle
C) He was curiously tall (6'4")
D) He refused particular friendships so as to be able to love the whole world

Question 16

What was the author's main point regarding medieval shifts in understanding one's body?

A) The body was now rejected as inferior to the soul
B) The body became understood as the highest part of the human being
C) The body became far more honored as a locus of spiritual experience
D) The body became understood as God's first and finest gift

Question 17

How were sexual stereotypes reconsidered from the patristic era?

A) Stereotypical feminine qualities became seen as highly spiritually valuable
B) Women became more powerful in the medieval period
C) The patristic world highly valued the feminine genius, while femininity was looked down upon in the medieval period
D) In the medieval period women were allowed to act like men

Question 18

According to the author:

A) Women were more honored in the medieval period than any other period in human history
B) Men often used feminine metaphors for themselves
C) The church now began to persecute strong women as witches
D) Women often used masculine metaphors for themselves

Question 19

Who were the Beguines?

A) A woman's religious order deemed heretical
B) A form of monasticism that included both women and men who lived together
C) Members of a lay preaching movement that preached radical poverty
D) Lay women who lived a common life

Question 20

Why did the church demand that the laity take communion on the tongue?

A) Church leaders feared that some would use the consecrated host to make spiritual concoctions or put it in a locket
B) The Eucharist was considered too holy to touch
C) The church declared that touching the consecrated host would be a grave sin
D) No one actually knows why, but it became standard practice

Question 21

How were saint shrines associated to economics?

A) The holders of the shrines typically charged pilgrims to visit them
B) Shrine pilgrims were double-taxed by the civic authority
C) Shrines fostered a town's pilgrimage trade
D) People came to shrines often seeking financial relief

Question 22

What constituted the most popular shrines for pilgrimage?

A) Those dedicated to Mary
B) Those dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
C) Those dedicated to Jesus
D) Those associated with cathedral churches

Question 23

What led to the rise of universities?

A) Church sponsorship
B) Civic wealth, development of paper, and an infusion of classical texts
C) Competition between the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantium empire
D) Developments in monastic culture from prayer to study

Question 24

What was the aim of scholasticism?

A) Striving to become the most famous university
B) Striving to understand all of Christian faith in a reasoned and systematic way
C) Striving to achieve the greatest reservoir of books at a university
D) Striving to unite Christian, Muslim, and Jewish scholarship into a theological whole

Question 25

What did Peter Lombard strive to do in his Four Books of the Sentences?

A) He strove to unite all knowledge (theology, law, medicine, and mathematics) into a whole
B) He strove to replace church teachings with a common core set of propositions
C) He strove to show how theological inquiry contrasted with a devout soul
D) He strove to resolve differences among the patristics to form a higher synthesis

Question 26

What religious order did Thomas Aquinas belong to?

A) Jesuits
B) Franciscans
C) Dominicans
D) Carthusians

Question 27

What was Thomas Aquinas's greatest theological achievement?

A) Magnus Theologicum
B) Summa Theologiae
C) Synthesis Sentiantorum
D) Cogito Ergo Sum

Question 28

Nominalists believed that:

A) Universals existed in name only
B) Theology had to be free from church law
C) Everything that exists does so because God wants it to be
D) If you were not Christian you would be damned

Question 29

According to the author, the influence of Thomas Aquinas's great synthesis began to wane:

A) Within a decade
B) Within twenty years
C) Within less than a century
D) Within two hundred years

Question 30

What was one of the long-term upshots of Nominalism in the theology of the West?

A) It helped the Roman Catholic Church challenge the Protestant Reformation
B) It divorced natural reason from revelation
C) It reintroduced Western theology to the influence of Thomas Aquinas's theology
D) It created a two-tiered church structure

Question 31

The profit economy decimated the population of cities in Europe.

Question 32

Peter Damian led a movement to reform society of its greed.

Question 33

The Humiliati concentrated on serving the needs of the impoverished.

Question 34

The Inquisition originally was meant to cleanse the church of its extensive wealth.

Question 35

Originally, the Dominicans survived by begging food and lodging.

Question 36

Mendicant friars literally means "brothers who eat."

Question 37

When Francis of Assisi heard Jesus tell him to "rebuild my church," he thought Jesus meant the chapel he was praying in.

Question 38

Francis of Assisi was initially relieved when the pope rejected his first Rule.

Question 39

Feminine qualities were highly praised in the medieval period on spiritual grounds.

Question 40

The medieval period often imagined Jesus and even God the Father as a mother.

Question 41

The Beguines taught that Jesus saved only those who embraced evangelical poverty.

Question 42

Medieval Christians were highly superstitious.

Question 43

Christian scholastics utilized Jewish and Muslim scholars in their own theology.

Question 44

Peter Abelard was one of the most important forerunners of scholasticism.

Question 45

Nominalists taught that theology could only be authentic when aligned with the experience of most lay Christians in the world.

Question 46

The author describes groups, such as the Waldensians and Cathars, rising up in the Middle Ages. This ignited the Inquisition and suppression of heresy. Today we have a separation of church and state and widely believe in the primacy of the conscience where anyone can believe and speak out whatever theology one wants. How did the author defend the ideology of the medieval period as a contrast to today? Do you think that Christianity is better off with anyone representing Christianity in any way he or she sees fit?

Question 47

One of the most dramatic events in Francis of Assisi's life was receiving the stigmata. From a Christian theological perspective, does this seem inspiring, odd, or problematic? Explain.

Question 48

How would you distinguish Dominican spirituality from Franciscan spirituality? Which of the two looks more attractive and why?

Question 49

What assets do you find in using feminine imagery for God and Jesus? Is there anything disturbing about such imagery for you?

Question 50

Thomas Aquinas was convinced that revelation had to be aligned to reason. Do you think this position is legitimate? Why or why not? What are the assets and liabilities of requiring such an alignment?