Deck 9: From Centralization to Fragmentation, 750-1050

Question 1

Between 750 and 850, the Byzantines fought off Muslim attacks in Asia Minor. How did the empire expand its territories after 850?

Answer 1

Answer would ideally include the following. While the themes responded to attacks on Byzantine territory, new mobile armies called tagmata went on the offensive around 850. These elite forces brought new territory, and new sources of income, to the empire.

Question 2

Describe the arrangements that facilitated Byzantine trade with the Muslim East.

Answer 2

Answer would ideally include the following. Byzantine traders received protection while trading in Syria, which functioned as an entry point for Muslim goods. The sales tax income from the Byzantine traders in Syria was split by the two governments; even though these two governments were frequently at war, both benefited from this exchange.

Question 3

Why were eleventh-century Muslim traders able to conduct business in such far-flung places as Baghdad and Córdoba?

Answer 3

Answer would ideally include the following. The Islamic world was unified culturally by Arabic, the language of the Qur'an and of commerce and government. Trade was also greatly facilitated by the open borders between various Islamic regions. The Islamic world's tolerance for Judaism and Christianity made it possible for non-Muslims such as the Jewish Tustari brothers to establish vast commercial networks.

Question 4

What factors led to the decline of the Abbasid dynasty in the 800s?

Question 5

What was the Donation of Constantine? How did it enhance the power of the popes?

Question 6

Why did Charlemagne's empire not remain intact beyond the death of his son?

Question 7

Describe the three-field system and its advantages.

Question 8

Who were the Magyars, and what impact did their invasions have on Europe?

Question 9

What was primogeniture? What were its causes? What were its effects on western European noble families?

Question 10

Describe the use of Anglo-Saxon in written form under Alfred the Great.

Question 11

What factors enabled the Byzantine Empire to recover from the Arab invasions between 630 and 850 and undergo a tremendous process of expansion that lasted until 1054? In your response, please also describe the stages of Byzantine expansion.

Question 12

Analyze the political, economic, and intellectual factors that produced impressive cultural achievements between 850 and 1050 in the Islamic world. Which achievements had a lasting effect on the non-Islamic world? Explain why.

Question 13

Why did the Carolingians enter into a partnership with the Christian church? What role did Charlemagne play in this alliance? What effect did this collaboration have on western Europe?

Question 14

Describe the system of mutual obligation between lords and vassals that developed during the ninth and tenth centuries, the social and political conditions that supported it, and the position of peasants.

Question 15

Why was the Peace of God formed? Explain the conditions that led to its formation, as well as its primary purpose. How does the Truce of God relate to the Peace of God?

Question 16

How was Byzantium able to rebuild between 750 and 850?

A) They fended off attacks from Muslims.
B) They began to industrialize.
C) They discovered mines of gold that brought them wealth.
D) They developed an effective irrigation system.

Question 17

What new mobile armies allowed the Byzantine Empire to expand outward after 1850?

A) Tagmata
B) Themes
C) Dynatoi
D) Icons

Question 18

In the map depicted here, which statement is justified about the Byzantine Empire around 1025?
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A) By 1025, Byzantine emperors could again lay claim to all towns central to Jesus's life.
B) Though in decline generally, it expanded its boundaries in the previous three hundred years.
C) By this time, the Byzantines were able to conquer the central territories of the Islamic world.
D) The Byzantine Empire stopped its expansion where the Roman Empire did, at the Nile River.

Question 19

Byzantine commerce was largely controlled by which of the following?

A) The dynatoi
B) Arab merchants
C) The Byzantine government
D) Italian merchants

Question 20

Who were the dynatoi in the Byzantine Empire?

A) Wealthy families that sired the emperors
B) Eunuchs who served in high positions in the civil administration
C) Powerful military families who became a hereditary elite
D) Poor peasant farmers who were bound to the fields they cultivated

Question 21

The forerunner of the modern Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the ninth century

A) as a Greek-based alternative to the runic script originally used in Slavic lands.
B) by two Slav-speaking missionaries sent to convert the Slavs to Christianity.
C) by the Slavs, who adopted the language and alphabet of their Byzantine conquerors.
D) as a way for the Emperor Basil II to communicate better with his subjects.

Question 22

Which Byzantine emperor earned the nickname "the Bulgar-Slayer" for his conquest of Bulgaria and the Balkans?

A) Nicephorus I
B) Basil I
C) Basil II
D) Constantine

Question 23

Who conquered and colonized the region around Kiev in the late ninth century?

A) The Vikings
B) The Byzantine emperor Basil I
C) The Rus prince Vladimir
D) Cyril and Methodius

Question 24

The conversion to Byzantine Christianity of Vladimir (r. c. 978-1015), grand prince of Kiev and ruler of Rus, reflected

A) the ambition of popes to extend their influence by offering to anoint foreign rulers.
B) fears of the spread of Islam throughout the region.
C) a trend toward Christian pacifism among newly converted monarchs in the east.
D) geographical conversion patterns: rulers in southeastern Europe usually adopted the Byzantine form of Christianity.

Question 25

After the revolution of 750, the new Abbasid caliphate moved its capital city from Damascus to

A) Baghdad.
B) Cairo.
C) Tripoli.
D) Medina.

Question 26

Why did the Abbasid caliphate begin to decline after Harun al-Rashid's death?

A) The Abbasids reneged on their promise to appoint Shi'ites to top government positions, so the Shi'ites instigated civil war.
B) The Abbasids embarked on a disastrous campaign to retake northern Africa.
C) A Sunni imam raised questions about the legitimacy of Harun's claims to the caliphate.
D) The caliphs lacked an adequate tax base to support the huge Abbasid army.

Question 27

In the tenth century, regional Muslim rulers became independent of the caliph, relying instead on

A) alliances with Christian powers in order to fend off caliphate interference.
B) the Muslim lack of interest in politics, which allowed the regional rulers to ignore the caliphate.
C) armies of Turkish mercenaries, known as Mamluks, for military support.
D) armies of Christian mercenaries, known as Saracens, for military support.

Question 28

In the map depicted here, which statement is justified about the Islamic states around 1000?
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A) Islam penetrated well into Europe in the previous two hundred years.
B) The major alteration in Islamic rule at this time was its fracturing into smaller states.
C) The Fatimid caliphate controlled much of the former Sassanid Empire.
D) The largest threat to the Byzantine Empire was the Umayyad Al-Andalus.

Question 29

Who were the Fatimids?

A) A series of Sunni rulers who deposed the Abbasid caliphs from their stronghold in Baghdad
B) A group of Turks taken as slaves who rebelled against their masters and established a dynasty of their own in Egypt
C) A group of prominent clerics who put forth legal pronouncements in Islam
D) A group of Shi'ite rulers who established a dynasty in North Africa and Arabia that lasted for nearly two hundred years

Question 30

How was the Spanish emirate of Córdoba in modern-day Spain created in 756?

A) Abd al-Rahman, an Umayyad, gathered an army during the Abbasid revolution and seized southern Spain after one battle.
B) Abd al-Rahman took the Abbasid revolution to Morocco and then launched a five-year campaign against southern Spain.
C) Muslim advisers to the Spanish king overthrew him and took control of southern Spain.
D) The new Abbasid caliph sent Abd al-Rahman to establish an emirate in Spain, where he encountered little resistance in the sparsely populated region.

Question 31

The government of which region granted freedom of worship and the opportunity to gain employment within the civil service to adherents of all religions in 929?

A) Carolingian France
B) Kievan Rus
C) al-Andalus
D) Byzantium

Question 32

With a flourishing import-export textile business, the Tustari brothers were

A) non-Muslims who benefited from the tolerance of Islam and the openness of its borders.
B) businessmen in the Islamic world who profited through their ability to open branch offices in distant cities.
C) Jewish merchants who converted to Islam in order to pursue business interests freely.
D) Jewish merchants whose primary business was the importation of gold from Africa.

Question 33

Ibn Sina (980-1037), known in Christian Europe as Avicenna,

A) was a converted Jew who served as vizier to several rulers in the Islamic world.
B) taught mathematics at one of Baghdad's leading madrasas.
C) studied astronomy at Córdoba and illustrated his own treatises.
D) drew upon his experience as a physician in writing his Canon of Medicine.

Question 34

During the Islamic renaissance (c. 790-c. 1050), rich Muslims established schools of higher learning called

A) madrasas.
B) caliphs.
C) taifas.
D) missions.

Question 35

How did the Islamic renaissance make learning available to social classes other than the aristocrats?

A) Scribes used a special shorthand that enabled them to write faster.
B) Apprentice scribes whose work was checked by master scribes produced more texts.
C) Islamic scholars used paper for their scholarly writings, making the texts cheaper.
D) Universal literacy was one of the goals of Islam.

Question 36

What peace accord between the Lombards and the pope secured the papacy's dominions in central Italy and confirmed the pope's independence from Byzantium?

A) The Donation of Pippin
B) The Treaty of Boniface
C) The Peace of Charlemagne
D) The Benefice of Rome

Question 37

Though Charlemagne was a man of tremendous contradictions, he attempted to implement a unifying vision of

A) a Christian Europe strong enough to reconquer the Holy Land from the rule of the Abbasids.
B) an empire that would fuse Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions.
C) a Christian world under his command that would extend from Spain to Armenia.
D) a peaceable kingdom in which warfare would be no more.

Question 38

How did Charlemagne unwittingly unleash a new round of invasions into his realm before his death?

A) He insisted that neighboring states acknowledge him as emperor of the Western world.
B) He sent Christian missionaries into the pagan kingdoms of his neighbors.
C) He destroyed the buffer states around his kingdom through his many campaigns.
D) He proclaimed that he would not leave his kingdom to his bookish son.

Question 39

Modern historians note that Charlemagne was a complex and often contradictory individual who

A) was devout in his beliefs, despite rejecting the advice of churchmen on some matters.
B) won a great victory over the Lombards on behalf of the papacy but refused to reinstall the pope.
C) conquered the Saxons in the name of Christianity but failed to convert them.
D) inadvertently initiated the Carolingian renaissance but showed little interest in learning himself.

Question 40

Which of the following regions was conquered by Charlemagne?
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A) Burgundy
B) Flanders
C) Saxony
D) Bavaria

Question 41

Which of the following regions did Charlemagne succeed in adding to his sizable kingdom?

A) England
B) al-Andalus
C) Germany
D) Russia

Question 42

How did Charlemagne attempt to combat corruption throughout his vast empire?

A) He adopted the Byzantine practice of employing eunuchs as senior administrators and military advisers.
B) He continually toured his dominions, holding public audiences to hear concerns and grievances in the major cities.
C) He sent copies of Carolingian laws to be posted in prominent locations and read aloud once a month in all the major cities of his realm.
D) He sent special officials to pay visits to his royal governors and to listen to the complaints and concerns of the local people.

Question 43

The Carolingian renaissance was intended not only to enhance the glory of the Frankish kings but also to

A) resurrect the learning of the past.
B) serve as a counterpart to the scholarship of notable Islamic scholars such as Ibn Sina.
C) extend literacy to a few religious elites.
D) reduce tensions between Charlemagne's three sons.

Question 44

Alcuin (c. 732-804) was invited by Charlemagne to come from England to act as

A) a military general.
B) a scholarly adviser.
C) an archbishop.
D) mayor of the palace.

Question 45

The Treaty of Verdun (843)

A) settled the borders between the Byzantine Empire and Charlemagne's kingdom.
B) established peace between the Vikings and the Franks.
C) divided the Carolingian Empire between the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious.
D) divided the Carolingian Empire between the three surviving sons of Charlemagne.

Question 46

A central element of Carolingian peasant life was the demesne, which was the

A) title of the lord to whom peasants owed service.
B) manse belonging to the lord, on which peasants were obligated to work.
C) name of the local church or monastery.
D) tax paid directly to the king.

Question 47

The three-field system, an important innovation of the early Middle Ages, enabled

A) Louis the Pious to divide his kingdom among his three sons.
B) the lords of the manor to house their vassals on different sections of their estates.
C) the fallow sections of fields to regain their fertility while allowing for greater agricultural production.
D) one-third of every estate to be turned over to the church for use as a monastery or chapel.

Question 48

Why were the Carolingians unable to hold their empire together after the death of Charlemagne?

A) The kingdom was divided up by Charlemagne's successors and became vulnerable to attacks by invading Vikings, Magyars, and Muslims.
B) The kingdom was attacked by groups of invading Huns, Ostrogoths, and Vandals, who destroyed the administrative institutions that Charlemagne had built up.
C) Charlemagne had refused to ally himself with the Roman papacy, thereby depriving his kingdom of the unifying force of Christianity.
D) Charlemagne's three sons fought bitterly over the spoils of the kingdom, and each allied himself with a different group of foreign invaders in an effort to defeat his brothers.

Question 49

Based on this map, the Vikings primarily traveled
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A) by sea.
B) on foot over land.
C) in small groups.
D) on horseback.

Question 50

Why did the Vikings often single out monasteries and churches for destruction?

A) The Vikings were proud pagans and had bitter memories of Carolingian attempts to convert them to Christianity.
B) The Vikings had entered into an alliance with the Byzantine Empire, which was embroiled in a period of struggle with western Christianity.
C) Churches and monasteries offered a lucrative supply of plunder.
D) The Vikings' leader in Denmark ordered them to target churches for destruction.

Question 51

Muslim invaders primarily attacked regions in

A) northwestern Europe.
B) southern Europe.
C) the Balkans.
D) the Baltic.

Question 52

Modern historians believe that the cessation of Magyar raids on kingdoms in western Europe around the middle of the tenth century is largely attributable to

A) the Magyars' transformation from nomads to farmers.
B) a series of famines that struck the Magyar kingdom.
C) Otto I's defeat of the Magyars at the battle of Lechfeld in 955.
D) most of those kingdoms having been plundered by Vikings beforehand.

Question 53

Why were fiefs significant in post-Carolingian society?

A) They provided an important measure of defense against Islamic incursions into Europe.
B) They added greatly to the number and size of monasteries.
C) They created bonds of loyalty and service in medieval Europe.
D) They effectively bound peasants to the land throughout western Europe.

Question 54

Although much of Europe came under the control of rural leaders as a result of the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire, urban elites continued to control some areas, including

A) Normandy.
B) western England.
C) southern France.
D) northern Italy.

Question 55

The act of homage and the promise of fealty were

A) extracted from prisoners of war in order to transfer their loyalties to their conquerors.
B) part of the ritual whereby citizens-both men and women-became vassals of a lord.
C) expected of all new brides in the post-Carolingian age.
D) gestures of mutual respect and allegiance.

Question 56

To what does the age of the castellans, which began around 1000 in France, refer?

A) Upper-class laywomen who helped cultivate the culture of "those who fought," as wives and mothers of vassals and lords
B) Groups of traveling astrologers who predicted that the end of the world would come after the turn of the millennium
C) The development of castella, a new type of armor that was lighter and harder than earlier armor
D) Widespread, virtually independent rule by castellans (the term castellan referred to any man who held a castle)

Question 57

What caused the rise of youths, unmarried knightly vassals who lived with their lords for indefinite periods of time?

A) The increasing power of local lords made it desirable to maintain a number of household knights for defensive purposes.
B) The violence among territorial rulers created a class of unmarried knights committed to war and prepared to enter battle with little advance preparation.
C) The introduction of primogeniture (bequeathing an entire estate to the eldest son) left younger sons without property, unable to marry, and dependent upon their lords.
D) The newly powerful local rulers preferred to marry their daughters to distant nobles, and knightly vassals preferred to remain single rather than marry a social inferior.

Question 58

The Peace of God movement in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries threatened excommunication to

A) end the use of religion as a means for justifying war.
B) keep peasants from revolting against their lords.
C) prevent churchmen from taking up arms.
D) keep the powerful from preying on the weak.

Question 59

In eleventh-century Italy, individual families were organized into economic units in which

A) each child received an equal share of the family's wealth.
B) sons shared the profits of the family's wealth, but daughters were excluded.
C) sons got full shares and daughters got half shares of the family's inheritance.
D) a professional accountant managed the family's wealth for everyone's benefit.

Question 60

Why, despite King Alfred's tremendous achievements, is it not accurate to speak of England as a unified state in the tenth and eleventh centuries?

A) The court of King Alfred was not administratively or financially capable of supporting religion, culture, and the arts.
B) The king's control was fragile, since royal officials often shifted allegiance to other claimants to the throne when it was in their interest to do so.
C) Only the parliaments and not the king had the power to draw up a binding code of law.
D) The king lacked the power to levy taxes.

Question 61

What brought about the end of Carolingian rule?

A) Hugh Capet was elected king and began the Capetian dynasty at the end of the tenth century.
B) Charles the Bald died in 877.
C) Charlemagne's empire was dissolved by the Treaty of Verdun.
D) Otto I (r. 936-973) was defeated at Lechfeld.

Question 62

Contemporaries of the German king Otto I thought him a great hero in 955 when he defeated the

A) Turks.
B) Magyars.
C) Arabs.
D) Vikings.

Question 63

Why did the German kings face difficulties in turning German dukes into loyal vassals?

A) The German kings had nothing concrete to offer the dukes.
B) German dukes tended to be pious men who saw themselves as the vassals of Christ.
C) The Germans viewed vassalage as beneath the dignity of free men.
D) German aristocrats in the eastern part of the kingdom belonged to the Orthodox church.

Question 64

What realm did Mieszko I place under the protection of the pope in 991?

A) Hungary
B) Bohemia
C) Slovakia
D) Poland

Question 65

Which of the following statements about Europe and the Mediterranean around 1050 is supported by this map?
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A) Most of Europe was part of the Byzantine Empire.
B) Europe was primarily united into large empires ruled by one emperor.
C) Most of Europe had adopted Islamic beliefs by this time.
D) Europe was comprised of many different states of a variety of cultures and societies.