Deck 9: The West Struggles and Eastern Empires Flourish: The Late Middle Ages, C.A 1300-1500

Question 1

During the Late Middle Ages

A) The population of Europe was seriously reduced by the Black Death,
B) A good food supply spurred population growth
C) England and France were at peace
D) The papacy was extraordinarily stable, threatened by neither schism nor heresy

Answer 1

The population of Europe was seriously reduced by the Black Death,

Question 2

Which of the following was not a cause for the famines that struck Europe in the early fourteenth century?

A) An excessive growth of population
B) Wars that killed peasants, destroyed grain and prevented harvests
C) Too much reliance on marginal, poor-yielding lands for food
D) Cold, damp weather that prevented proper plowing, planting and harvesting

Answer 2

Wars that killed peasants, destroyed grain and prevented harvests

Question 3

The Black Death

A) Originated in Manchuria
B) Killed a third of the European population
C) Was transmitted by fleas
D) All of these options are correct

Answer 3

All of these options are correct

Question 4

Which of the following is not true of the bubonic plague and its consequences?

A) It showed that devastating diseases can move from animals to humans
B) The disease caused a breakdown of law and order
C) It resulted in persecution of Jews
D) Once the plague ended, it never returned to Europe

Question 5

An important immediate result of the Black Death was

A) A major shortage of labor
B) The end of the Hundred Years' War
C) The transfer of the papacy to Avignon
D) The Renaissance

Question 6

John Ball and Wat Tyler were

A) Physicians who wrote about the Black Death
B) Preachers who led the English peasant revolts in the late fourteenth century
C) Important late medieval theologians
D) Instigators of a plot to blow up Parliament

Question 7

For seventy years, the popes lived, not in Rome, but in

A) Avignon
B) Venice
C) Paris
D) Florence

Question 8

During the Avignon papacy

A) The popes became far more religious, modeling themselves on the Franciscans
B) The popes, cut off from their Roman revenues, made their tax collection more efficient and acted more like secular leaders than spiritual rulers
C) The popes completed their control over Europe, deposing several monarchs and raising new ones
D) The popes were vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor

Question 9

The Great Schism

A) Started when dissenting cardinals elected a second pope, who resided at Avignon rather than at Rome
B) Led to an increasing criticism of the medieval church for its seeming concern for money at the expense of spiritual matters
C) Saw most persons choosing to follow one pope over the other for political rather than religious reasons
D) All of these options are correct

Question 10

The Conciliar movement

A) Was an attempt to increase the level of spirituality in a declining medieval Church
B) Was an attempt to restore papal power to the levels achieved by Innocent III
C) Was an attempt to end the chaos of the Great Schism, with its three rival popes
D) Was an attempt to exalt the authority of the English Parliament above the king

Question 11

A late medieval English critic of both the doctrines and practices of the Church was

A) Geoffrey Chaucer
B) Richard the Lion-Hearted
C) Thomas Aquinas
D) John Wycliffe

Question 12

The Black Prince

A) Probably received that title because of the color of his armor
B) Was the eldest son of the king of France
C) Was killed fighting in Spain
D) Ultimately ruled England as Edward IV

Question 13

By 1428, England seemed to be on the verge of complete victory in the Hundred Years' War because

A) Joan of Arc had defected from the French to the English side
B) The king of France, defeated at Agincourt, was forced to sue for peace and declare his heir illegitimate
C) The duke of Burgundy, the most powerful supporter of the king of France, had been killed in battle
D) They had perfected the longbow

Question 14

The Wars of the Roses

A) Took place in France after the Hundred Years' War
B) Led to the triumph of the feudal nobility over the crown
C) Led to Henry Tudor becoming king of England as Henry VII
D) Led to the subjugation of Ireland

Question 15

Which of the following is not true about the Nominalist philosophy of William of Ockham?

A) It became the most popular philosophy taught in the universities, the self-proclaimed "modern way" of thinking
B) It argued that the existence of God could not be proved by reason and that God was not bound to act in a logical manner
C) It arose in support of the heretical ideas of Wycliffe and Hus
D) It rejected Scholastic philosophy as a waste of time

Question 16

The first great vernacular author of the Middle Ages, Dante, composed the

A) Decameron
B) Summa Theologica
C) Canterbury Tales
D) Divine Comedy

Question 17

Dante's Divine Comedy has been considered

A) A medieval work because it incorporates both Aristotelian science and the theology of Thomas Aquinas
B) A departure from the medieval world because Dante was a layman expressing his view of the theology of salvation
C) An anticipation of the classicism of the Renaissance because his guide to salvation was the Latin poet Virgil
D) All of these options are correct

Question 18

Of the following literary and artistic figures of the late Middle Ages, choose the only correct match of person and work.

A) Dante: A great Flemish painter, known for portrayals combining amazing realism with medieval symbolism
B) Boccaccio: Author of the Divine Comedy, a literary masterpiece influenced by Scholastic theology and Aristotelian philosophy
C) Chaucer: English author of the Canterbury Tales, which provide a revealing look at fourteenth-century society
D) Jan van Eyck: Author of the Decameron, a collection of tales told by Florentines living in a rural villa to escape the Black Death

Question 19

Genghis Khan was

A) The Ottoman leader who conquered Constantinople
B) The Mongol leader who united many tribes and conquered large parts of Asia
C) The founder of the Moscow state
D) A late medieval heretic

Question 20

Which of the following was not a policy of Kublai Khan?

A) He established himself as the emperor of China, founder of the Yuan Dynasty
B) He employed non-Chinese officials, including Marco Polo
C) He established his capital at what is now Beijing, then called Ta-tu or Khanbalik
D) He promoted the cultural assimilation between his Chinese subjects and their Mongol overlords

Question 21

A new Muslim empire of the fourteenth century and beyond, based in Asia Minor and conquering much of the Balkans was that of the

A) Ottomans
B) Mongols
C) Arabs
D) Abbasids

Question 22

The Ottoman Empire ruled over a large area that included all or most of the territory of several previous empires. Choose the incorrect empire on this list:

A) The Assyrian Empire
B) The Byzantine Empire
C) The Holy Roman Empire
D) The Egyptian Empire

Question 23

The victorious Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II, conquered

A) The Mongol Empire
B) The Byzantine Empire
C) The Crusader States
D) The Holy Roman Empire

Question 24

Which of the following is not true about the rise of Moscow?

A) Ivan I made himself wealthy by collecting the Mongol tribute within Russia
B) Ivan III, by a victory over the Mongols in 1480, effectively ended Mongol domination over most of Russia
C) Ivan III extended his dominions into central Europe
D) Ivan III married the niece of the last Byzantine emperor and regarded himself the successor of the Byzantine emperors

Question 25

The Black Death of 1348-1350 killed about one third of the European population.

Question 26

Jews were often blamed for the Black Death.

Question 27

The Black Death led to a major destabilizing labor surplus in Europe.

Question 28

Late fourteenth-century Europe saw several major peasant revolts.

Question 29

During the first three quarters of the fourteenth century, the popes lived in Avignon, on the Rhone River, rather than in Rome.

Question 30

The Council of Constance failed to end the Great Schism.

Question 31

John Wycliffe, an Oxford theologian, criticized the Avignon papacy for being too spiritual, not devoting enough energy to important secular affairs.

Question 32

England won all the great battles of the Hundred Years' War-Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt-but still lost the war.

Question 33

By 1380 Edward III of England ruled half of France.

Question 34

The Black Prince received his nickname because of his unchivalrous reputation.

Question 35

The Hundred Years' War resulted in a major weakening of French royal power.

Question 36

William of Ockham argued that if two alternative explanations for the same phenomenon existed, the more complex explanation was correct.

Question 37

There has been disagreement among scholars about whether Dante should be considered an almost perfect medieval writer or an example that new, non-medieval ideas were at work.

Question 38

There was little criticism of the medieval church in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Question 39

Flemish painters such as Jan Van Eyck were able to use the new technique of oil painting to produce realistic detail.

Question 40

Genghis Khan, although a brutal conqueror, introduced a writing system for the Mongol language and promulgated a law code for the Mongols.

Question 41

The Byzantine Empire was able to hold off the aggressions of the Ottoman Empire.

Question 42

According to the text, Suleiman the Magnificent took the Ottoman Empire to the height of its power.

Question 43

Ivan III of Russia took the title of "Tsar" or Caesar after his conquest of the Byzantine Empire.

Question 44

In the middle of the fourteenth century, Europe was devastated by the disease known as the ________or the Black Death.

Question 45

The Black Death often led to persecution of the ________.

Question 46

A major peasant revolt broke out in 1381 in the country of ________.

Question 47

During most of the fourteenth century, the popes resided not in Rome, but in ________.

Question 48

The situation of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, when two or three persons claimed to be pope, is called the ________.

Question 49

Ending the Great Schism was the ________.

Question 50

The pre-Reformation Oxford theologian who rejected claims of papal authority was John________.

Question 51

The Hundred Years' War pitted England against ________.

Question 52

The first major battle of the Hundred Years' War, ________, was won by the English.

Question 53

The son of Edward III of England, instrumental in the victories of Crécy and Poitiers, was nicknamed the ________.

Question 54

The French woman who helped turn the tide for France in the Hundred Years' War was ________.

Question 55

The civil wars that broke out in England over the succession to the throne after the Hundred Years' War are called the ________

Question 56

The medieval English philosopher who taught the concept of Nominalism was ________.

Question 57

Dante was the author of the ________, an allegory of a soul's journey through despair to salvation.

Question 58

The late medieval English author of the Canterbury Tales was ________ (surname).

Question 59

A Flemish painter, renowned for his precise depiction of objects, was ________ (surname).

Question 60

The Asiatic people who in the thirteenth century overran China, Persia and Russia were the________.

Question 61

The Mongol who ruled China, founding a new dynasty there, was ________.

Question 62

The triumph of the Ottoman Empire meant the fall of the ________ empire.

Question 63

__________ ended the Mongol domination of Russia and proclaimed himself tsar.

Question 64

Discuss the Hundred Years' War, its origins, its principal events and its results.

Question 65

The fourteenth century seems to have been an era of political and social tumult. How did the famines and the Black Death contribute to this?

Question 66

What were the eastern empires that came to power by the end of the fifteenth century and what were their relative strengths?

Question 67

Do the literature, philosophy and arts of the late Middle Ages recapitulate that era or are they the signs of some new developments?

Question 68

Innocent III, who died in 1216, is often considered the most influential of medieval pontiffs. If this is so, what happened in the fourteenth century to make the popes less influential than they had been a century before?

Question 69

How did the Mongol and Ottoman empires alter the political picture of both Europe and Asia?

Question 70

Chapter 9 seems filled with disorder. What happened in Europe after 1300 to cause the breakdown of order and how did Europeans of the time react to it?

Question 71

Was there a Hundred Years' War or were the events described in Chapter 9 a continuation of a major struggle lasting more than one century between the kings of France and the kings of England that had started as an indirect result of the Norman conquest of 1066?

Question 72

If the Crusades, in an earlier chapter and exploration, in a later chapter, both marked an outward turning of Europe, do the events of the fourteenth century mark an inward turning? Why or why not?