Deck 11: The Later Middle Ages: Crisis and Disintegration in the Fourteenth Century

Question 1

The persecutions against Jews during the Black Death

A) were instigated at the calling of the Catholic church.
B) led to the execution of nearly all of the Jews in eastern Europe.
C) was the result of the decline in popular religious movements and manifestations.
D) had little to do with financial motives.
E) reached their worst excesses in German cities.

Answer 1

reached their worst excesses in German cities.

Question 2

The flagellants

A) were praised by the Catholic church for their miraculous deeds.
B) were groups that physically punished themselves to win the forgiveness of God.
C) were a new phenomenon that arose in response to the Black Death.
D) would remain a popular religious movement throughout the fourteenth century.
E) were only to be found in isolated rural areas.

Answer 2

were groups that physically punished themselves to win the forgiveness of God.

Question 3

Economically, the great plague and the crises of the fourteenth century

A) devastated peasants but not nobles.
B) brought an economic boom to landlords.
C) caused only minor changes in agricultural practices.
D) raised wages because of a scarcity of labor.
E) had little impact.

Answer 3

raised wages because of a scarcity of labor.

Question 4

A key economic consequence of the plague was

A) the rapid expansion of European civic banking to rebuild industry.
B) a decline in manorialism and weakening of feudalism as noble landlords desperate for cash converted peasant labor service to market rents freeing their serfs.
C) the more frequent bankruptcy of monarchs as they emptied their treasuries trying to provide poor relief.
D) the very slow enrichment of middling peasant laborers who began to dominate rural communities.
E) a long-term trend to abandon cities for the more secure rural environment.

Question 5

Post-plague socioeconomic relations between rich and poor in Europe

A) improved noticeably as Christians sought to make peace with one another to please an angry God.
B) quickly resumed their pre-plague character.
C) suffered as richer nobles rebuffed the sincere efforts of peasants to maintain the manorial system.
D) improved radically as the economy entered into a period of sustained prosperity.
E) got much worse as materially threatened nobles began to regard wealthier peasants and their new-found desires for meat and wine with utter contempt.

Question 6

Merchants and manufacturers responded to the economic tribulations of the fourteenth century by

A) increasing their prices.
B) restricting competition and resisting the demands of the lower classes.
C) blaming the Jews and persecuting them.
D) pressuring the government to raise the prices of their products.
E) adopting laissez-faire policies.

Question 7

In the conduct of the Hundred Years' War, a sure sign of feudalism's decline was the

A) inability of feuding kings to raise armies of knights.
B) reliance of kings on artillery as the main component of royal armies.
C) decisive role of peasant foot soldiers rather than mounted knights.
D) clear intention of kings to destroy the estates of their own vassals.
E) use of heavier armor and larger horses.

Question 8

The bubonic plague originated in

A) Africa.
B) Syria.
C) Italy.
D) the Azores.
E) Asia.

Question 9

One major issue behind the Hundred Years' War was a claim to the French throne by the English king

A) John II.
B) Edward II.
C) Edward III.
D) William the Conqueror
E) Henry I.

Question 10

What was the main cause of the early fourteenth century famines?

A) a blight that struck the wheat crop
B) a lack of knowledge of scientific agriculture
C) droughts throughout most of Europe
D) a little ice age inducing bad weather with heavy rains
E) urban pollution that spread into nearby farming regions.

Question 11

The devastation of the great plague in the fourteenth century led to

A) the perception of life as something cheap and passing.
B) a decrease in crime due to an increase in religious piety.
C) an increase in the number of clergy.
D) none of the above
E) all of the above

Question 12

The Black Death

A) was one of many European plagues that inflicted Europe from the eighth century onward.
B) started in northern Europe and moved southward to Italy.
C) recurred in severe outbreaks for centuries.
D) never reached England.
E) was restricted to Christian Europe, with the Arabic Middle East escaping from most of the devastation.

Question 13

The European aristocracy responded to the adversity of the great plague by

A) seeking to lower wages by legal means, especially for farm laborers.
B) producing only the most basic foodstuffs, such as grain.
C) petitioning kings to order the relocation of laborers.
D) forming agricultural cooperatives linking landowners, laborers, and city consumers.
E) investing in trade and commerce rather than agricultural production.

Question 14

All of the following were reactions to the great plague except

A) an increase in violence and murder due to a sense of life's cheapness.
B) the formation of groups like the flagellants, who physically maimed themselves to save the world.
C) a reduction in the persecution of religious minorities because of the displeasure it caused God.
D) morbidity and preoccupation with death in everyday life.
E) economic depression.

Question 15

The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381

A) was caused by the rising economic expectations of ordinary people.
B) was brutally crushed by the nobles.
C) succeeded in getting the government to agree to the peasants' demands.
D) gained long-term results for the peasants.
E) led to the end of the Hundred Years' War.

Question 16

The crucial battle of the Hundred Years' War that was won by Henry V in 1415 and that led to the treaty and apparent victory in the war for Henry and England was the Battle of

A) Crecy.
B) Tours.
C) Poitiers.
D) Troyes.
E) Agincourt.

Question 17

Among the adverse economic and population changes in fourteenth-century Europe were

A) shrinking peasant land holdings below the size needed to support a family.
B) an exodus of residents from overpopulated rural areas.
C) rapidly rising numbers of poor people in cities.
D) a and c
E) all the above

Question 18

The French government and aristocracy responded to the Jacquerie by

A) drafting the rebels into the army.
B) standing back and letting it run its course.
C) negotiating a settlement with its leaders.
D) massacring the participants.
E) renouncing their historic privileges.

Question 19

One decisive advantage that England had at the beginning of the Hundred Years' War was

A) cannons.
B) lances.
C) credit financing.
D) longbow.
E) castles.

Question 20

Pogroms were

A) religious ceremonies convened to ask for God's help against the plague.
B) small woolen balls people coughed into when infected with the plague.
C) organized massacres against the Jews.
D) the name given to people believed to be responsible for the Black Death.
E) mysterious sites where people could go to miraculously recover from the plague.

Question 21

The conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France began when Philip

A) tried to end corruption in the French Church.
B) tried to buy the papacy for his nephew, Henry.
C) taxed churchmen without the Church's permission.
D) denied the existence of witches.
E) authorized a French translation of the Bible.

Question 22

The chief ambition of the Venetian city-state in the fourteenth century was

A) financial control of the Holy Roman Empire.
B) inducing the bankruptcy of the papacy.
C) to create a maritime commercial empire throughout the Mediterranean and Black seas.
D) monopolizing the shipping of English wool to Flanders.
E) to wage a crusade against the Turks in order to gain access to the Holy Land.

Question 23

In Venice, ultimate governmental executive power was held by the

A) doge.
B) duce.
C) Great Council.
D) Council of Ten.
E) popolo grandi.

Question 24

Mysticism in the fourteenth century

A) was especially advocated by the nominalist school of William of Occam.
B) particularly took hold in France and Spain.
C) emphasized an intensely personal feeling of oneness with God.
D) was fully endorsed and carefully controlled by the church.
E) abandoned orthodox Christianity for heterodox pantheism.

Question 25

Politically, France by the end of the fourteenth century saw

A) the dominance of the Estates-General in determining government policy and administering taxes.
B) no new forms of government revenue due to royal opposition.
C) chaos and civil war as rival noble factions fought for control of the realm.
D) new rights of political participation in the Parlement of Paris for poor townspeople.
E) strongly unified as a result of the leadership of Joan of Arc.

Question 26

One overall result of the Great Schism was to

A) put an end to the church's previous financial abuses.
B) badly damaged the faith of many Christian believers.
C) rejuvenate Christianity as it had been on the decline throughout Europe.
D) end the abuse of pluralism.
E) reinforce the faith of true rather than false Christians.

Question 27

Meister Eckhart

A) challenged the works of Thomas Aquinas in public disputations.
B) was a mystic who claimed that one could achieve a union of the soul with God.
C) was a noted leader of the flagellants who turned to persecution of the Jews.
D) led the reform of the Franciscan order in Germany.
E) rejected the leadership of the pope and was burnt at the stake.

Question 28

Prior to the Golden Bull of 1356, Germany was a land composed of

A) the four kingdoms of Bavaria, Prussia, Hanover, and Austria.
B) the papal states and several baronies.
C) hundreds of virtually independent states.
D) a and b
E) all of the above

Question 29

After helping drive the English from France, Joan of Arc went on to

A) become rich writing romance novels.
B) be burned at the stake as a heretic.
C) marry the King of France and produce many children.
D) marry a peasant and lived in poverty and obscurity.
E) become the first female Roman Catholic priest.

Question 30

During the reign of Edward III of England, the Great Council of the barons

A) became the chief advisory body of the king.
B) relinquished most of its main powers.
C) became the House of Lords forming a hereditary body of peers in Parliament.
D) became subservient to the House of Commons.
E) was abolished in favor of a unitary parliament.

Question 31

Florence was ruled throughout most of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the

A) grandi.
B) popolo grasso.
C) popolo minuto.
D) ciompi.
E) duce.

Question 32

The mystic who founded the Modern Devotion movement and led the group known as the Brothers of the Common Life was

A) Meister Eckhart.
B) Johannes Tauler.
C) Desiderius Erasmus.
D) William of Occam.
E) Gerard Groote.

Question 33

From 1305 to 1377, the Papacy resided across the French border in the town of

A) Avignon.
B) Bordeaux.
C) Provence.
D) Dijon.
E) Paris.

Question 34

Politically, Italy and Germany were similar in the fourteenth century because

A) the plague had equally devastated both regions.
B) both regions failed to develop a centralized monarchical state.
C) local nobles and town governments lost much influence over reigning kings.
D) mercenary captains usurped royal authority and ruled violently.
E) both had begun to develop industrial economies.

Question 35

France's "first woman of letters" was

A) Pope Joan.
B) Joan of Arc.
C) Heloise.
D) Christine de Pizan
E) Simone de Beauvoir.

Question 36

Joan of Arc saved France by inspiring the French soldiers to break the English siege of

A) Bordeaux.
B) Amiens.
C) Orleans.
D) Paris.
E) Geneva.

Question 37

The Golden Bull of 1356 in Germany

A) made Emperor Charles IV the first in a line of hereditary rulers.
B) ensured the independence of the ecclesiastical states.
C) gave seven electors the power to choose the "king of the Romans."
D) ensured strong central authority for Germany in the next century.
E) gave limited religious toleration to urban Jews.

Question 38

The Great Schism arose in 1378 when

A) an argument broke out over the nature of the Trinity.
B) England broke away from the Catholic Church.
C) France was converted to Lutheranism.
D) the French cardinals elected a second pope.
E) an earthquake split St. Peter's basilica in two.

Question 39

The Italian condottieri were

A) political leaders supporting the pope.
B) bankers with branch banks throughout much of Western Europe.
C) merchants working in northern Europe.
D) reformers within the Catholic Church.
E) leaders of mercenary bands, occasionally ruling as military dictators.

Question 40

In Defender of The Peace, Marsiglio of Padua took the position that

A) popes have authority over the commoners but not over nobles.
B) the church must consign itself solely to spiritual functions.
C) popes have ultimate authority over all men, even kings.
D) the church was entirely illegitimate.
E) each king ought to establish his own church in his country.

Question 41

The most revolutionary of thirteenth and fourteenth-century inventions was/were

A) the printing press.
B) paper.
C) eyeglasses.
D) clocks.
E) telescope.

Question 42

The bubonic plague never actually arrived in Europe, but is rather the perpetuation of a medieval myth taken too literally.

Question 43

Women benefited from the black death because

A) they were able to find refuge in nunneries.
B) they were immune because of herbs taken in conjunction with pregnancy.
C) of social custom they were isolated, being restricted to their houses.
D) there were new employment opportunities.
E) women always lived longer than men.

Question 44

Ars moriendi refers to the

A) claim of victory in medieval warfare.
B) art of dying.
C) peasant's dues paid to the manor lord.
D) collective regulations of urban craft guilds.
E) tithe paid to the church.

Question 45

It is estimated that famine in the early fourteenth century killed 35 percent of the European population.

Question 46

In France, after the papacy was moved to Avignon, the clergy were reduced in rank to being only the Third Estate.

Question 47

The fifteenth century theologian who claimed that reason could not prove spiritual truth was

A) Aquinas.
B) Abelard.
C) Magnus.
D) Occam.
E) Eckhart.

Question 48

Dante's Divine Comedy

A) is considered a synthesis of medieval Christian thought.
B) was one of the last fourteenth-century works to be written in Latin.
C) lashed out at the "barbarity" of the classical tradition.
D) attacked the science of Aristotle, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Catholic church.
E) was the greatest prose work of the early Renaissance.

Question 49

Because of the resulting economic depression, the price of labor was drastically reduced in the aftermath of the Black Death.

Question 50

Christine de Pizan agreed that killing Joan of Arc had been a good idea, as this execution protected the proper ideal of women everywhere.

Question 51

All medical books, even after the impact of the Black Death, continued to be written in Latin and all were highly theoretical rather than being practical.

Question 52

Changed urban attitudes in the fourteenth century included

A) the promotion of equality between men and women in the workplace.
B) later marriages and increases in the number of extended families.
C) children being seen as valuable only in their capacity to work and earn money for the family.
D) the regulation and acceptance of prostitution in most communities.
E) the abolition of any property requirement for voting and political participation.

Question 53

All of the following are correct about Petrarch except he

A) was a Florentine.
B) wrote in the vernacular.
C) wrote sonnets in Latin.
D) perfected the sonnet form.
E) wrote love poems to Laura.

Question 54

After the Black Death, money payments were increasingly substituted for military service in the lord-vassal relationship.

Question 55

Among the great and influential female religious mystics of the fourteenth century was

A) St. Ingrid of Bohemia.
B) Julia of Canterbury.
C) Judith of Vienna.
D) Isabella of Ravenna.
E) Catherine of Siena.

Question 56

In contradiction to Thomas Aquinas, William of Occam claimed that the truths of religion could not be proved by reason but could be accepted only by faith.

Question 57

The Visconti family ruled the Duchy of Milan throughout most of the fourteenth century.

Question 58

Concerning parent-child relationships in the Middle Ages

A) parents were mostly indifferent toward their children, who often died while very young.
B) parents lavished considerable attention and affection on their offspring.
C) children were increasingly given over to be raised by strict church tutors.
D) children often married very young due to parental pressures to establish their own families quickly.
E) because of the number of deaths in the Black Death, children were seen as special and unique and were thus raised in a permissive environment.

Question 59

One of France's advantages toward the end of the Hundred Years' War was its adoption of cannon.

Question 60

What was Boccaccio's most famous work?

A) The Divine Comedy
B) The Sonnets
C) The Prince
D) Spiritual Exercises
E) The Decameron