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Quiz for Sources of The Making of the West, Chapter 13

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Quiz for Chapter 13: Crisis and Renaissance, 1340–1492

Document Links:

Document 13-1: The Black Death

Document 13-2: Thomas Walsingham, Peasant Rebels in London

Document 13-3: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Prologue

Document 13-4: Jan Hus, Letters

Document 13-5: Giovanni Rucellai and Leonardo Bruni, Florence in the Quattrocento

Document 13-6: Alessandra, Letters from a Widow, and Matriarch of a Great Family

Question 13.1

1. What shared understanding of the Black Death is found both in the description of the plague by Gabriele de’ Mussis and in the bull of Pope Clement IV (Document 13-1)?

Poisonings carried out by Jews were the cause of the plague.

No people or race was safe from the plague’s reach.

The plague was God’s punishment directed at Christians alone.

Contemporary accounts of the plague exaggerated its impact.

Question 13.2

2. Thomas Walsingham’s account of the peasant revolt (Document 13-2) provides evidence that late fourteenth-century English society was

predominantly urban.

economically vibrant.

socially uniform.

socially stratified.

Question 13.3

3. What aspect of the contemporary church did both Geoffrey Chaucer (Document 13-3) and Jan Hus (Document 13-4) criticize?

Clerical immorality

Papal schism

Limited lay access to the Eucharist

The rise of heresy

Question 13.4

4. Based on the letter of Jan Hus to his friends in Bohemia (Document 13-4), who defended his views at the Council of Constance?

His fellow clergy

The Holy Roman Emperor

The Czech nobility

The pope

Question 13.5

5. Based on Giovanni Rucellai and Leonardo Bruni’s portraits of Renaissance Florence (Document 13-5), why was knowledge of classical texts so highly valued?

They were more entertaining than contemporary works.

They inspired devotion at communal religious ceremonies.

They promoted individual introspection and solitude.

They provided practical models for civic rule and behavior.

Question 13.6

6. Based on Alessandra’s letters (Document 13-6), which of the following best characterizes the place of upper-class women in Renaissance Italy?

They were assets in forging alliances through marriage.

They were independent heads of their households.

They were political agents and advisers.

They were scholars and patrons of the arts.