Western Civilization ch. 7 & 8

Why did Justinian try to reconquer the western Roman Empire?

He sought to revive and reconstruct wholly the old empire.

Why did the Romans of Italy and North Africa resent Justinian’s efforts to "liberate" them?

There was a heavy cost in taxes and lives.

One result of the campaigns of Belisarius in North Africa and Italy was:

the weakening of Constantinople against the Sassanids.

A pandemic broke out in 541-42 which has come to be known as:

the Justinianic Plague.

The people who took advantage of the weakness of Italy due to Justinian’s policies of reconquest were the:

Lombards.

It is difficult to date the beginning of Byzantine history with precision because:

the Byzantine Empire was the uninterrupted successor of the Roman Empire.

The stability of Byzantine government was the product of:

an efficient bureaucracy.

The Byzantine economy in the early Middle Ages was:

highly regulated, including wage and price controls.

The early Byzantine religion was known for its:

intense interest in matters of doctrine and orthodoxy.

As a result of the Iconoclastic Controversy:

political legitimacy was fundamentally linked to the defense of religious tradition.

In the late sixth century C.E., the economy of Arabia:

became much more commercially sophisticated as a result of the wars between Byzantium and Persia changing trade routes.

Prior to Muhammad beginning to teach his prophecy and his new faith the Arabs:

had the concept of Allah as one of several gods.

One difference between Islam and Christianity is that:

Islam has no sacraments or priests.

The armies of Abu-Bakr were able to expand Islam northward out of Arabia largely because of:

the weakness of Byzantine and Persian armies because of their wars against each other.

Many of the local populations in Byzantium and Persia:

viewed the Arab armies as deliverers.

An important figure who founded several Merovingian monasteries was:

Columbanus.

Why were so many convents (monastic houses for women) founded during the seventh century C.E.?

Convents met a variety of social and spiritual needs for aristocratic families.

Local lords and chieftains often granted monasteries special privileges:

because monasteries often played a key role in economic development and prosperity in a region.

Pope Gregory I:

significantly advanced Benedictine monasticism as the major monastic movement in the West.

Byzantine monasteries were deeply involved in the Iconoclastic Controversy because:

they were major producers of icons, so they supported the use of images in the faith.

As a Christian king responsible for ruling a Christian society, Charlemagne:

took responsibility for reforming the religious life of his kingdom just as he reformed its government.

Underlying the Carolingian Renaissance was the basic conviction that:

classical learning was the foundation on which Christian wisdom rested.

Charlemagne was able to contain Umayyad power in Europe by:

maintaining diplomatic and trade relations with its rival the Abbasid Caliphate.

In 800 Charlemagne:

accepted the crown and title of Holy Roman emperor.

The Carolingian Empire collapsed during the ninth century:

because of the division of the empire among all the legitimate heirs of Louis and the Frankish aristocracy’s dissatisfaction with the fractured central authority.

The ______ were a major factor in the creation of new kingdoms and cultural patterns after the decline of the Carolingian Empire

Vikings.

The most powerful of the heirs of Charlemagne was the Saxon king Otto who:

tried but largely failed to dominate the papacy and northern Italy.

Central to the establishment of "feudal" monarchies was the:

personal relationship between individuals at each level of feudal society.

The new class of lords that arose after 900:

claimed descent not from Roman or Carolingian families but Viking warlords like Rollo the Viking.

A major source of mechanical power in medieval Europe after 1050 was the:

water mill, which was used to grind grain, crush paper pulp, and press oil.

Serfs were treated like slaves in parts of medieval Europe with a major exception:

serfs could not be sold apart from their historic lands.

The rotation of crops:

spread labor evenly over the course of the year.

As agricultural production increased and land became more valuable:

castles began to appear in the landscape as fortresses to dominate the land.

The merging of small individual land holdings into larger, common fields that could be worked by a whole village resulted in the emergence of:

manors.

The tenth century was known for ineffective kingship throughout Europe and:

an incompetent and largely corrupt papacy.

One of the many reforms undertaken by the Clunaic monasteries was to enforce the monastic vow of celibacy on all priests. Some segments of the Church rejected this reform claiming:

church fathers, such as Ambrose, had been married.

In 1059, Pope Nicholas II issued a new decree on papal elections, which gave the power to elect future popes to the:

College of Cardinals.

During the Investiture Conflict, Pope Gregory VII:

excommunicated Henry IV as king of Germany and encouraged all faithful Christians to rebel against his rule.

The Investiture Conflict was finally resolved by a compromise known as the:

Concordat of Worms.

The expansion of the Byzantine Empire during the tenth and early eleventh centuries was assisted by:

Christian missionary activity in Russia and the Balkans.

When Alexius Comnenus asked for Western help against the Seljuk Turks, he was hoping for:

a force of heavily armored knights to deploy against the lightly armored Turkish cavalry.

Which of the following was NOT a goal expressed by Pope Urban II for the First Crusade?

to slay Christ’s enemies wherever they could be found, especially Jews and Muslims

The motive for knights to participate in the Crusades was clearly religious including:

a promise to be freed from all penances imposed by the Church.

One notable religious zealot who promoted the Crusade was:

Peter the Hermit.

The Crusades marked a fundamental turning point in the relationship between:

Byzantium and western Europe.

In 1099 the Crusaders:

seized Jerusalem, slaughtering much of its population in the process.

The greatest economic consequence of the Crusades was:

the wealth gained by Venice and Genoa.

The effect of the crusades on the Muslim world:

were not profound.

Partly as a result of the Crusades, Europe:

learned much from the Islamic world that shaped European civilization in the twelfth century.

The Islamic world produced some of the best-known poets in the world, among which is:

Umar Khayyam.