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Test Bank For Western Civilizations Their History Their Culture 18th Edition Joshua Cole Carol Symes
Test Bank For Western Civilizations Their History Their Culture 18th Edition Joshua Cole Carol Symes
MULTIPLE CHOICE
4. The pandemic known as Justinian’s plague spread rapidly through the eastern and western part of the
Roman Empire because it:
a. was a very virulent strain of smallpox.
b. was carried by birds who migrated great distances.
c. traveled along well-established trade routes both within and outside the empire.
d. had a very long incubation period, which meant people could travel long distances without
knowing they were infecting people.
e. was exacerbated by an epidemic of influenza in the empire.
ANS: C DIF: Moderate REF: page 213 OBJ: 1
TOP: II, A, 2 MSC: Applying
6. Between 610 and 1071, the major security threats to the Byzantine empire came from:
a. Persia, then Egypt. d. Persia, then the Slavs.
b. Persia, then the Islamic caliphate. e. the Western Roman Empire.
c. Persia, then the Turks.
ANS: B DIF: Moderate REF: page 215 OBJ: 2 | 3
TOP: II, B MSC: Applying
10. The Iconoclastic Controversy of the eighth century C.E. was about:
a. the biblical laws forbidding “the work of Satan” on Sundays.
b. Emperor Leo’s decision to stop wearing the toga, the symbol of imperial manhood.
c. the impossibility of smashing all the pagan idols, so some were allowed to remain.
d. the use or prohibition of images in church, where people might worship the objects.
e. prohibition of the display of the crucifix in Byzantine churches.
ANS: D DIF: Easy REF: pages 216–217
OBJ: 2 TOP: II, B, 2 MSC: Understanding
11. Leo III’s support of iconoclasm may have been driven by a desire to:
a. make churches more beautiful.
b. strengthen the emperor’s control over the Church at the expense of monastic control.
c. strengthen monastic control over the Church at the expense of the bureaucratic control.
d. encourage artisans to produce books rather than images.
e. encourage Orthodox Christians to follow some of the tenets of Islam.
ANS: B DIF: Moderate REF: page 217 OBJ: 2
TOP: II, B, 2 MSC: Understanding
12. Although the Iconoclastic Controversy was eventually resolved, its lasting effects included the:
a. sale or handing over of Byzantine portraits to the Muslims.
b. destruction of nearly all pre-eighth-century religious art in the Byzantine empire.
c. adoption of conservative clothing styles by nobles and common people.
d. gradual acceptance of religious diversity in the East.
e. banning of all monastic orders within the Byzantine empire.
ANS: B DIF: Easy REF: page 217 OBJ: 2
TOP: II, B, 2 MSC: Remembering
15. The Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia was influential in the history of architecture because it:
a. was constructed in a way that made light appear to come from directly above.
b. placed a massive dome on a building with a square shape.
c. was highly innovative in its external appearance and marble embellishment.
d. was the first Christian church converted into a mosque.
e. was the first building constructed completely from concrete.
ANS: B DIF: Moderate REF: page 220 OBJ: 2
TOP: II, B, 3, b MSC: Remembering
16. The word Islam means:
a. pilgrimage. d. recitation.
b. migration. e. prayer.
c. submission.
ANS: C DIF: Easy REF: page 220 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, A, 1 MSC: Remembering
17. By the late sixth century C.E., the economy of Arabia was:
a. in a state of crisis brought on by the wars between Byzantium and Persia.
b. commercially sophisticated and was intersected by many trade routes.
c. still almost entirely made up of nomadic Bedouins.
d. based on the production of figs, wool, and goats at desert oases.
e. practically nonexistent due to Arabia’s domination by the Byzantine empire.
ANS: B DIF: Moderate REF: page 221 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, A, 1 MSC: Understanding
18. The Hijrah (Hegira) refers to the Prophet Muhammad’s move from:
a. Medina to Mecca. d. Quadratic to Mecca.
b. Mecca to Quadratic. e. Mecca to Medina.
c. Medina to Quadratic.
ANS: E DIF: Easy REF: page 221 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, A, 1 MSC: Remembering
21. Islam spread so quickly in the seventh and eighth centuries because:
a. Muslims insisted that all conquered peoples convert to Islam.
b. there were no Christians in the first lands that Muslims conquered.
c. the Pact of Unmark allowed for the total destruction of subject cities.
d. some local populations welcomed Muslim conquest.
e. its armies met no resistance.
ANS: D DIF: Moderate REF: page 224 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, B, 1 MSC: Understanding
22. During the expansion of the Islamic caliphate, Muslim rule was often preferred to Persian or Byzantine
because:
a. Muslim laws were less strict.
b. the caliphate extracted fewer taxes from conquered populations than these empires.
c. local Muslim rulers were considered better protectors than the governors from other
empires.
d. Muslim rulers were believed to be more moral than Byzantine and Persian emperors.
e. Muslim rulers were regarded as better military leaders.
ANS: B DIF: Easy REF: pages 224–225
OBJ: 1 TOP: III, B, 1 MSC: Remembering
25. The Umayyads of Al-Andalus and the Abbasids of Persia competed for dominance through:
a. constant violent warfare.
b. a cold war, occasionally interrupted by brief proxy wars over disputed territories.
c. the constant creation and negotiation of alliances.
d. trying to surpass each other in support of literary and artistic production.
e. trying to conquer as much territory as possible.
ANS: D DIF: Moderate REF: page 226 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, B, 3, a–b MSC: Understanding
26. The Shiite claim to legitimacy rests on the direct connection to Muhammad through his daughter:
a. Aisha. d. Khadijah.
b. Yasmina. e. Sawda.
c. Fatimah.
ANS: C DIF: Moderate REF: page 225 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, B, 2 MSC: Remembering
27. Compared to medieval Europe in the central Middle Ages (800–1100), the Islamic world was:
a. comprised of small and isolated communities.
b. focused on trade only within its borders.
c. cosmopolitan but lacked manufacturing capacity and so traded little.
d. manufactured and traded goods widely in Africa, Europe, and Asia.
e. only interested in establishing trade connections with Europe.
ANS: D DIF: Moderate REF: page 226 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, C MSC: Applying
29. Sexual relations within upper-class Muslim society around the year 1000 differed from classical Greek
and Roman patterns because:
a. Muslims abhorred homosexuality, whereas Greeks and Romans did not.
b. Muslim men had sexual access to slaves and concubines, whereas Greeks and Romans did
not.
c. women were highly valued in Muslim society, whereas they were not in Greece or Rome.
d. Muslim men were permitted to have more than one wife, whereas Greek and Roman men
were not.
e. Muslim women were permitted to have more than one husband, whereas Greek and
Roman women were not.
ANS: D DIF: Easy REF: page 227 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, D, 3 MSC: Remembering
31. Charlemagne and Harun al-Rashid formed an alliance partially because of their shared enemy, the:
a. Umayyad. d. Sunnis.
b. Persians. e. Abbasid.
c. Byzantines.
ANS: A DIF: Easy REF: page 227 OBJ: 3
TOP: III, B, 2, b | E MSC: Remembering
32. Historians looking for a rupture in western European attitudes toward ancient Roman culture and
traditions will likely find it between the lives of:
a. Charlemagne and the Burgundian kings of Germany.
b. Gregory of Tours and Charlemagne.
c. Constantine and Justinian.
d. Cicero and Diocletian.
e. Gregory of Tours and Justinian.
ANS: B DIF: Moderate REF: page 228 OBJ: 1
TOP: IV, A MSC: Applying
33. Most people in the early Middle Ages facilitated economic transactions by using:
a. standardized silver coins minted by a local lord.
b. standardized gold coins minted by the king.
c. jewels and gems.
d. food and labor.
e. manufactured goods.
ANS: D DIF: Moderate REF: page 229 OBJ: 1
TOP: IV, A MSC: Understanding
34. The Merovingian dynasty in France traced its origin back to Clovis’s legendary grandfather,
Merovech, who was believed to be:
a. the last commander of the Roman legions in the West.
b. a sea monster.
c. the grandfather of England’s King Arthur.
d. a Benedictine monk who converted the Franks.
e. a Viking who had settled in northern France and conquered the Lombards.
ANS: B DIF: Moderate REF: page 231 OBJ: 4
TOP: IV, B MSC: Remembering
36. The gradual conversion of the early medieval European countryside to Christianity was carried out
primarily by:
a. kings, whose armies ordered non-Christians to convert or leave Europe.
b. lay missionaries commissioned by the pope.
c. Frankish bishops seeking to enlarge their dioceses.
d. monks who founded new monasteries in frontier areas.
e. nuns working with the peasantry.
ANS: D DIF: Moderate REF: page 234 OBJ: 4
TOP: IV, C, 3 MSC: Remembering
37. Why were so many convents (monastic houses for women) founded during the seventh century C.E.?
a. Convents met a variety of social and spiritual needs for women of all classes.
b. Lower-class women flocked to convents as an improvement on the drudgery of their lives.
c. Nuns were the only women allowed to become priests.
d. Convents were a way for the families that founded them to make money.
e. Families were expected to give their daughters to local monasteries to become nuns.
ANS: A DIF: Difficult REF: page 234 OBJ: 4
TOP: IV, C, 2 MSC: Understanding
39. A long-term result of Boniface anointing Pepin on behalf of the papacy was that:
a. members of the Carolingian family regularly became popes.
b. the Carolingians founded a new capital for their empire in Rome.
c. first-born sons of the king henceforth became king automatically on the death of their
father.
d. the pope became directly responsible for the welfare of the Carolingian empire.
e. the power of kings was theoretically limited.
ANS: E DIF: Moderate REF: page 237 OBJ: 5
TOP: V, A, 2 MSC: Applying
41. Underlying the Carolingian Renaissance was the basic conviction that:
a. learning was the foundation on which Christian wisdom rested.
b. the Bible could be best appreciated if it were translated into robust French and German
idioms.
c. original Latin poetry and epic literature were the highest form of art.
d. proper Christian doctrine should be widely disseminated and heretical beliefs should be
strictly punished.
e. to be better Christians, everyone should pray and devote their lives to the Church.
ANS: A DIF: Easy REF: page 239 OBJ: 5
TOP: V, D MSC: Remembering
42. Charlemagne reformed writing in his empire by:
a. introducing cursive script.
b. ensuring all copyists wrote in block letters only.
c. testing all copyists for literacy.
d. introducing the comma.
e. creating a simplified script and introducing punctuation.
ANS: E DIF: Moderate REF: page 240 OBJ: 5
TOP: V, D MSC: Understanding
43. Which was the most significant event in creating Byzantine hostility toward the Latin Christian world?
a. the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor on Christmas Day, 800
b. the First Crusade
c. the Iconoclastic Controversy
d. the Fourth Crusade in 1204
e. the execution of the Byzantine ambassador to Rome in 816
ANS: A DIF: Easy REF: page 240 OBJ: 5
TOP: V, E MSC: Applying
45. The Vikings are generally regarded as being a destructive force in European history:
a. but such a view may not be correct in light of the principalities they established across
northern Europe.
b. as evidenced by the raids they staged on virtually every population center in Europe from
London to Paris to Rome itself.
c. because of the destruction caused to a great many monasteries throughout Europe and the
accompanying loss of the libraries in those monasteries.
d. but this has been exaggerated since they stayed mostly in Scandinavia with only a few
raids into England and northern France, destructive though those were.
e. which is true, but they have an undeservedly bad reputation when compared with the
Magyars who conducted raids into western and southern Europe.
ANS: A DIF: Moderate REF: page 242 OBJ: 5
TOP: V, G, 1 MSC: Applying
47. One of the few rulers to successfully defend his lands against the Vikings was:
a. Alfred. d. Charles.
b. Arthur. e. Thomas.
c. Bede.
ANS: A DIF: Easy REF: page 243 OBJ: 5
TOP: V, G, 2 MSC: Remembering
50. The overall unity of the Muslim world disintegrated during the tenth and eleventh centuries because
of:
a. a special tax levied on Jews and Christians.
b. failures among the Umayyad rulers of Spain.
c. repeated attacks by the Mughal empire of India.
d. economic problems and a stagnating intellectual life.
e. increasing intolerance of regional and ethnic differences of practice and belief within
Islam.
ANS: E DIF: Difficult REF: page 243 OBJ: 3
TOP: VI MSC: Applying
TRUE/FALSE
1. The Byzantine empire was never stable because of the intrigue and violence that constantly occurred at
the imperial court.
2. Byzantine culture was the means by which the heritage of Western civilization was preserved for the
Europe where Greek had become very rare.
4. One factor in the success of cities in Arabia was the protracted wars between the Byzantine empire and
Persia, which made the Arabian trade routes safer than the northern ones.
6. After 750 C.E., the Umayyad dynasty abandoned Spain and focused its rule in Damascus.
8. Islam created its own culture and actively destroyed the artifacts of those civilizations that came before
them.
ANS: F DIF: Moderate REF: pages 225–227
OBJ: 3 TOP: III, D MSC: Applying
NOT: As the reach of Islam expanded, Muslim culture became more cosmopolitan, tapping into the
civilizations of Byzantium and Persia, which were themselves the heirs of ancient empires stretching
back to the time of Hammurabi’s Babylon.
9. The division between Islam and Christianity was not an impenetrable barrier as communication and
gifts between the Abbasid and Carolingian empires illustrates.
10. Sufism is a mystical sect of Judaism whose members stressed contemplation and ecstasy.
11. By the seventh century, western Europe had become a more fluid economy in which luxury goods and
coinage circulated, albeit to differing degrees, among all levels of society.
12. Pope Gregory was not only a reformer of the Church and theologian, but was the first pope to break
free of Byzantine control and establish an autonomous, Western-oriented Latin church.
13. Charles Martel is regarded as one of the founders of the Frankish kingdom due to his defeat of a
Muslim force near Paris.
ESSAY
1. Explain how Justinian’s conquest of the Mediterranean was both a success and a failure.
ANS:
Justinian’s conquest of the Mediterranean lands was complete enough to render it once again a
“Roman lake” by his death, but the costs were tremendous. Justinian had to impose oppressive taxation
in order to give his generals the men and supplies they needed to conquer these lands. This taxation
undermined the support of vitally important areas such as Egypt and the East. Justinian’s western
campaigns distracted him from the growing threat of the Persians who would become a dangerous foe
to his successors. Justinian’s wars caused extreme devastation throughout Italy. Aqueducts were cut,
and the countryside became marshes. While the attacks weakened Italy, the oppressive taxation
imposed by Justinian in Egypt weakened that province’s ability to resist the Islamic invasions of the
seventh century. Already destabilized territories of the empire were further weakened by the Justinian
Plague, a pandemic that spread through the empire (and the world around it) and killed a total of 25
million people. Thus, while the immediate success of Justinian’s reconquests gave him wealth and
glory, the aftermath, combined with the effects of a world pandemic, caused the newly reunited empire
to begin to crumble only a few years after Justinian’s death in 565 C.E.
2. What was the impact of Justinian’s law code on the Middle Ages?
ANS:
Justinian’s law code was not only a collection of laws from throughout the empire, but also a textbook
of legal principles and a summary of the writings of all great jurists. Together, this corpus, called the
Corpus iuris civilis, became the foundation on which many future European law codes would rest.
While it remained an important text for law in the East from the time of its creation, it was little known
in the Latin West until the twelfth century, when Justinian’s corpus began to be studied extensively
there. As result of its influence in both the East and the West, the Corpus iuris civilis impacted the
conduct of government and the developing legal systems of Europe. It even influenced the Napoleonic
Law Code, which is still current in France. The impact on political thought was profound. The
wide-ranging powers for lawmaking that it granted to princes became one of the foundations of the
political theory of absolutism in early modern Europe. However, Justinian’s Corpus also supported
constitutionalism because it maintained that a sovereign’s powers were delegated to him by the people
and since power came from the people, it could also be taken away by the people. The idea of a
modern state as an abstract entity rather than the private property of the ruler also stems from
Justinian’s work and has shaped the emergence of the state through the late medieval era and into the
modern times.
3. What factors allowed the Byzantine empire to survive into the Middle Ages?
ANS:
Efficient bureaucratic government was one of the major reasons for Byzantine success. Literate
officials supervised education and religion and presided over all economic endeavors. Imperial
officials regulated prices and wages and systems of licensing. The system could function regardless of
the ruler’s ability or inability. A second reason for success was the sound economic base of the state.
Constantinople was a vital trade emporium for Far Eastern luxury goods and Western raw materials.
The empire also protected and nurtured its own industries, especially silk weaving, and encouraged the
growth and stability of its major cities. The Byzantine empire’s economic strength meant that its
currency was strong and stable. A third reason for success was Byzantium’s rich agriculture. The free
peasantry was a strong and loyal work force that had done much not only to feed the state, but also to
protect it from encroachers. The fourth factor was religion, which endowed the Byzantine state with a
powerful sense of confidence and mission.
ANS:
In 610, Muhammad experienced a spiritual enlightenment, and he converted to monotheism
immediately and began to preach his new religion. Although his first motives were to spread this new
religion as a prophet, he encountered harsh and violent resistance, especially in Mecca, where he was
living. Invited to come to Yathrib in order to serve as an arbiter there, Muhammad and a small group
of followers left Mecca in 622. In Yathrib, Muhammad did broker a settlement and became the town’s
leader. He then changed the name of the town to Medina, which means “City of the Prophet” and
began to organize his converts into a political as well as a religious community. He began to lead raids
of neighboring towns and caravans, especially caravans traveling to and from Mecca, which had
negative economic consequences for trade in that city. It also helped him win more converts to Islam.
Wearying of lost earnings and the constant attacks on their caravans, those governing Mecca invited
Muhammad back in 632 C.E. The townspeople then submitted themselves to Muhammad’s religious
and political authority. Thus, for Muhammad, religious authority was not divorced from political
authority—both went hand in hand.
ANS:
The early spread of Islam was not accomplished through crusade. A new, shared religion helped create
unity between the different people of the Arabic world, and once united, Arab Muslims began looking
to conquer new territory. While the Islamic invaders sought to retain a separate identity from the
conquered, acting in God’s name and carrying out the will of God proved an attraction for the people
of the conquered land to join their conquerors’ religion. There were political benefits from adopting
the religion of the conquerors as well. For the peoples of North Africa and the East, Islamic conquest
meant deliverance from oppressive taxation and the effects of an unwieldy imperial bureaucracy. Islam
gave freedom, identity, and purpose to the peoples it conquered and thus it grew quickly, surviving
even the Shiite–Sunni schism.
6. Why was paper such an important commodity in the Muslim world of the Middle Ages?
ANS:
As Muslim control over various territories in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia Minor increased,
so too did their control of important trade routes connecting the Mediterranean world to China. This
fostered the growth of commerce and industry. One of the most important commodities that began to
be produced in the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates was paper, the production of which Muslim
Arabs and Persians learned from the Chinese. Paper was easier to produce and to store than the
papyrus or parchment that had been used until then—and it was cheaper. The result was a revolution in
the transfer of knowledge. Book production rates, and thus literacy rates, in Muslim territories were
very high, facilitated by cheap and readily available paper. In the eighth century, Baghdad had more
than one hundred shops dedicated to selling paper and books, and in Cordoba the Umayyad caliphs
amassed a library of some 400,000 books—this at a time when good monastic libraries in Europe may
have housed 100 books. Both Baghdad and Cordoba became important intellectual centers, where
literary, philosophical, legal, and scientific treatises were produced in great number. Such cultural
production could not have occurred without the technological shift to the production of paper.
ANS:
The many advancements of the Merovingians set the stage for the Carolingian success. First, the
Merovingians solidified control over their territory and created alliances with the Church through the
building of monasteries throughout Gaul. These gifts of monastic foundations not only drew the
Church closer to the king, but also helped to redistribute the power of land ownership among the
nobility, establishing a firm foothold for the supporters of the king and destabilizing the troublesome
rival nobility. It also illustrates the great wealth that the Merovingians must have enjoyed and through
which the Carolingians would prosper greatly. The technological advances made during the
Merovingian dynasty also enabled the Carolingians to thrive: most especially, the heavy-wheeled
plow. These plows were able to cut deeply into the sod, making far more nutrient-rich soil available
and allowing cultivation of the rich, heavy, relatively untouched soils of northern France. Agricultural
prosperity meant growth in population and in trade and income for the Merovingians. Without these
firm cornerstones of renewable wealth and ties to power, the Carolingians would have had little basis
to establish an empire and few means to maintain it.
8. How did monasticism aid the growth and prosperity of secular empires?
ANS:
Monasticism was an important tool for the nobility for many reasons. The monasteries were excellent
places for rulers to establish footholds of power by installing their own offspring as abbots or abbesses.
This was a particularly effective method by which royal women of the ruling house could maintain and
exercise control over a monastery’s extensive lands. In this way, rulers could extend their power into
areas held by other noble families or into the frontiers of their kingdoms, where many of these
religious houses were founded. The special relationship between the monasteries and secular empires
was one of mutual dependence, with the monks supporting the spiritual and even secular welfare of the
houses in return for protection. The assistance a king could provide in helping to Christianize his
people, as shown in the cases of the Merovingians and Anglo-Saxons, was often repaid by political
support from the pope; for example, the Carolingians’ military support of the Church earned it its
legitimacy and ecclesiastical backing from the pope himself.
ANS:
Test Bank for Western Civilizations: Their History & Their Culture, 18th Edition, Josh
The Carolingian empire dissolved upon the death of Louis the Pious, who divided the empire into
thirds as the inheritance for his sons. This division and the legacy of the Carolingians would become
the foundation of the modern states of France, Germany, and Italy. The legacy of organized
government also ensured the stability of these areas. The areas of Carolingian power retained their
powerful cities and prestigious status and wealth, becoming centers of power for later kings and
emperors to draw upon, such as Saxony, which had first contributed great wealth to Charlemagne. In
addition, the strong relationship with the Church continued to be a powerful legacy of the
Carolingians, who confirmed their status and gained enormous power as the sword-arm of the Church.
This legacy carried over to the successor states of France and Germany and contributed substantially to
their growth and stability. Classical and Christian learning continued throughout Europe as a legacy of
the great Carolingian Renaissance. A great number of classical Latin texts were collated, corrected,
and recopied in a process facilitated by the invention of Carolingian minuscule, a form of handwriting
which became the basis of most later scripts and typefaces in the West. The growth of cities and trade
during the Carolingian period was likewise due largely to the establishment (or reestablishment) of
trading routes and partners of the Carolingian kingdom. Although the lands were now under separate
rulers, they continued to trade with one another and with international partners in Byzantium and the
south. The courts of law established by Charlemagne continued to flourish, and the systems of taxation
made revenue collection possible even in dissolution. The legacy was not always beneficial, but
aroused a powerful and resentful nobility that was ready to grab its own share of power. The new
presence of the Vikings made control difficult for the new kingdoms that had long known peace and
prosperity. The prosperity of the Carolingian successor kingdoms attracted invaders, and in its
fragmented state, the former empire was unable to respond with a crushing victory. Instead, it reverted
to payment to avoid attacks and subsequently lost much land, including Normandy, to the invaders.
ANS:
Although art and architecture made great advances during this period, education was the chief focus.
The English Benedictine monk Alcuin was brought to Charlemagne’s court as an intellectual leader.
He established a court school in which the seven liberal arts were taught, and great texts, such as the
Latin Bible, were corrected and copied. Alcuin’s court was also interested in classical Greek and
Roman texts, which they preserved and copied. A new style of handwriting, Carolingian minuscule,
was developed that was simplified and that made the learning of Latin easier and the copying of it
faster. The introduction of standardized spelling and spacing between words also reduced the
likelihood of future mistakes in copying corrected texts. Charlemagne also made the court the center of
culture by attracting scholars and establishing schools there. The schools produced theological and
pastoral works, along with Latin poetry. This new court culture dramatically changed the model for
successful kingship throughout Europe.