PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

History 211 - The Emergence of Europe, 400-1700

Fall 1994 Professor M.S. Mahoney

MIDTERM EXAMINATION

Part I (15 mins.)

Following are six passages taken from ICCW, the selected readings, and the sidebars in Spielvogel's text. Choose three (3) and for each identify the source and comment on the significance of the passage for the themes we have been pursuing so far this term.

(A) Both swords, the spiritual and the material, therefore, are in the power of the church; the one, indeed, to be wielded for the church, the other by the church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the will and sufferance of the priest. One sword, moreover, ought to be under the other, and the temporal authority to be subjected to the spiritual.

(B) If any merchant with any merchandise whatsoever enter the port ... with his ship, and is unwilling to sell his merchandise except to one or more of his friends who have been wont to make loans to him from their own chattels, he or they for whom the said merchant reserved his merchandise shall have only the third part of such merchandise and the neighbouring burgesses who were present at the purchase shall have two parts of such merchandise.

(C) No scutage nor aid shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a reasonable aid.

(D) All writings belonging to this class are to be read with full freedom to criticise, and with no obligation to accept unquestioningly; otherwise the way would be blocked to all discussion, and posterity be deprived of the excellent intellectual exercise of debating difficult questions of language and presentation.

(E) All the ploughmen of great Ogbourne are convicted by the oath of twelve men ... because by reason for their default [the land] of the lord was ill ploughed whereby the lord is damaged to the among of 9s. ... And Walter Reaper is in mercy for concealing [that is not giving information as to] the said bad ploughing. Afterwards he made fine with the lord with 1 mark.

(F) They believe in one God, and they believe that He is the maker of all things visible, and invisible; and that it is He who is the giver of the good things of this world as well as the hardships; they do not, however, worship Him with prayers or praises or any kind of ceremony. Their belief in God does not prevent them from having idols of felt made in the image of man, and these they place on each side of the door of the dwelling; below them they put a felt model of an udder, and they believe that these are the guardians of the cattle and grant them the benefit of milk and foals.

Part II (30 mins.)

Answer ONE of the following questions. Your essay should have a clear argument supported by specific examples drawn from the readings, lectures, or precept discussions. Keep your answer focused. We're not trying to find out all you know but rather how you can apply what you know to a particular problem.

1. Both the monastery or nunnery on the one hand and the university on the other were institutions that disseminated knowledge and also created distinctive patterns of life for their members. Compare and contrast the two with respect to their setting, their purpose, their relationship with society, and their internal structure.

2. In lecture we saw an illumination from a late thirteenth-century work titled The Image of the World, which depicts the three orders of society in the persons of a monk, a knight, and a male peasant. The picture clearly expresses a social ideal, yet, as a representation of society at the time, it is incomplete. What are the values the illustration was meant to convey? Who is missing? What new or different social values would be expressed by adding them?

3. In the eleventh century, the knight enjoyed considerable power, both as vassal of his lord and as lord of his own manor. Over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, his power was diminished both by the growing authority of his liege lord, the king, and by economic developments that undermined the traditional obligations of his serfs and tenants. What happened, precisely, to alter the knight's relation both to those above him and to those below him? To what extent were his feudal responsibilities in conflict with his manorial interests?

 

I pledge my honor that I have not violated the Honor Code on this examination