PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
History 211 - The Emergence of Europe, 400-1700
Spring 1993 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) No scutage or aid shall be imposed on our kingdom unless by common counsel of our kingdom.
(B) ...upon which one of the Franks rushed on me, got hold of me and turned my face eastward, saying, "This is the way thou shouldst pray!" A group of Templars hastened to him, seized him, and repelled him from me.
(C) And thus it has come to pass, that though there are very many and great nations all over the earth, whose rites and customs, speech, arms, and dress, are distinguished by marked differences, yet there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we justly call two cities, according to the language of our Scriptures. The one consists of those who wish to live after the flesh, the other of those who wish to live after the spirit; and then they severally achieve what they wish, they live in peace, each after their kind.
(D) And lest the frequent changing of coins, which are sometimes light and sometimes heavy, should redound to the hurt of so glorious a place at any time in the future, on the advice of our court, we have ordered money to be struck there. ... The form of the coins will be such that on one side will be the image of St. Charles the Great and his superscription, and on the obverse our own image with the superscription of our own name.
(E) The inhabitants of the city are idolaters, and they use paper money as currency.
(F) Therefore, since all things subject to divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law, as was stated above, it is evident that all things partake in some way in the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in a more excellent way, in so far as it itself partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others. Therefore it has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end; and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.
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. The Oxford English Dictionary defines authority first of all as "a Power or right to enforce obedience; moral or legal supremacy; the right to command, or give an ultimate decision." Where did authority lie in feudal society, and how was it established?
2. In 1213 Innocent III forced King John to surrender England and receive it back as a fief of the Church. In the mid-thirteenth century, Innocent IV defeated Frederick II and his successor, ending Hohenstaufen rule in Germany and Italy. In 1303 Boniface VIII died after agents of Philip the Fair tried to arrest him in his castle, and the Papacy soon moved to Avignon, where the French monarch could keep an eye on it. What does the rapid decline in the political fortunes of the Papacy say about the nature of its power at its height?
3. Who posed the greatest threat to the ambitions of centralizing monarchs in the twelfth and thirteen centuries: the nobility, the towns, or the Church? What form did that threat take, and how did the monarchs respond to it?
I pledge my honor that I have not violated the Honor Code on this examination