Hickey
Western Civilization to 1650
Study questions and ID questions on the Noble textbook
Chapter 1:
Study Questions: To be prepared for exams, quizzes, and class discussion, answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. Where and why did humans first begin to settle in the large communities that we define as "civilizations," and what made this possible?
2. In the period 3000-1500 BCE, how was society organized in the Mesopotamian city-states?
3. In the period 3100-1100 BCE, how was Egyptian society organized?
ID terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 2:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What important innovations can be traced to the Levant and Anatolia in the period 2500-1150 BCE?
2. What made the Persian Empires more effective than the empires that had preceded them?
3. What were the basic religious ideas of Persian Zoroastrianism?
4. What was most distinctive about the Hebrew religion (Judaism)?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 3:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What do we know about the society and culture of the Mycenaean civilization?
2. What was the Polis in Archaic Greece and how did it governmental practices differ in Sparta, Athens and Corinth?
3. What were the Archaic Greeks' basic religious beliefs and how were these related to early Greek philosophy?
4. What role did ordinary people (non-elites) play in moving Athens towards democracy and how did Athenian democracy actually function?
5. What role did the Persian Wars (499-479 BCE) play in shaping the relationship between Athens and the other Greek city states?
6. What caused the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) and what were the results?
7. What were the most important characteristics of Greek drama in the Classical period?
8. What were the most important differences between the ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 4:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What made it possible for Alexander to conquer the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire?
2. How were the successor states that ruled Alexander's empire after his death organized?
3. In what ways did Hellenistic culture blend Greek culture with the cultures of "conquered" peoples in Egypt and Persia and with Indian culture?
4. What were the most important changes in philosophy in the Hellenistic era?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 5:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What about the location of Rome contributed to its rise in the Royal period (753-509 BCE)?
2. How and why did the system of government in the Roman Republic change in the period 509-287 BCE?
3. How was Roman family life related to Roman social relations (e.g., the patron-client system), religion, and values (virtues)?
4. What social groups benefited most from Roman imperial expansion and how?
5. What new developments in Roman politics that were linked to imperial expansion helped undermine the republic's stability?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 6:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. In what sense was the imperial political system created by Augustus a dictatorship disguised as a republic and how did it secure stability?
2. What factors contributed to peace and prosperity in the period 69-235 CE?
3. What basic inequalities characterized Roman life in this era?
4. What political and social factors led to crisis in Rome in the mid-and late 200s CE?
5. Besides Christianity, what "imported" religions had an impact on Roman life in this era?
6. In what sense did Paul of Tarsus distinguish Christianity as a faith different from Judaism?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 7:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What economic and political problems did Diocletian (r. 284-305 CE) and Constantine (r. 306-337) try to solve with their reforms, and were they successful?
2. What factors led to Rome's emergence of Rome as the center of the Christian religious hierarchy (the Catholic Church)?
3. How did the Church determine what was "proper" Christian practice and what was heresy?
4. What factors allowed various Germanic tribes to overthrow Roman rule in the west and establish their own kingdoms?
5. How did Theodosius II (r. 408-450) and Justinian (r. 527-565) reform the Roman system in the East and what were the results?
6. Did the lives of ordinary people and of elites change in any major ways as a result of the decline of Roman rule in the West?
7. What were the most influential ideas of St. Augustine (354-430 CE)?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 8:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What were the main elements of the religious teachings of Muhammad (570-632 CE)?
2. How was Islam spread throughout and then beyond the Arab world?
3. Why didn't the Byzantine Roman Empire collapse under the pressure of Arab expansion?
4. What was most distinctive about Byzantine political ideas and religious culture?
5. What allowed the Carolingian dynasty to create and then sustain an empire that ruled most of Western Europe?
6. Why did the empire created by Charlemagne fragment?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 9:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs. (Lots of questions on this one!)
1. What specific aspects of rural life changed most in the High Middle Ages and why?
2. What specific aspects of urban life changed most in this period and why?
3. What was the Investiture Conflict (Controversy) and how was it settled?
4. Why was the Investiture Conflict so important to the fates of both the German Empire and the Roman Catholic Church?
5. What transformed France from a patchwork of feudal states into a centralized monarchy under the Capetian Dynasty (987-1314)?
6. Compared to other kingdoms discussed in this chapter, what was most distinctive about England and its governmental system?
7. Did the motives behind the Crusades change over time, and what were the most important results?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 10:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. How was High Medieval society ordered? (In other words, who were "those who pray," "those who fight," and "those who work," how were their lives organized, and what groups did not fit into these three "orders")
2. What ideas distinguished each of the major "heretical" groups that emerged in this period? (In other words, what made them "heretics"?)
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 11:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. Explain how each of these affected the Papacy's power and the clergy's authority:
a. The Babylonian Captivity (1309-1377)
b. the Great Schism (1378-1417)
c. the Lollards and the Hussites (1370s-1430s)
d. reunification of the Papacy with the election of Pope Martin V (1417)
2. What countries were involved in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and why?
3. What the story of Joan of Arc tells us about the Hundred Years' War?
4. What were the major differences between the different forms of government that existed in Italy in the 1300s-1400s?
5. Why Italy was so susceptible to foreign dominance in the late 1400s and early 1500s.
6. What social and economic conditions set the stage for the Black Death in the 1300s and was it impact on European society?
7. How did the system of government in Russia in the period 1450-1500 differ from that in France, England, the German states, and the Ottoman Empire?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 12:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What was Humanism and how did it change between the time of Petrarch and the time of Lorenzo Valla?
2. What was "new" about Renaissance art (and the "business" of art)?
3. How did Renaissance art in the North differ from Renaissance art in Italy?
4. How did European rulers use Renaissance art, architecture, music and literature to project and increase their own political power?
5. What was Machiavelli's main point about political power?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 13:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. In the 1200s-1450s, what did Europeans actually know about the rest of the world?
2. Why did the Portuguese, Spanish, French and English begin to explore the globe?
3. What impact did Europeans have on the Americas in the late 1400s-1500?
4. What impact did the Americas have on Europe in the late 1400s-1500s?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 14:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. Explain the basic theological arguments of:
a. Luther
b. Calvin
c. the Anabaptists
2. Why couldn't Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (r. 1519-1556) crush the Protestants?
3. What was the main result of the Peace of Augsburg (1555)?
4. Why was the Reformation in England tied to dynastic politics?
5. How did Elizabeth 1 "settle" the conflict between Catholics and Protestants?
6. How was the Reformation connected to political conflicts in France?
7. In what ways did the Catholic Church reform itself in the late 1500s?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 15:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What factors led to civil war in France in the late 1500s?
2. How did the civil war's legacies shape the French monarchy in the early 1600s?
3. What factors made England potentially politically unstable in the late 1500s-early 1600s?
4. What caused the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648)?
5. Who were the Thirty Years' War's "biggest winners" and "biggest losers"?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences: