European History

European History

Late Middle Ages (Chapter 13)

1. What factors contributed to the divergent roles in government of the English Parliament and the French Estates General after the Hundred Years' War?
2. What are the problems encountered by the historian in understanding the status of women in the late-medieval period?
3. How did dynastic instability affect the governments of England and France as well as some of the states of Italy?
4. Compare and contrast the effects of the Hundred Years' War on England and France.
  5. Explain how the socioeconomic consequences of the Black Death contributed to the Peasant's Revolt and similar peasant tensions and unrest.
  6. How can the fall of Constantinople seem to mark the end of the Middle Ages, yet have such marginal repercussions for western medieval Europe?

Renaissance (Chapter 14)

1. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, cultural expression in northern and southern Europe developed in very different ways. Describe some of these differences, and explain them.
2. How do you account for the fact that people in northern Europe seemed to be more concerned about daily devotion and the state of their relationship to God than those in the south? What did political, intellectual, and artistic leaders in Italy focus on instead?
3. It took decades for the princes of northern Europe to appreciate the intellectual and artistic movements associated with Renaissance Italy. Once they did, they found many aspects of these movements attractive and useful. What features of humanism and Renaissance culture in general would have benefited princes trying to enhance their own position?
4. Why was the glorification of chivalry in northern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries unrealistic and escapist?
5. Discuss the ways in which dissatisfaction with the character, practices, and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church was expressed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Reformation (Chapter 15)

1. What role did the...