UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK: Department of History
First Year Progress Test: Spring 2006
THE MEDIEVAL WORLD
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Time allowed: 2 hours
Candidates should answer both questions
Read carefully the instructions on the answer book and make sure that the particulars required are entered on each book
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1. Identify or locate any SIX of the following, and comment in about 100 words on the significance of each for the period
Feudal relief
Heriot
Villein
Escheat
Jacquerie
John Ball
Burh
Commenda
Double-entry bookkeeping
Genoa
Ebola
Cistercians
Waldo of Lyons
Transubstantiation
Clement VI
Annates
College of Cardinals
Agnatic kinship
Hildegard of Bingen
Roman de la Rose
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CONTINUED

2.. Comment on any FIVE of the following passages, with particular reference
to the attitudes expressed or the information presented and to the historical context
(a) According to their custom the Northmen plundered eastern and western Frisia and burned down the town of Dordrecht, with two other villages, before the eyes of
Lothair [the Emperor], who was then in the castle of Nimwegen, but could not punish the crime.
(The Annals of Xantan, 845-853)
(b) 1. During those four days and five nights no man or woman shall assault, wound, or slay another, or attack, seize, or destroy a castle, burg, or villa, by craft or by violence.
(The Truce of God – Bishopric of Terouanne, 1063)
(c) Free tenants.
Thomas le Boteler holds a messuage with a court yard which contains 1 rood, and 3 acres of land, by charter, paying thence yearly to the said abbot 14s.
Likewise the rector of the church of Alwalton holds 1 virgate of land with its appurtenances, with which the said church was anciently endowed. Likewise the said rector has a holding the tenant of which holds 1 rood of ground by paying to the said rector yearly 12d.
(An Account of the Manor of Alwalton, Huntingdonshire from the Hundred Rolls of 1279)
(d) Following the example of Pope Gregory, our predecessor of pious memory, we have placed under sentence of excommunication all those who in future consort with the Saracens, directly or indirectly, or who attempt to give or send aid to them by sea, as long as the war between them and us shall last.
(Pope Innocent III: Licence to Venice to Trade with The Saracens, 1198)
(e) Careful investigation has established that at that time there were in Florence approximately 25,000 men capable of bearing arms, ages fifteen to seventy, all citizens, of which 1,500 were noble and powerful citizens required as Grandi to post the customary guarantees. There were then around seventy-five fullyequipped knights. We find of course that before the government of the "second people," which is still in power, there were more than 250 knights, but after the people began its rule the Grandi had neither the status nor the authority they formerly enjoyed.
(Giovanni Villani, Chronicle)
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(f) Four pennies worth of coarse bread was not enough to feed a common man for one day. The usual kinds of meat, suitable for eating, were too scarce; horse meat was precious; plump dogs were stolen. And, according to many reports, men and women in many places secretly ate their own children....
(The Famine of 1315)
(g) As to the perfect heretics however they had a magistracy whom they called
Deacons and Bishops, without the imposition of whose hands, at the time of his death, none of the believers thought that he could be saved; but if they laid their hands upon any dying man, however wicked, if he could only say a Pater noster, they considered him to be saved, that without any satisfaction, and without any other aid, he immediately took wing to heaven.
(Raynaldus on the Accusations against the Albigensians)
(h) Let no man at all, then, infringe this page of our constitution, prohibition or decree, or, with rash daring, act counter to it; but if any one shall presume to act shall know that he is about to incur the indignation of Almighty God and of His blessed apostles Peter and Paul.
(Boniface VIII, Clericis laicos, 1296)
(i) Marriage is a firm and indissoluble union. This is public knowledge and no
Christian can take the liberty to ignore it.
(Peter of Blois: Letter 154 to Queen Eleanor, 1173)
(j) She slandered her husband, her friends, her own self; she spoke many a reprevous word and many a shrewd word; she knew no virtue nor goodness; she desired all wickedness; like as the spirits tempted her to say and do so she said and did.
(The Book of Margery Kempe. [The Birth of Her First Child and Her First
Vision])
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