Middle Ages/Canterbury Tales Unit Test Study Guide
The Middle Ages in 3 ½ Minutes
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What historical event is generally believed to have ushered in the Middle Ages?
What year did this happen?
When was Islam founded?
Charlemagne was a Frankish king in 800. He ruled areas that are now France and Germany. What important changes did he implement?
Where were schools located?
What are five ways in which the East (mainly Muslim countries) were ahead of the West (mainly European Christian countries) in science and technology?
What war had a major impact on life in the Middle Ages?
About when did this war start?
What was the goal of the war?
About when were the first European universities established?
What was important about the Silk Road?
What event weakens the influence of the church over society? (Note: nevertheless, the church continued to be very important.)
What major invention occurred near the end of the Middle Ages?
Geoffrey Chaucer/Canterbury Tales PowerPoint
1. When was Chaucer born?
2. What languages did Chaucer most likely learn as a young man?
3. What war did Chaucer fight in?
4. How did Chaucer learn about three famous Italian authors?
5. Chaucer learned a lot about people from which four jobs?
Thomas Beckett
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How and why did Beckett become the leading Catholic authority in England?
Why did King Henry have Beckett murdered?
Canterbury Tales
1. Why is religion so much more important in the lives of most Middle Ages people than it is today?
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What is significant about the fact that Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in English? (rather than French or Latin)?
The Middle Ages Introduction Questions
Pages 74-78 (don’t worry about pages 76-77)—The Middle Ages
1. What was the Battle of Hastings?
o When did it occur?
o Who were the two leaders?
o Why was the battle fought?
o Who won the battle?
o Why was the battle so important--how did the outcome of the battle affect the future of England?
2. What does the term “Anglo-Norman” mean?
3. In terms of language and social structure, how did the Normans influence England?
Feudalism and Knighthood
1. Define “feudal” system. Make sure to note God’s role.
2. In what sense did members of feudal society not have “freedom”?
3. Define the different castes that make up the feudal social structure. What is the function of each of these groups? Create a neat,
organized, colorful chart on a separate piece of poster paper. You can use the chart on this website for information, but don’t just copy
it: http://www.historyonthenet.com/medieval_life/feudalism.htm
4. What is the main function of the knight?
Women in Society; Chivalry and Courtly Love;
1. What political rights did women have? None
2. What is chivalry?
3. What rule of warfare that knights have to follow is given as an example?
4. What are the Ten Commandments of Chivalry? Use this website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivalry
5. What is courtly love?
6. How did the practice of courtly love improve a knight?
7. How is courtly love different than a normal love affair?
The New City Classes: Out from Under the Overlords.
1. What caused the feudal system to become obsolete?
2. How do many of Chaucer’s characters relate to the feudal system?
3. Once the social system was changed and the feudal structure began to be less important, how and why were the arts affected?
4. What were some of the major factors that caused the decline of the feudal system?
Middle Ages/Canterbury Tales Unit Test Study Guide
The Great Happenings: The Crusades 83-85
1. What were the Crusades?
2. Europe did not win the Crusades. However, they did benefit from the experience. How did Europe benefit from the Crusades?
The Magna Carta: 85
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What does Magna Carta mean?
When was it signed?
Who did not like the Magna Carta? Why not?
What were a couple of the rights given by the Magna Carta?
The Martyrdom of Thomas a Becket
1. What does Chaucer’s Canterbury tales have to do with Thomas Becket?
2. In those days, who was so powerful that he even controlled kings?
3. What religious denomination were all English expected to observe?
4. Why did King Henry appoint Becket as the archbishop of Canterbury?
5. Why was Becket killed by King Henry?
6. What is a martyr? Make sure you tell the class that Becket became a martyr.
The Hundred Years War: 86-87
1. What was the purpose of the Hundred Years War?
2. Who won the Hundred Years War?
3. How did warfare in England change as a result of the Hundred Years War?
4. How did England benefit from the Hundred Years War as a nation?
The Black Death: 88
1. What is the “Black Death” another name for?
2. How was it spread?
3. How serious was the Black Death?
4. What was the social impact of the Black Death? (Even though it killed so many, it had a result that helped the lower classes—what was
it?)
Fleas, Money, and Gunpowder: 86-87
In the early Middle Ages much business was conducted using something called a “barter” system.
1. What is a “barter system”?
2. Why did the Crusades bring about a financial system based on coins?
3. What was the advantage of having coins instead of bartering?
4. What caused a major change in warfare in the 1300’s? Where did it come from?
5. When the feudal system began to disappear, what took its place?
Textbook Intro to Chaucer/Canterbury Tales: Geoffrey Chaucer (pg 99) and The Canterbury Tales
1. What is Chaucer often called?
2. What did he do for the English language?
3. What language did most English citizens speak in Chaucer’s time?
4. What did Chaucer do with the English language that no one else had done?
5. When was Chaucer born?
6. What happened to Chaucer during the Hundred Year’s War?
7. What are three positions that Chaucer held in his lifetime?
8. What Italian work is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales similar to?
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The Characters
The Friar
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All the following questions should be answered in your own words—no need for textual evidence (yet).
What is the friar’s job? Who does he work for?
What is the difference between a friar and a monk?
In what way is begging an aspect of the life of a friar (you might have to do a little research)?
In what way does the friar take advantage of women?
Regarding confessions, what is a way in which the friar takes advantage of people?
What does the friar do instead of working with poor people and lepers?
In what way is the Friar’s clothing inappropriate?
What character weakness or societal problem is Chaucer satirizing with his description of the friar?
The Merchant
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What do we know about the merchant based on how he looks?
What does he like to talk about a lot?
What is the merchant hiding?
What character weakness or societal problem is Chaucer satirizing with his description of the friar?
Middle Ages/Canterbury Tales Unit Test Study Guide
Cleric
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Franklin
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In your own words, describe the physical appearance of the cleric.
What does this physical appearance tell you about the cleric?
Why does the narrator tell you something about the horse?
What career problem does the cleric have?
What is “alchemy”?
Why has he not found the “stone for making gold”?
What does he do with the money he gets from friends?
In your own words, what are three or four positive characteristics of the cleric?
Why might ordinary citizens like the franklin?
What three jobs did he hold?
What is his dominant personality trait?
Doctor
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What is an apothecary?
What is important about the doctor’s relationship with apothecaries?
Explain the meaning of the line “and kept the gold he won in pestilences.”
Parson
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Be able to contrast the monk and friar with the parson.
How does the parson do his job differently than they do?
Be able to give specific evidence.
Satire:
Be able to identify which one of these three characters above is being satirized. What weakness or fault is being exposed?
Wife of Bath
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Why is she so well off?
Explain line 471: “Apart from other company in youth.”
Explain lines 485-486: “She knew...the remedies for love’s mischances.”
Explain the bread metaphor:
What are the “pure wheat loaves” and the barley bread”?
What is the husband’s debt? (What does he owe her?)
How does she justify her actions Biblically?
How did she control her husband?
The Pardoner
General Prologue
1. What relics did the pardoner have?
2. What did he do with the relics?
3. How did the pardoner make money? There are three ways.
4. What animals are the Pardoner compared to?
5. How is the pardoner’s manliness called into question?
6. How did the pardoner handle the offertory?
Pardoner’s Tale Prologue
7. According to the Pardoner, why does he preach?
8. What does the Latin phrase “radix malorum est cupiditas mean?
9. What are a couple of things that the pardoner likes to do besides make money?
The Weaving of Women’s Tales
The Anglo-Saxon Period
1. Under what circumstance might a woman run her husband’s estate?
2. What is “The Wife’s Lament” about?
3. Why is it that we don’t know of any specific female authors from the Anglo-Saxon era?
4. What are three ways in which Anglo-Saxon women supported are in their society?
The Middle Ages
5. During the Middle Ages, what were the two paths that could lead a woman into literary life?
6. Why did women write in English rather than Latin, the more sophisticated language of the upper class?
7. Why were women’s literary creations less likely to be preserved by the monks?
8. How did life in the church make it possible for some women to devote time to writing?
9. Why were women’s writings less valued in that time period?
Julian of Norwich
10. What was the subject of Julian of Norwich’s work, A Book of Showings?
11. What line from Julian’s short work reveals her self-image as an unimportant woman?
12. Read the excerpt from Julian’s A Book of Showings. Write one sentence of your own that summarizes the main point of the excerpt.
Margery Kempe
13. Why is it ironic that Margery Kempe created the first known autobiography in English?
14. What famous literary character does Margery Kempe resemble?
15. What are two reasons that Kempe’s peers disapproved of her?