Advanced Placement European History
Summer Reading Assignment
Mrs. Newmark
There are three parts to this assignment. Be sure to do all three and be ready to hand in your answers for
parts one and two on the first day of classes in August.
1. A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance – Portrait of an Age by William Manchester,
ISBN 0316545562. There is a link on my website to the Amazon page for this book.
http://www.raleighcharterhs.org/faculty/bnewmark/Amazon.htm#SummerEuro If you buy it through that link, will
get a small commission that I can use to buy materials that I use for school.
This is a very entertaining, rather gossipy book that does an excellent job of evoking life in the late
Middle Ages. In his discussion of the Renaissance and the early Reformation Manchester covers much of
the material that will be the basis of the first units of our class. I hope you will enjoy the book and will be
primed for delving into this fascinating period when school starts.
For your writing assignment, which will be due on the first day of classes in August, answer the
following questions. Your answers should be typed.
If you have any questions about the assignment or the class, please fell free to contact me by email.
I am always happy to hear from students. betsynewmark@gmail.com This assignment is also posted at
my website, so you may wish to download it and use it answer the questions. It always helps to have the
question accompany your answer.
A. In Section One of the book: “The Medieval Mind,” how does Manchester characterize this period? It is
important to understand life on the eve of the Renaissance in order to understand the changes that took
place then. Summarize his discussion for the following topics. You will need to add to your notes as you
read through this section since the information is not all in the same place. I’ve done the first one for you
as a model.
1. Religious beliefs and practices
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Early Christians borrowed from classical scholars
Christians were blamed for the fall of Rome
Christians believed that all mankind shared Adam’s guilt
All people are damned, but can be saved by the intervention of Mary
Many people still believed in pagan gods and churches were built on foundations of pagan temples.
Christian holidays were a blend of pagan holidays
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Early Christians liked to adore saints but this was seen by the Church as pagan. The Pope in 726 had
all icons and representations of Jesus and Mary removed from churches but the faithful rebelled
against his edict and Rome abandoned the effort
2. Daily life
3. The role and status of the church; be sure you know what the Great Schism was.
4. The economy
5. The forms of government and the strength of the monarchy
6. The developments in warfare
You can write your answers in paragraphs or as a bullet-points list. Use complete sentences.
B. For Sections Two, “The Shattering,” and Three, “One Man Alone,” explain the following quotations
from the book in your own words and then summarize the evidence that Manchester supplies to support his
generalizations. That evidence may precede, surround, or follow the quotation so don’t be myopic in your
search for understanding. The page numbers correspond to the paperback edition.
For your answers you can choose to write one or two paragraphs for each question several sentences of
explanation with a bullet-point list of evidence. The items in your bullet points should be written in
complete sentences so it is clear why they belong in your list. You don’t need to be overly comprehensive
in your list of evidence so that your lists are pages long. Just choose several pieces of evidence to support
your understanding of the quotes. It is helpful to keep the quote with your explanation so you can use this
to study later. This material will be foundational for understanding the first two units of the course on the
Renaissance and the Reformation.
I’ve done the first one for you as a model.
1. p. 34 “In some ways the period seems to have been the worst of times – an age of treachery,
abduction, fratricide, depravity, barbarism, and sadism.”
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England had the Star Chamber which did not grant the accused due process
Italians began participating in the slave trade
Torquemada’s conduct of the Spanish Inquisition involved all sorts of gory torture
Jews kicked out of Spain. Marranos (Jews who converted) suspected of recidivism and regarded as “pigs.”
Portugal killed and expelled all Jews
Ivan III drove all foreigners from Russia; Cisneros, head of the Spanish Inquisition practiced a type of
medieval genocide against the Moors
Nobles and members of the royal family assassinated rulers and relatives .
Popes were involved in simony, absolution, selling pardons for murderers, paying murderers to take out
rivals
Alexander VI (Borgia pope spent massive amounts on entertainment, gambling while suppressing books
critical of the papacy.
2. p. 39-40 “Over the thirteen centuries since Christianity’s rise to power the Church had lost its
way….”
3. p. 56 “It was time when the social lubricants of civility, and the small but essential trivia of civilized
life, were just beginning to reemerge, phoenixlike, from the medieval ashes.”
4. p. 73 “...as medieval shadows receded, European morals declined.”
5. These three quotes belong together and can be answered with one block of responses.
a. p. 87 “The most powerful men knew artistic genius when they saw it, and their unstinting
support of it, despite their deplorable private lives and abuse of authority, is unparalleled.”
b. p. 95 “Before the dense, overarching, suffocating medieval night could be broken, the
darkness had to be pierced by the bright shaft of learning...”
c. p. 104 “The reawakening...was one of the great triumphs of the Renaissance.”
6. p. 112 “Humanism...led to the greatest threat the Church had ever faced.” (Make sure you understand
what humanism was.)
7. p. 128 “...loyal Catholics were most deeply distressed by the abuses of their own clergymen.” And p.
133 “Alvara Pelayo of Spain, declared: ‘Wolves are in control of the Church and feed on
[Christian] blood!’”
8. These two quotes belong together and can be answered with one block of responses.
a. p. 143 “He [Luther] had broken the dam of medieval discipline.”
b. p. 159 “Luther was to be saved...because in his father land, as all over Europe, the political
vacuum being left by the ebbing Holy Roman Empire was being filled by a new
phenomenon: the rising nation-states.”
9. p. 176 “Thus Protestantism was divided at its birth.” (Make sure you are familiar with the various
groups and leaders within the Reformation.)
10. p. 200 “Instead the Vatican committed its prestige to reaction, repression, and military and political
action against rulers who had left the Church.”
11. p. 206 “In the popular imagination, Henry VIII and Martin Luther have been yoked as leaders of the
reformation...in fact they do not belong together.
12. These two quotes belong together and can be answered with one block of responses.
a. p. 228 “Its clarifying event was the shattering of the medieval world…”
b. p. 288. In the long lists of history it is difficult to find another figure whose heroism matches
Magellan’s.” Why does Manchester say so and do you agree?
2. Watch parts 1. http://tinyurl.com/cryctm and 2. http://tinyurl.com/cfgr89 of the PBS documentary,
The Medicis: Godfathers of the Renaissance. Take notes as you watch and then answer this question. You
will be turning in both your notes and your answer on the first day of classes. This should be a regular
essay with a thesis. You will be graded on the quality of your thesis and the evidence you supply to
support your thesis as well as your use of beautiful English.
How does the rise and power of the Medici family reflect the Renaissance itself? Find evidence
from both the videos and your reading as evidence to substantiate your answer.
3. Study the map of modern Europe (Here is one you can print out
http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/pdf/eur_country.pdf ) and be prepared to take a quiz on the first day of
school identifying countries. The quiz will be a simple matching quiz to connect the names of countries to
their location on the map.
Here are some links to online quizzes that may help you study.
http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html
http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/europe.html
http://www.jetpunk.com/quizzes/map-quiz-europe.php
If you go to the Links page http://www.raleighcharterhs.org/faculty/bnewmark/EUROLinks.html of my
website, you will find lots and lots of links to videos on European history that some nice people have
thoughtfully uploaded to youtube. If you have spare time over the summer and want to watch some of the
videos and take notes on them, go right ahead. I will be giving extra credit for taking detailed notes on
documentaries once school starts and you could have some extra credit banked away before school even
starts. And you’d learn interesting material about selected topics in European history, also. What’s not to
like?