TRS 220 FINAL EXAMINATION QUESTIONS
The essay questions on the final will be taken from this list. We suggest that you prepare answers to ALL the questions using the readings, visual material from lectures, and lecture notes. There will be two (2) essay questions on the final, five (5) identifications (from a choice of 8), and one (1) image from the web pages to identify and to give the significance of the object. The final will constitute 50% of your grade.
1. Abelard has been called a key figure in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Discuss Abelard's life and describe how his life helps us to understand the sweeping changes that occurred in the schools and in the Church during the twelfth century.
2. Discuss how medieval ecclesiastical architecture reflects society's conceptions of God, the Church, and society. What role did the building of churches play in medieval cities from 1100 to 1350? Be sure to give specific examples.
3. Discuss the relationship of the Church and society during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Describe the reactions of Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer to the Church, the papacy, and the clergy. Discuss the emergence of the "individual" in literature and art and its influence on the Church and religion.
4. Discuss the role of the papacy in European affairs from 1050 to 1527. Evaluate the papacy's influence and the long-term effects of its political activities in the secular sphere during the period that we have been studying. How does the building of the new Saint Peter's in Rome represent the triumph and the culmination of the monarchical papacy?
5. Discuss Archbishop Thomas Becket and Rainald of Dassel. How do they illustrate the tensions in medieval society and the evolution of the concepts of loyalty and fealty to the Church and to the state?
6. Compare and contrast the pontificates of Popes Innocent III (1198-1216) and Boniface VIII (1294-1302). Pay particular attention to their policies of exercising papal authority over secular rulers.
7. In the later Middle Ages churchmen attempted to temper and limit papal monarchy through church councils. Compare the councils of Nicaea (325 A.D.), Fourth Lateran Council (1215), First Council of Lyon (1245) , with Constance(1414-1418), Basle, and Florence (1439-1447 A.D.).
8. From 1054 to 1527 Christian society witnessed many schisms: the Greek schism of 1054, the papal schisms of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries and finally Protestant Reformation. Discuss the causes of each.
9. Explain some of the influences that helped Western Europe emerge as a cultural and economic powerhouse in the twelfth century.