question

Justinian's longest lasting reform was the:

answer

Organization and codification of Roman law.

question

Why did Justinian try to reconquer the Western Roman Empire?

answer

Because he sought to revive and reconstruct wholly the old empire.

question

Why did Justinian's reconquest of the Western Roman Empire fail?

answer

The costs associated with conquering and defending the vast western empire were too great given Justinian's military commitments elsewhere.

question

The pandemic known as Justinian's plague spread rapidly through the eastern and western part of the Roman Empire because it:

answer

Travelled along well-established trade routes both within and outside the empire.

question

It is difficult to date the beginning of Byzantine history with precision because:

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The Byzantine empire considered itself the uninterrupted successor of the Roman Empire.

question

Between 610 and 1071, the major security threats to the Byzantine empire came from:

answer

Persia, then the Islamic caliphate.

question

The stability of Byzantine government was the product of:

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An efficient bureaucracy.

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The Byzantine economy in the early Middle Ages was:

answer

Highly regulated, including wage and price controls.

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The early Byzantine religion was known for its:

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Intense interest in matters of doctrine and orthodoxy.

question

The Iconoclastic Controversy of the eighth century C.E. was about:

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The use or prohibition of images in church, where people might worship the objects.

question

Leo III's support of iconoclasm may have been driven by a desire to:

answer

Strengthen the emperor's control over the church at the expense of monastic control.

question

Although the Iconoclastic Controversy was eventually resolved, its lasting effects included the:

answer

Destruction of nearly all pre-eighth-century religious art in the Byzantine empire.

question

In Byzantine schools, classical Greek literature was:

answer

The basis of the curriculum, with much study of the epics of Homer.

question

Women from wealthy Byzantine families:

answer

Were educated at home by tutors, but did engage in more public intellectual discussions.

question

The Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia was influential in the history of architecture because it:

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Placed a massive dome on a building with a square shape.

question

The word "Islam" means:

answer

Submission.

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By the late sixth century C.E., the economy of Arabia was:

answer

Commercially sophisticated and was intersected by many trade routes.

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The "Hirjah" ("Hegira") refers to the Prophet Muhammad's move from:

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Mecca to Medina.

question

In their worship of Allah, Muslims worship:

answer

The same deity worshipped by Christians and Jews.

question

The Qu'ran contains:

answer

The revelations sent by God to Muhammad.

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Islam spread so quickly in the seventh and eighth centuries because:

answer

Some local populations welcomed Muslim conquest.

question

During the expansion of the Islamic caliphate, Muslim rule was often preferred to Persian or Byzantine because:

answer

The caliphate extracted fewer taxes from conquered populations than these empires.

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The Shiite party arose among Muslims because:

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Of a dispute about the proper succession of caliphs in seventh-century Arabia.

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In comparison to the Umayyad, the Abbasid caliphate:

answer

Adopted more of the style of Persian royal absolutism.

question

The Umayyads of Al-Andalus and the Abbasids of Persia competed for dominance through:

answer

Trying to surpass each other in support of literary and artistic production.

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The Shiite claim to legitimacy rests on the direct connection to Muhammad through his daughter:

answer

Fatimah.

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Compared to medieval Europe in the central Middle Ages (800-1100), the Islamic world was:

answer

Manufactured and traded goods widely in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

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Within Islam, social mobility was encouraged because of:

answer

The teachings of Muhammad, which stressed the equality of all Muslim men.

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Sexual relations within upper-class Muslim society around the year 1000 differed from classical Greek and Roman patterns because:

answer

Muslim men were permitted to have more than one wife, whereas Greek and Roman men were not.

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Opportunity for advancement in Islamic cultures ideally depended on:

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One's ability and one's talent.

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Charlemagne and Harun al-Rashid formed an alliance partially because of their shared enemy, the:

answer

Umayyad.

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Historians looking for a rupture in western European attitudes toward ancient Roman culture and traditions will likely find it between the lives of:

answer

Gregory of Tours and Charlemagne.

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Most people in the early Middle Ages facilitated economic transactions by using:

answer

Food and labor.

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The Merovingian dynasty in France traced its origin back to Clovis's legendary grandfather, Merovech, who was believed to be:

answer

A sea monster.

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Monasteries in the early Middle Ages were:

answer

Places of political, religious, and economic import.

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The gradual conversion of the early medieval European countryside to Christianity was carried out primarily by:

answer

Monks who founded new monasteries in frontier areas.

question

Why were so many convents (monastic houses for women) founded during the seventh century C.E.?

answer

Convents met a variety of social and spiritual needs for women of all classes.

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As a theologian, Pope Gregory I is regarded as the successor to:

answer

Augustine.

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A long-term result of Boniface anointing Pepin on behalf of the papacy was that:

answer

The power of kings was theoretically limited.

question

As a Christian king responsible for ruling a Christian society, Charlemagne:

answer

Took responsibly for reforming the religious life of his kingdom just as he reformed its government.

question

Underlying the Carolingian Renaissance was the basic conviction that:

answer

Learning was the foundation on which Christian wisdom rested.

question

Charlemagne reformed writing in his empire by:

answer

Creating a simplified script and introducing punctuation.

question

Which was the most significant event in creating Byzantine hostility toward the Latin Christian world?

answer

The coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor on Christmas Day, 800.

question

Scandinavian traders turned to raiding because:

answer

Instability in the Abbasid empire had made travel on their traditional trade routes difficult.

question

The Vikings are generally regarded as being a destructive force in European history:

answer

But such a view may not be correct in light of the principalities they established across northern Europe.

question

Once they conquered a territory, Viking populations:

answer

Assimilated quickly within local populations.

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One of the few rulers to successfully defend his lands against the Vikings was:

answer

Alfred.

question

The economic base of the Abbasid caliphate lay in:

answer

The Tigris-Euphrates basin of Mesopotamia.

question

The Abbasid empire effectively came to an end in:

answer

930, when the Shiites' Army attacked and captured Mecca.

question

The overall unity of the Muslim world disintegrated during the tenth and eleventh centuries because of:

answer

Increasing intolerance of regional and ethnic differences of practice and belief within Islam.

question

T/F: The Byzantine empire was never stable because of the intrigue and violence that constantly occurred at the imperial court.

answer

False. The Byzantine empire was actually very stable because of its strong and self-perpetuating political institutions.

question

T/F: Byzantine culture was the means by which the heritage of Western civilization was preserved for the Europe where Greek had become very rare.

answer

True.

question

T/F: Muhammad wrote about his revelations in the Qu'ran.

answer

False. Muhammad's revelations are written in the Qu'ran, but they were written by Muhammad's followers, not by Muhammad himself.

question

T/F: One factor in the success of cities in Arabia was the protracted wars between the Byzantine empire and Persia, which made the Arabian trade routes safer than the northern ones.

answer

True.

question

T/F: Islam is a religion without sacraments or priests.

answer

True.

question

T/F: After 750 C.E., the Umayyad dynasty abandoned Spain and focused its rule on Damascus.

answer

False. They actually abandoned Damascus to retreat to their territories in Spain.

question

T/F: Spain was largely abandoned by Islam as a cultural backwater.

answer

False.

question

T/F: Islam created its own culture and actively destroyed the artifacts of those civilizations that came before them.

answer

False.

question

T/F: The division between Islam and Christianity was not an impenetrable barrier as communication and gifts between the Abbasid and Carolingian empires illustrates.

answer

True.

question

T/F: Sufism is a mystical sect of Judaism whose members stressed contemplation and ecstasy.

answer

False. Sufism is a mystical sect of Islam, not Judaism.

question

T/F: By the seventh century, western Europe had become a more fluid economy in which luxury goods and coinage circulated, albeit to differing degrees, among all levels of society.

answer

False.

question

T/F: Pope Gregory was not only a reformer of the Church and theologian, but was the first pope to break free of Byzantine control and establish an autonomous, Western-oriented Latin church.

answer

True.

question

T/F: Charles Martel is regarded as one of the founders of the Frankish kingdom due to his defeat of a Muslim force near Paris.

answer

True.

question

T/F: Charlemagne regularly chose the bishops in his empire.

answer

True.

question

T/F: By 1000, Vikings had reached North America.

answer

True.

Western Civilization to 1648 (HIST-1500) Ch. 7 – Flashcards

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