This quiz works best with JavaScript enabled. Home > English Literature > Periods > Middle Ages > Middle Ages – Quiz 1 🏠 Homepage 📘 Download PDF Books 📕 Premium PDF Books Middle Ages Quiz 1 (25 MCQs) Quiz Instructions Select an option to see the correct answer instantly. 1. Which hero made his earliest appearance in Celtic literature before becoming a staple subject in French, English, and German literatures? A) Arthur. B) Augustine of Canterbury. C) Beowulf. D) Alfred. Show Answer Correct Answer: A) Arthur. 2. Which of the following authors is considered a devotee to chivalry, as it is personified in Sir Lancelot? A) Julian of Norwich. B) Margery Kempe. C) William Langland. D) Sir Thomas Malory. Show Answer Correct Answer: D) Sir Thomas Malory. 3. What is the first extended written specimen of Old English? A) Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. B) A code of laws promulgated by King Ethelbert. C) Saint Jerome's translation of the Bible. D) Boethius's Consolidation of Philosophy. Show Answer Correct Answer: B) A code of laws promulgated by King Ethelbert. 4. Ancrene Riwle is a manual of instruction for A) Knights preparing for their first tournament. B) Women who have chosen to live as religious recluses. C) Translators of French romances. D) Courtiers entering the service of Richard II. Show Answer Correct Answer: B) Women who have chosen to live as religious recluses. 5. Which literary form, developed in the fifteenth century, personified vices and virtues? A) The short story. B) The romance. C) The morality play. D) The heroic epic. Show Answer Correct Answer: C) The morality play. 6. In Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry, what is the fate of those who fail to observe the sacred duty of blood vengeance? A) Conversion to Christianity. B) Everlasting shame. C) Banishment to Asia. D) Being buried alive. Show Answer Correct Answer: B) Everlasting shame. 7. What is the climax of Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain? A) The marriage of Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine. B) The coronation of Henry II. C) The reign of King Arthur. D) King John's seal of the Magna Carta. Show Answer Correct Answer: C) The reign of King Arthur. 8. Which king began a war to enforce his claims to the throne of France in 1336? A) Edward III. B) Henry V. C) Louis XIV. D) Henry II. Show Answer Correct Answer: A) Edward III. 9. Which influential medieval text purported to reveal the secrets of the afterlife? A) Dante's Divine Comedy. B) Boccaccio's Decameron. C) The Dream of the Rood. D) Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. Show Answer Correct Answer: A) Dante's Divine Comedy. 10. Words from which language began to enter English vocabulary around the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066? A) French. B) Norwegian. C) Spanish. D) Danish. Show Answer Correct Answer: A) French. 11. Which twelfth-century poet or poets were indebted to Breton storytellers for their narratives? A) Geoffrey Chaucer. B) Marie de France. C) Chr'tien de Troyes. D) B and c only. Show Answer Correct Answer: D) B and c only. 12. Which of the following languages did not coexist in Anglo-Norman England? A) Celtic. B) Dutch. C) French. D) Latin. Show Answer Correct Answer: B) Dutch. 13. The use of textbackslash whale-roadtextbackslash for sea and textbackslash life-housetextbackslash for body are examples of what literary technique, popular in Old English poetry? A) Kenning. B) Metonymy. C) Symbolism. D) Simile. Show Answer Correct Answer: A) Kenning. 14. What was vellum? A) A prized ink used in the illumination of prestigious manuscripts. B) Parchment made of animal skin. C) The service owed to a lord by his peasants (textbackslash villeinstextbackslash ). D) Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Show Answer Correct Answer: B) Parchment made of animal skin. 15. Which of the following statements about Julian of Norwich is true? A) She sought unsuccessfully to restore classical paganism. B) She was a virgin martyr. C) She is the first known woman writer in the English vernacular. D) She made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago. Show Answer Correct Answer: C) She is the first known woman writer in the English vernacular. 16. Who is the author of Piers Plowman? A) Sir Thomas Malory. B) Margery Kempe. C) Geoffrey Chaucer. D) William Langland. Show Answer Correct Answer: D) William Langland. 17. Toward the close of which century did English replace French as the language of conducting business in Parliament and in court of law? A) Tenth. B) Twelfth. C) Fourteenth. D) Thirteenth. Show Answer Correct Answer: C) Fourteenth. 18. How did Henry II, the first of England's Plantagenet kings, acquire vast provinces in southern France? A) The Fourth Lateran Council. B) Saint Patrick's mission. C) The Battle of Hastings. D) His marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Show Answer Correct Answer: D) His marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. 19. Which of the following best describes litote, a favorite rhetorical device in Old English poetry? A) Embellishment at the service of Christian doctrine. B) Repetition of parallel syntactic structures. C) Ironic understatement. D) Stress on every third diphthong. Show Answer Correct Answer: C) Ironic understatement. 20. To what did the word the roman, from which the genre of textbackslash romancetextbackslash emerged, initially apply? A) A work derived from a Latin text of the Roman Empire. B) A story about love and adventure. C) A Roman official. D) A work written in the French vernacular. Show Answer Correct Answer: D) A work written in the French vernacular. 21. What event resulted from the premature death of Henry V? A) The Battle of Agincourt. B) The Norman Conquest. C) The War of the Roses. D) The Battle of Hastings. Show Answer Correct Answer: C) The War of the Roses. 22. Which people began their invasion and conquest of southwestern Britain around 450? A) The Danes. B) The Anglo-Saxons. C) The Normans. D) The Geats. Show Answer Correct Answer: B) The Anglo-Saxons. 23. Christian writers like the Beowulf poet looked back on their pagan ancestors with: A) Nostalgia and ill-concealed envy. B) Bewilderment and visceral loathing. C) Admiration and elegiac sympathy. D) Bigotry and shallow triumphalism. Show Answer Correct Answer: C) Admiration and elegiac sympathy. 24. In addition to Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland, the textbackslash floweringtextbackslash of Middle English literature is evident in the works of which of the following writers? A) Chr'tien de Troyes. B) The Gawain poet. C) The Beowulf poet. D) Geoffrey of Monmouth. Show Answer Correct Answer: B) The Gawain poet. 25. Who would be called the English Homer and father of English poetry? A) John Gower. B) Sir Thomas Malory. C) Geoffrey Chaucer. D) Caedmon. Show Answer Correct Answer: C) Geoffrey Chaucer. Related QuizzesPeriods QuizzesEnglish Literature Quizzes 🏠 Back to Homepage 📘 Download PDF Books 📕 Premium PDF Books