History 342                                                                              Professor Wertheimer

Discussion questions for Tuesday, April 20

 

 

1). Tierney sec. 85.  What powers does Boniface VIII claim for the papacy?  On what grounds does he base these claims?  How do they compare to claims made by earlier popes?  Pay particular attention to the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical authority.

 

2).  Tierney sec. 86 (just John of Paris).  This document represents a reaction to the claims of Boniface VIII.  Analyze the relationship that John of Paris draws between secular and ecclesiastical authorities.  Pay careful attention to what he says about the origin, purpose, and relative powers of each.

 

3).  According to Dante, what sins and crimes had popes of his time committed?  Why did popes have this image in the fourteenth century?

 

Note on questions four and five: in several of these documents, the "lord" mentioned was the abbot of Peterborough.  Monastic houses kept better records than lay lords, but peasants under lay lords would have had similar obligations.

 

4).  Tierney section 79.  According to these documents, what sorts of obligations did the peasantry owe their manorial lord?  (note: terms like "messuage," "virgate," etc. are units of land which you do not need to know).  You should especially pay attention to the labor obligations owed by serfs (villeins), and the ways in which the lord regulated the economic life of the peasantry.

 

5).  Tierney section 81: what does William of Wythington gain from this document?  What obligations did he still owe the lord?

 

6).  Tierney sec. 88 and 89.  What were the social and economic effects of the famine of 1315?  According to Boccaccio, how did people respond to the threat and onset of the Black Death?  What effect did he think it had on family ties and human behavior?

 

7).  Chapter 29.  How are the Peasants’ Rebellions in France and England similar, and how do they differ?  Pay particular attention to the rebellion in England.  What did the rebels want?  How did the rebellion end up?

 

8). Tierney pp. 280 - 283.

What question were these two scholars discussion?  How did they go about reaching these conclusions?