June 2009 Dear Incoming AP European Students, Welcome to AP European History! I am thrilled that you are participating in one of the most interesting and challenging classes created. (Yes, I am somewhat biased!) If you love history, you will truly enjoy this class! We will spend the 2009 – 2010 school year exploring 600 years of exciting and intriguing European History as well as literature, art and music. We will also spend time preparing for the College Board AP exam which is given at the beginning of May. The Advance Placement Program provides highly motivated students the opportunity to complete a class equivalent to Western Civilization, a freshman college course. This course is taught at the college level. AP European covers the period from the Renaissance to the present. Additionally, the AP curriculum emphasizes higher-level critical thinking skills, analytical reading, essay writing, primary source document interpretation, and historiography. Why do we have a summer assignment for AP European History? In order to cover over 600 years of European History in 8 months, we must get off to a running start! We start with the Renaissance around the year 1450 C.E. So that you may accurately appreciate the remarkable events that occurred in Europe during this era, and its impact on the world, all of you need to know what and who came before that time; what inspired these revolutionary changes in thought and action. The summer assignment will help you acquire some of this needed information. Also, due to the volume of the material that must be covered before the exam in early May, the summer assignment will help prepare you for the type of work that we will be doing this year, including the reading of primary sources. It is vital that this assignment be thoughtfully and fully completed and finished by the first class on August 31st, 2009. Failure to complete this assignment will result in a serious impact on your first quarter grade. A copy of the summer assignment will also be on the PBHS website. I encourage all parents and students to register their email addresses on edline at the beginning of the school year, which will provide you with important information throughout the year. If you have any questions concerning the assignment you may contact me at [email protected]. I check my email often in summer. Best Regards, Ms Blakely PS If you just signed up for this course and did not see me in June~ please email me so I can send information to you about various topics, trips, films and agendas! AP European History Summer Assignment Due Date: Monday August 31st This is a three-part assignment: Part I: Readings and Map Study (80 points) Complete the following readings and activities. Some of these are primary source readings and will need to be read more than once. It is vital that you annotate your documents and readings and keep notes for yourself for future reference as well as to enhance class discussions. *Notes, annotations and questions will be checked for completeness on the first day of class and this check will be your first grade. 1. Study the maps on "Europe in 1300" and "Europe in 1400" and make notes* on similarities and differences. (Included in packet) 2. Read “Why Study History Through Primary Sources (Medieval Sourcebook) at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/robinson-sources.html. Answer Questions 1 – 11 at the end of the article. 3. Read “The Big Chill: Early 14c Western Europe" (included in this packet) Take notes* and answer the questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Why did Europe's population decline dramatically between 1300 and 1450? Regarding the Black Death: - What were its causes? - Why did it spread so quickly throughout Western Europe? - Where was it most virulent? How would you evaluate the status of women in the aftermath of the Black Death? How influential was misogyny in limiting women's activities and achievements? How was the Hanseatic League a trade monopoly? How did the adversities of the 14c affect urban life and medical practices? Identify some of the technological advances that changed European society by the early 15c? 4. Read The Calamitous 14th Century~Annotate (included in packet) 5. Take a look at some Gothic Art and Architecture: 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. http://pptpalooza.net/PPTs/EHAP/LateMedievalArtAndArchitecture.ppt#256 What were the stereotypical images of women in late medieval Europe? How did patriarchy influence the status of medieval women? What were the major issues in the history of women during the Middle Ages? What are the problems encountered by the historian in understanding the status of women in the late medieval period? What were some of the factors that led to rural and urban revolts in the 14c? How did the Black Death contribute to the socio-economic causes that motivated peasants to revolt in the 14c and 15c? How did urban revolts differ from rural ones? How were the growing tensions between the nobility and the emerging monarchies a key to explaining some of the reasons for the decline of feudalism in Europe by the end of the 14c? What were some of the characteristics of Late Medieval art and architecture? Some other good cites to read over for further information and help with vocabulary! A) The Effects of the Crusades: http://www.lycos.com/info/crusades--westerneurope.html -- list all the effects from each source and briefly summarize the points raised by each source found in this Lycos site. B) Medieval Sourcebook: The Trial of Joan of Arc, 1431 http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1431joantrial.html C) Women in the Middle Ages (all six topics) http://www.ozedweb.com/history/middle_ages_biographies_women.htm Part II: Vocabulary (Quiz assessment) You may consult sources such as the Encyclopedia of World History, your textbook website (http://college.hmco.com/history/west/mckay/western_society/7e/students/index.html) or the Internet (answers.com is very helpful) to write definitions for the following items You will have a QUIZ on these words the 2nd day of class so know them well Black Death pandemic Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron enclosure Hanseatic League misogyny Ciompi Statute of Laborers Pastons 100 Years' War [1328-1453] Flanders Calais Joan of Arc longbow gabelle taille War of the Roses [1377-1485] Burgundy Doges of Venice Papal States Pope Boniface VIII clericos laicos lay investiture Unam Sanctam papal bull Avignon Papacy Beguines Beghards tertiaries 4th. Lateran Council [1215] scholasticism Roger Bacon William of Ockham Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron Christine de Pizan The City of Ladies Margery Kempe The Book of Margery Kempe World Lit only by Fire~William Manchester Enjoy the book~ Questions and Essay Choice included in Packet! If you sign up for this class later-email me and we will discuss how to get you a copy and extend your deadline for this part of the assignment! IMPORTANT NOTE: The essay part of this assignment is designed to help me evaluate where you are in your writing and analysis skills. You will not be graded in terms of whether you did the parts of the assignment “right” or “wrong” but rather in the effort you showed in completing the assignment. The questions, however, will be graded for accuracy! AP European History – Summer Assignment In preparation for your “journey” through A.P. European History, you will be required to read A World Lit Only By Fire-The Medieval Mind and the RenaissancePortrait of an Age (ISBN 0316545562) by William Manchester. Following your reading of A World Lit Only By Fire, you are to pick one of the following essay questions in Part A and respond to them typing, double-spaced, a minimum 2 page response per question that analyzes what you have read. Your responses to the questions should NOT be a simple re-stating of Manchester’s book, but rather YOUR THOUGHTFUL analysis of the book. You will also need to answer the questions that go along with the text of the book in Part B. You can find the answers to these questions as you read. The following lists the topics covered throughout the book: Pages 3-28 30-50 50-71 71-94 95-117 117-136 136-156 156-178 178-202 202-219 Topical Content from Manchester The “Dark Ages” Beware, dragons lurk here Towns, hamlets, and noble Manor houses Private life Piercing the darkness with the Bright shaft of learning Erasmus, Pico, and doctrinal Tetzel, Luther, and the “Mighty Fortress”, the Church “Death to priests!” and Exsurge Domine Christians slaughtering Christians Henry VIII, “Defender of the Faith” 223-240 240-261 261-276 276-296 Ferdinand Magellan Voyages of discovery Crossing the Pacific The hero stands alone Part A-Two paged typed analytical essay; choose ONE #1 Examine and analyze Manchester’s use of evidence to support his claims. He asserts that the book was written using secondary sources; does this reduce the impact of the book and/or change your opinion on it? What primary sources (that are available) should he have used, in your opinion? #2 Examine and analyze Manchester’s point of view on “medieval man”. What is missing in the lives of medieval people? What is Manchester’s assessment of this? Why does the Renaissance spring from medieval times, according to Manchester? Is this a viable assessment of the times, in your opinion? Why or why not? #3 Manchester places great deal of emphasis on the importance of Ferdinand Magellan. Does Magellan deserve all the credit Manchester gives him or would there be a better person to put in his place in the context of what A World Lit Only By Fire is trying to explain to us? Or does another historical figure deserve the attention that Magellan receives? Who is he/she and why? Be sure to use specific examples from the book to support your claims and explain in detail. Part B. Answer the questions as you read A World Lit Only By Fire. 1. English records show that out of every hundred murders, how many murderers were brought to justice? 2. How many conquered rebels did Charlemagne beheaded for refusing baptism? 3. Who was “history’s most celebrated iconoclast” and why? 4. Why were papal proclamations called “bulls”? 5. Where did the popes live from 1305 to 1377? 6. What two things did medieval man lack awareness of? 7. When was Aristotle rediscovered by the West? 8. After Magellan, who was next to navigate the “Straits of Magellan” successfully and survive to tell the tale? 9. Who invented the rifle and when? 10.What country were the Borgias from and how did they become popes? 11.Who declared the pope “is no longer a Christian. He is an infidel, a heretic, and as such has ceased to be a pope.”? 12.What was Europe’s most populous country in 1500 and what was its population? 13.What was the banking family that became prominent in the Hansa and then in all of Europe? 14.How large was the average man? 15.Half of all people died before reaching what age? 16.What was used as a substitute for long prison sentences? 17.Who were the cleanest people in Europe? 18.At what age could girls legally marry? Boys? 19.In 1513, who became the “first painter and engineer” to Frances I? 20. What subjects made up the trivium and the quadrivium? 21.What was Erasmus’ father’s profession? 22.Who was the warrior pope? 23.Who became “the most famous man to misjudge Professor Martin Luther”? 24.What did Satan and Luther throw at each other (allegedly)? (Be polite in answering) 25.Who did Leo X want to become the new Holy Roman Emperor in 1518 instead of Charles V? Why was this ironic? 26.What did Luther find more acceptable than divorce? 27.Who laid the egg that Luther hatched? 28.How did Luther view Copernicus? 29.How did Calvin view Copernicus? 30.How did Calvin deal with the issues of abortion and illegitimacy? 31.What is the meaning of the title of the book, “a world lit only by fire”? 32.How much of the land in England was owned by the Catholic Church when Henry broke away? 33.Who died the “king’s good servant, but God’s first”? 34.Who was Michelangelo’s lifelong idol? 35.According to Manchester, what destroyed the Renaissance? 36.What event occurred on April 2, 1520 of Magellan’s voyage? 37.What sight caused Magellan to burst into tears in November 1520? 38.What obsession overcame Magellan while anchored in the Philippines? 39.What part of Magellan’s body was returned to Spain? 40.What was the “crowning triumph of the age, the final, decisive blow to the past”? The summer assignment is due the FIRST DAY OF CLASS – failure to complete the assignment will mean a 0 right out of the gate on your first assignment and my questioning of your desire to even be in the class. Do not wait until the last minute to complete this assignment. Remember you never get a second chance to make a first impression!!!! Ms Blakely Some unsolicited advice: Don’t wait until the night before school starts to begin this assignment. Read the material more than once for better understanding. Please email me if you have any questions; I check my email frequently. Have a great summer; I will see you in August! The “Big Chill”—Early 14c Western Europe The story we are about to tell is not a pleasant one, but it speaks to the extraordinary scope of human experiences that occurred in Europe in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The fourteenth century dawned with a chill. In 1303, and then again during 1306-1307, the Baltic Sea froze over. No one had ever heard of that happening before, and the freezings foretold worse disasters. The cold spread beyond its normal winter season, arriving earlier in the autumn and staying later into the summer. Then it started to rain and did not let up. The Caspian Sea began to rise, flooding villages along its shores. In the summer of 1314 all across Europe, crops rotted in sodden fields. The meager harvest came late, precipitating a surge in prices for farm produce and forcing King Edward II of England to impose price controls. But capping prices did not grow more food. In 1315 the situation got worse: In the year of our Lord 1315, apart from the other hardships with which England was afflicted, hunger grew in the land.... Meat and eggs began to run out, capons and fowl could hardly be found, animals died of pest, swine could not be fed because of the excessive price of fodder. A quarter of wheat or beans or peas sold for twenty shillings [In 1313 a quarter of wheat sold for five shillings.], barley for a mark, oats for ten shillings. A quarter of salt was commonly sold for thirty-five shillings, which in former times was quite unheard of. The land was so oppressed with want that when the king came to St. Albans on the feast of St. Laurence [August 10] it was hardly possible to find bread on sale to supply his immediate household.... The dearth began in the month of May and lasted until the feast of the nativity of the Virgin [September 8]. The summer rains were so heavy that grain could not ripen. It could hardly be gathered and used to bake bread down to the said feast day unless it was first put in vessels to dry. Around the end of autumn the dearth was mitigated in part, but toward Christmas it became as bad as before. Bread did not have its usual nourishing power and strength because the grain was not nourished by the warmth of summer sunshine. Hence those who ate it, even in large quantities, were hungry again after a little while. There can be no doubt that the poor wasted away when even the rich were constantly hungry.... Considering and understanding these past miseries and those that were still to come, we can see how the prophecy of Jeremiah is fulfilled in the English people: "If I go forth into the fields, behold those slain with the sword, and if I enter into the city behold them that are consumed with famine" (Jeremiah 14.18). Going "forth into the fields" when we call to mind the ruin of our people in Scotland and Gascony, Wales and Ireland ... Entering the city we consider "them that are consumed with famine" when we see the poor and needy, crushed with hunger, lying stiff and dead in the wards and streets.... Four pennies worth of coarse bread was not enough to feed a common man for one day. The usual kinds of meat, suitable for eating, were too scarce; horse meat was precious; plump dogs were stolen. And, according to many reports, men and women in many places secretly ate their own children....1 In England during that year, the price of wheat rose 800 percent. Preachers compared the ceaseless rains to the great flood in the Bible, and floods did come, overwhelming dikes in the Netherlands and England, washing away entire towns in Germany, turning fields into lakes in France. Everywhere crops failed. And then things got much worse. Torrential rains fell again in 1316, and for the third straight year the crops failed, creating the most severe famine in recorded European history. The effects were most dramatic in the far North. In Scandinavia agriculture almost disappeared, in Iceland peasants abandoned farming and turned to fishing and herding sheep, and in Greenland the European settlers began to die out. Already malnourished, the people of Europe became susceptible to disease and starvation. Desperate people resorted to desperate options. They ate cats, rats, insects, reptiles, animal dung, and tree leaves….In Poland the starving were said to cut down criminals from the gallows for food. By the 1340s, nearly all of Europe was in an endless cycle of disease and famine. Then came the deadliest epidemics in European history, the Black Death, which killed at least one-third of the total population…. Of all the frightening elements of these disasters, perhaps most frightening was that their causes were hidden or completely unknowable given the technology and medical understanding of the time. In many respects, the West was held captive by the climate, economic forces that no one completely understood, and microbes that would not be identified for another 550 years…. Source: 1From Johannes de Trokelowe, Annates, H. T. Riley, ed., Rolls Series, No. 28, Vol. (London, 1866), pp. 92-95. Translated by Brian Tierney. The West: Encounters and Transformations. Brian Levack, et. al. Pearson Longman. New York: 2004, p. 325-326. 1From Johannes de Trokelowe, Annates, H. T. Riley, 14oo Europe 1300 Europe