It's been a few weeks since the last Monday Quiz. Rather to my surprise, there have been mild complaints. Well, here we go again! Another decade of progress, horror, invention, and incident!
1. In England, trial by ordeal was abolished by 1220. What was "trial by ordeal"?
2. Sometime between 1220 and 1243, Ljubljiana was granted its town charter. Today, the city ranks with Ulaan Baator and Ouagadougou among national capitals with the coolest names. But, of what country is Ljubljiana capital?
3. After a revolt against the Chichen Itza-based ruling elite in 1221, the city of Mayapan was built to be the new capital city, a role that it would fill until the 1440s. Or at least, that’s how we think things might have happened. Of what civilization was Mayapan the cultural hub of the “Late Post-Classic Period”?
4. Also in 1221, Merv – up to this time, one of the largest cities in the world – opened its gates to an army led by one Tolui. Subsequently, according to the Persian historian Juvayni, Tolui
…ordered that, apart from four hundred artisans… the whole population, including the women and children, should be killed, and no one, whether woman or man, be spared. To each [soldier] was allotted the execution of three or four hundred Persians. So many had been killed by nightfall that the mountains became hillocks, and the plain was soaked with the blood of the mighty.Tolui was the fourth son of what better-known, but equally sociopathic, historical figure?
5. At the Diet of Fehérvár in 1222, King Andrew II of Hungary was forced to sign the “Golden Bull,” a document increasing the power of the Hungarian nobility and reducing royal authority. The Golden Bull was almost certainly inspired and influenced by what English document of seven years before?
6. 1222 is the first recorded use of this banner – or at least the rampant lion; the border was probably not used until half a century later. Although now officially restricted to use by representatives of the Sovereign and at royal residences, the Royal Banner continues to be one of what country’s most recognizable symbols?
7. In 1224, St. Francis of Assisi became the first recorded stigmatic. What’s a stigmatic?
8. In 1226, Rǫgnvaldr Guðrøðarson was overthrown as King of the Isles. The Kingdom of the Isles had at this point been around for 300 years or so, but would only last a few more decades. Which isles? Where?
9. Lý Chiêu Hoàng was the only empress regnant (meaning, a ruler in her own right, as opposed to the wife of a ruling emperor) in the history of her country. However, since she was six years old when she assumed the throne in 1224, and surrendered her authority after an arranged marriage to Trần Cảnh in 1225, it’s safe to assume she wasn’t really able to implement much of a personal policy vision. Of what country was Lý Chiêu Hoàng briefly the child empress?
10. Hey, speaking of Hungary (as we were, back at question #5): Since 1211, a military order called the “Teutonic Knights” had been fighting on behalf of King Andrew in exchange for control of a chunk of the kingdom. In 1224, Andrew was alarmed to learn that the knights had asked the Pope if they could answer directly to him, instead of to the Hungarian crown. What, roughly speaking, do you suppose happened to the Teutonic knights as a result?
Through History with The New Monday Quiz: the 1210s
1. The Jin were routed by the Mongols.
2. The Livonian Crusade was the Christian conquest of the Baltic, particularly modern Latvia and Estonia.
3. The Battle of Navas de Tolosa was the beginning of the endgame in the Reconquista, the Christian conquest of Islamic Spain.
4. The Children's Crusade happened, or probably didn't happen, in 1212.
5. The Ten Foot Square Hut is an important piece of medieval Japanese literature.
Extra 5. King Tamar the Great was different from most kings in that he was a woman. Not in the newfangled "Bruce Jenners is a woman" sense, of course. She just ended up occupying and doing a good job in a conventionally male role, and it was easier to call her the king than to rethink the conventions.
6&7.The four artworks: the first is the roof of a German church, the second is a Japanese carving, the third a Chinese painting, and the fourth a Persian plate.
8. June 15, 1215, Runnymede: the Magna Carta!
9. Khwarazmian Smarkand and Urgench were slaughtered by the Mongols.
10. Al Mansurah is in the Nile Delta, in Egypt. *Not* India.
And geez, all four people who threw down -- pfly, Susan, the Owl, and gS49 -- did at least as well as I did, returning to the questions a month after I wrote them. I SALUTE YOU AWESOME QUIZ-TAKERS.
