Which people began their invasion and conquest of southwestern Britain around 450?
A. the Normans
B. the Geats
C. the Celts
D. the Anglo-Saxons
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. Hungarian
Which hero made his earliest appearance in Celtic literature before becoming a staple subject in French, English, and German literatures?
A. Beowulf
B. Arthur
C. Caedmon
D. Augustine of Canterbury
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. eleventh
C. twelfth
D. thirteenth
E. fourteenth
Which king began a war to enforce his claims to the throne of France in 1336?
A. Henry II
B. Henry III
C. Henry V
D. Louis XIV
E. Edward III
Who would be called the English Homer and father of English poetry?
A. Bede
B. Sir Thomas Malory
C. Geoffrey Chaucer
D. Caedmon
What was vellum?
A. parchment made of animal skin
B. the service owed to a lord by his peasants (“villeins”)
C. unrhymed iambic pentameter
D. an unbreakable oath of fealty
Only a small proportion of medieval books survive, large numbers having been destroyed in:
A. the Anglo-Saxon Conquest beginning in the 1450s
B. the Norman Conquest of 1066
C. the Peasant Uprising of 1381
D. the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s
What is the first extended written specimen of Old English?
A. Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy
B. Saint Jerome’s translation of the Bible
C. Malory’s Morte Darthur
D. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People
E. a code of laws promulgated by King Ethelbert
Who was the first English Christian king?
A. Alfred
B. Richard III
C. Richard II
D. Henry II
E. Ethelbert