ESSAY QUESTIONS: GENERAL

1) Compare and contrast the studies by Moore and Nirenberg of the position of medieval minorities.

2) Is Moore’s thesis helpful in understanding the treatment of religious minorities over time? (e.g. heretics, Jews or Muslims in Christian countries c.1350-1650)

3) What do local studies add to our understanding of the treatment of minority groups? (answer with reference to two or more such studies)

4) Is the political, social or ideological context of persecution the most useful for the study of deviant groups c.1350-1650?

5) What does the treatment of deviant groups tell us about late-medieval and/or early modern European society? (answer with reference to at least two groups)

6) Is the study of deviant groups more indicative of continuity or change?

7) Why did the early modern period see a resurgence in the persecution of deviant groups?

8) What role did gender play in the treatment of deviants?

9) Which deviant groups were the most fiercely persecuted and why?

10) Account for the differences in attitude of the authorities and of the people toward deviants.

11) What was the primary motivation behind the persecution of deviants?

12) Why was religious deviance condemned?

13) Why was sexual deviance problematic?

 

ESSAY QUESTIONS: SPECIFIC

1) What threat did heretics pose to authority in pre-modern Europe?

2) Were Jewish/Christian relations characterised more by toleration or by persecution?

3) Did contact with Muslims improve or worsen relations with, or the attitudes of, other faiths?

4) Did pre-modern society treat the victims of disease sympathetically?

5) Why did all groups in pre-modern society believe in witchcraft?

6) How were werewolves AND/OR the possessed treated by pre-modern authorities?

7) What factors affected the treatment of prostitutes in the pre-modern period?

8) In what ways were monsters symbolically important?

9) Were pre-modern bandits heroes or villains?

10) Why is it difficult for historians to reconstruct the activities rather than the attitudes towards gypsies AND/OR arsonists?

11) Why were some mystics or prophets accepted and others condemned?

12) Did pre-modern atheists exist?

13) Were religious minorities treated differently by post-Reformation societies?

14) How did Europeans view non-Europeans in the pre-modern period?