Document Based Questions: Turning Points
Directions: Answer the short questions after each of the documents below to help you prepare for a DBQ Essay about turning points in history.
Document 1
Let none of your possessions detain you, no solicitude for your family affairs, since this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Land; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.
Pope Urban II, 1095CE
1. Give one reason the Pope encouraged Christians to seize the Holy Land.
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Document 2
2. Where did Marco Polo’s journey take him?
Document 3
“In the year of our Lord 1348 the deadly plague broke out in the great city of Florence…A great many breathed their last in the public streets, day and night; a large number perished in their homes, and it was only by the stench of their decaying bodies that they proclaimed their death to their neighbors. Everywhere the city was teeming with corpses…Huge trenches were dug in the crowded churchyards and the new dead were piled in them, layer upon layer. A little earth covered the corpses of each row, and the procedure continued until the trench was filled to the top.”
The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio, 1348-1351
3. What did Europeans do with the bodies of the dead during the Bubonic Plague epidemic?
Document 4
Population of Europe from 1000CE-1352CE
YEAR / Estimated population1000 / 38 million
1100 / 48 million
1200 / 59 million
1300 / 70 million
1347 / 75 million
1352 / 50 million
Document 5
6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God's remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven.21. Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope's indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved;
36. Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon.
Martin Luther: The 95 Theses
6. Describe one specific problem Martin Luther saw with the Catholic Church.
Document 6
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
-John Locke
Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.
-Mary Wollstonecraft
7. What is one similarity in the ideas explained by John Locke and Mary Wollstonecraft?
8. What change does Mary Wollstonecraft want to see in governments?
Document 7
Leonardo Da Vinci – Vetruvian Man
Raphael – The Marriage of the Virgin
9. According to the drawing and the paintings above, what type of subjects and styles were Renaissance painters interested in as opposed to Medieval artists?
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Document 8
10. According to document 8, how did Galileo view the cosmos?
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Document 9
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation:
Every point mass attracts every single other point mass by a force pointing along the line intersecting both points. The force is directly proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the point masses:
F = G /({m_1 m_2}/{r^2})
where: * F is the magnitude of the gravitational force between the two point masses,
* G is the gravitational constant,
* m1 is the mass of the first point mass,
* m2 is the mass of the second point mass, and
* r is the distance between the two point masses.
11. According to document 9, what did Isaac Newton use to describe the way the universe works?
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Document 10
Important dates for the formation of England and France as Nation-States:
France:
987 – Hugh Capet increases royal power over feudal nobles
1300s – French representative body formed, but did not limit King’s power
1300s- 1400s – Hundred years war between England and France
1429 – Joan of Arc, a peasant girl, wins battles for France, inspiring national pride
1600s – Louis XIV claims absolute power, expanding the bureaucracy, increasing taxes, and strengthening the army
England:
1066 - William the Conqueror invades establishes firm control over England
1100s – common law (law that was the same for all people) and jury system established
1215 – Nobles rebel against King John, forcing him to sign the Magna Carta, placing limits on the King’s powers
1200s – Representative Assembly called Parliament is formed with the power to control government’s money
1500s – Henry VIII breaks with the Pope and creates the Church of England
12. According to the information in the timelines, how did the power of Kings in France change over time? ______
13. According to the information in the timelines, how did the power of Kings in England change over time? ______