首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Directions: Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Give yourself 20 minutes to complete this practice set.
Directions: Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Give yourself 20 minutes to complete this practice set.
admin
2014-09-29
106
问题
Directions: Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Give yourself 20 minutes to complete this practice set.
EUROPE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
Europe in the eleventh century underwent enormous social, technological, and economic changes, but this did not create a new Europe—it created two new ones. The north was developed as a rigidly hierarchical society in which status was determined, or was at least indicated, by the extent to which one owned, controlled, or labored on land; whereas the Mediterranean south developed a more fluid, and therefore more chaotic, world in which industry and commerce predominated and social status both reflected and resulted from the role that one played in the public life of the community. In other words, individual identity and social community in the north were established on a personal basis, whereas in the south they were established on a civic basis. By the start of the twelfth century, northern and southern Europe were very different places indeed, and the Europeans themselves noticed it and commented on it.
Political dominance belonged to the north. Germany, France, and England had large populations and large armies that made them, in the political and military senses, the masters of western Europe. Organized by the practices known collectively as feudalism1, these kingdoms emerged as powerful states with sophisticated machineries of government. Their kings and queens were the leading figures of the age; their castles and cathedrals stood majestically on the landscape as symbols of their might; their armies both energized and defined the age. Moreover, feudal society showed a remarkable ability to adapt to new needs by encouraging the parallel development of domestic urban life and commercial networks; in some regions of the north, in fact, feudal society may even have developed in response to the start of the trends toward bigger cities. But southern Europe took the lead in economic and cultural life. Though the leading Mediterranean states were small in size, they were considerably wealthier than their northern counterparts. The Italian city of Palermo in the twelfth century, for example, alone generated four times the commercial tax revenue of the entire kingdom of England. Southern communities also possessed urbane, multilingual cultures that made them the intellectual and artistic leaders of the age. Levels of general literacy in the south far surpassed those of the north, and the people of the south put that learning to use on a large scale. Science, mathematics, poetry, law, historical writing, religious speculation, translation, and classical studies all began to flourish; throughout most of the twelfth century, most of the continent’s best brains flocked to southern Europe.
So too did a lot of the north’s soldiers. One of the central themes of the political history of the twelfth century was the continual effort by the northern kingdoms to extend their control southward in the hope of tapping into the Mediterranean bonanza. The German emperors starting with Otto I(936-973), for example, struggled ceaselessly to establish their control over the cities of northern Italy, since those cities generated more revenue than all of rural Germany combined. The kings of France used every means at their disposal to push the lower border of their kingdom to the Mediterranean shoreline. And the Normans who conquered and ruled England established outposts of Norman power in Sicily and the adjacent lands of southern Italy; the English kings also hoped or claimed at various times to be, either through money or marriage diplomacy, the rulers of several Mediterranean states. But as the northern world pressed southward, so too did some of the cultural norms and social mechanisms of the south expand northward. Over the course of the twelfth century, the feudal kingdoms witnessed a proliferation of cities modeled in large degree on those of the south. Contact with the merchants and financiers of the Mediterranean led to the development of northern industry and international trade(which helped to pay for many of the castles and cathedrals mentioned earlier). And education spread as well, culminating in the foundation of what is arguably medieval Europe’s greatest invention: the university. The relationship of north and south was symbiotic, in other words, and the contrast between them was more one of differences in degree than of polar opposition.
1. feudalism: a political and economic system based on the relationship of a lord to people of lower status, who owed service and/or goods to the lord in exchange for the use of land.
Directions: Now answer the questions.
Europe in the eleventh century underwent enormous social, technological, and economic changes, but this did not create a new Europe—it created two new ones. The north was developed as a
rigidly
hierarchical society in which status was determined, or was at least indicated, by the extent to which one owned, controlled, or labored on land; whereas the Mediterranean south developed a more fluid, and therefore more chaotic, world in which industry and commerce predominated and social status both reflected and resulted from the role that one played in the public life of the community. In other words, individual identity and social community in the north were established on a personal basis, whereas in the south they were established on a civic basis. By the start of the twelfth century, northern and southern Europe were very different places indeed, and the Europeans themselves noticed it and commented on it.
According to paragraph 1, which of the following was a deciding factor in a person’s place in society in northern Europe at the end of the eleventh century?
选项
A、Ownership of a commercial enterprise
B、Participation in social and technological changes
C、Role in public life in the community
D、Relationship to land through ownership or labor
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/JLfO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Whatiscurrentlythemainareaofworkofeachofthefollowingpeople?ChooseFIVEanswersfromtheboxandwritethecorrect
WhatdoSharonandXiaoLiagreewasthestrongestaspectoftheirpresentation?
Completethesentencesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSforeachanswer.EffectsofweatheronmoodStelladefines’effect
WhyisMatthewconsideringastudentworkplacement?
WhyisMatthewconsideringastudentworkplacement?
Whatisthetutor’sopinionofthefollowingcompanyprojects?ChooseFIVEanswersfromthebox,andwritethecorrectletter,A
Whatisthemainopinionofeachofthefollowingpeople?ChooseFIVEanswersfromtheboxandwritethecorrectletter,A-G,ne
Choosethecorrectletter,A,BorC.Todotheprojectbest,theprofessorsuggeststhestudents
Choosethecorrectletter,A,BorC.Themainpurposeoftheserviceisto
Choosethecorrectletter,A,BorC.Kathyasksthetutorforhelpwiththe______section.
随机试题
A、具有抑菌作用的药物B、烷化剂类抗肿瘤药C、具有抗肿瘤作用的生物碱D、抗艾滋病药物E、具有抗肿瘤作用的嘧啶类衍生物卡莫司汀为
患者,女,66岁。病人胸闷气短,杵状指、桶状胸,叩诊过清音,听诊呼吸减弱、P2亢进,胸透见右心室大。最佳的吸氧方式是
甲公司申领房屋拆迁许可证,应当提交()等资料。下列关于甲公司中途变更设计的表述中,正确的为()。
A公司是一零售业上市公司,请你协助完成20×8年的盈利预测工作。上年度的财务报表如下:其他财务信息如下:(1)下一年度的销售收入预计为1491万元;(2)预计毛利率上升4个百分点;(3)预计经营和
下列各项中,属于印花税的纳税义务人的是()。
假如你进入银监会工作,现在有3件事情要处理:(1)领导正在与金融机构负责人商谈,需要一份报告,由你负责的,这份报告已经完成得差不多了;(2)金融机构的客户来找你,要与你谈一些事情:(3)临时公司有个会议,这个会议之前一直是由你参加的。你如何安排这三件
在宪法中增加规定:“国家在社会主义初级阶段,坚持公有制为主体、多种所有制经济共同发展的基本经济制度,坚持按劳分配为主体、多种分配方式并存的分配制度”是哪一年宪法修正案的内容?()
马克思说:“暴力是每一个孕育着新社会的旧社会的助产婆。”该论断所表达的是()
问a,b为何值时,函数在x=1处可导.
在VisualFoxPro中,关于自由表叙述正确的是
最新回复
(
0
)