nc33/MultiSpan_SQUAD huggingface dataset:
Late_Middle_Ages

Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it was before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare. France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants' Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict in the Hundred Years' War. To add to the many problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively these events are sometimes called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.

Question: What shattered the unity of the Catholic Church?
Answer: the Western Schism

Question: What are the series of events that ended centuries of prosperity in Europe, starting around 1300, known as?
Answer: the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages

Question: In what years was the Great Famine?
Answer: 1315–1317

Question: Which two countries experienced peasant uprisings?
Answer: France and England

Question: What major conflict occurred in Europe during the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages?
Answer: Hundred Years' War
Late_Middle_Ages

Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of great progress in the arts and sciences. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance began. The absorption of Latin texts had started before the Renaissance of the 12th century through contact with Arabs during the Crusades, but the availability of important Greek texts accelerated with the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, when many Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West, particularly Italy.

Question: An interest in texts from which two ancient civilizations sparked the Italian Renaissance?
Answer: Greek and Roman

Question: Which conflicts brought Europeans into contact with Arabs prior to the 12th century?
Answer: the Crusades

Question: Which city was captured by the Ottoman Turks, resulting in the fleeing of scholars to Western Europe?
Answer: Constantinople

Question: Who captured Constantinople?
Answer: Ottoman Turks

Question: What kind of texts did Byzantine scholars take with them when they fled Constantinople?
Answer: Greek
Late_Middle_Ages

Combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing which facilitated dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. These two things would later lead to the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the period, an era of discovery began (Age of Discovery). The rise of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, eroded the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire and cut off trading possibilities with the east. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the expedition of Columbus to the Americas in 1492, and Vasco da Gama’s circumnavigation of India and Africa in 1498. Their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations.

Question: Which invention resulted in more widespread use of the printed word?
Answer: printing

Question: In what year did Constantinople fall?
Answer: 1453

Question: In what year did Vasco da Gama sail around India and Africa?
Answer: 1498

Question: In what year was Columbus' expedition to the Americas?
Answer: 1492

Question: The Protestant Reformation is attributed to what two developments that resulted from the invention of printing?
Answer: dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning
Late_Middle_Ages

The term "Late Middle Ages" refers to one of the three periods of the Middle Ages, along with the Early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages. Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442). Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire (1439–1453). Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period (1683).

Question: Along with the Late Middle Ages, what are the other two period of the Middle Ages?
Answer: Early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages

Question: When was Leonardo Bruni's "History of the Florentine People" published?
Answer: 1442

Question: What is the name for the division of the periods of history introduced by Bruni?
Answer: tripartite periodization

Question: Who was the author of "Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire
Answer: Flavio Biondo

Question: What 1683 work resulted in the standard use of tripartite periodization?
Answer: Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period
Late_Middle_Ages

As economic and demographic methods were applied to the study of history, the trend was increasingly to see the late Middle Ages as a period of recession and crisis. Belgian historian Henri Pirenne continued the subdivision of Early, High, and Late Middle Ages in the years around World War I. Yet it was his Dutch colleague, Johan Huizinga, who was primarily responsible for popularising the pessimistic view of the Late Middle Ages, with his book The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919). To Huizinga, whose research focused on France and the Low Countries rather than Italy, despair and decline were the main themes, not rebirth.

Question: What methods, applied to the study of history, led to the perception of the Middle Ages as a time of recession and crisis?
Answer: economic and demographic

Question: Which author popularized a pessimistic view of the Late Middle Ages in his 1919 book?
Answer: Johan Huizinga

Question: What was the title of Huizinga's 1919 book on the Middle Ages?
Answer: The Autumn of the Middle Ages

Question: Which countries were the focus of Huizinga's research?
Answer: France and the Low Countries

Question: What was the nationality of historian Henri Pirenne?
Answer: Belgian
Late_Middle_Ages

Modern historiography on the period has reached a consensus between the two extremes of innovation and crisis. It is now (generally) acknowledged that conditions were vastly different north and south of the Alps, and "Late Middle Ages" is often avoided entirely within Italian historiography. The term "Renaissance" is still considered useful for describing certain intellectual, cultural, or artistic developments, but not as the defining feature of an entire European historical epoch. The period from the early 14th century up until – and sometimes including – the 16th century, is rather seen as characterised by other trends: demographic and economic decline followed by recovery, the end of western religious unity and the subsequent emergence of the nation state, and the expansion of European influence onto the rest of the world.

Question: What geopolitical entity emerged from the Late Middle Ages?
Answer: the nation state

Question: Which mountain range is seen as a dividing line when considering conditions during the Middle Ages?
Answer: the Alps

Question: The Renaissance is generally used to describe developments in what areas of life in the Middle Ages?
Answer: intellectual, cultural, or artistic

Question: Which centuries are considered to be part of the Late Middle Ages?
Answer: early 14th century up until – and sometimes including – the 16th century

Question: What was the general effect of the Late Middle Ages on religion?
Answer: the end of western religious unity
Late_Middle_Ages

After the failed union of Sweden and Norway of 1319–1365, the pan-Scandinavian Kalmar Union was instituted in 1397. The Swedes were reluctant members of the Danish-dominated union from the start. In an attempt to subdue the Swedes, King Christian II of Denmark had large numbers of the Swedish aristocracy killed in the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520. Yet this measure only led to further hostilities, and Sweden broke away for good in 1523. Norway, on the other hand, became an inferior party of the union and remained united with Denmark until 1814.

Question: When was the Kalmar Union formed?
Answer: 1397

Question: Which Danish King was responsible for the Stockholm Bloodbath?
Answer: King Christian II

Question: In what year did Sweden break away from the Kalmar Union?
Answer: 1523

Question: Denmark and Norway remained in the Kalmar Union until what year?
Answer: 1814

Question: In what year did the Stockholm Bloodbath take place?
Answer: 1520
Late_Middle_Ages

Bohemia prospered in the 14th century, and the Golden Bull of 1356 made the king of Bohemia first among the imperial electors, but the Hussite revolution threw the country into crisis. The Holy Roman Empire passed to the Habsburgs in 1438, where it remained until its dissolution in 1806. Yet in spite of the extensive territories held by the Habsburgs, the Empire itself remained fragmented, and much real power and influence lay with the individual principalities. In addition, financial institutions, such as the Hanseatic League and the Fugger family, held great power, on both economic and a political levels.

Question: In what year was the Holy Roman Empire dissolved?
Answer: 1806

Question: In what year did a Golden Bull make the king of Bohemia first among the imperial electors?
Answer: 1356

Question: The Hanseatic League was what type of institution?
Answer: financial

Question: In 1438, control of the Holy Roman Empire passed to what dynasty?
Answer: the Habsburgs
Late_Middle_Ages

Louis did not leave a son as heir after his death in 1382. Instead, he named as his heir the young prince Sigismund of Luxemburg, who was 11 years old. The Hungarian nobility did not accept his claim, and the result was an internal war. Sigismund eventually achieved total control of Hungary and established his court in Buda and Visegrád. Both palaces were rebuilt and improved, and were considered the richest of the time in Europe. Inheriting the throne of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire, Sigismund continued conducting his politics from Hungary, but he was kept busy fighting the Hussites and the Ottoman Empire, which was becoming a menace to Europe in the beginning of the 15th century.

Question: In what year did Louis die?
Answer: 1382

Question: Who did Louis name as his heir?
Answer: Sigismund of Luxemburg

Question: How old was Sigismund of Luxemburg when he was named heir?
Answer: 11

Question: Upon taking the throne of Hungary where did Sigismund establish his court?
Answer: Buda and Visegrád

Question: What was the result of the Hungarian nobility's refusal to accept Sigismund claim as Louis' heir?
Answer: internal war
Late_Middle_Ages

The Bulgarian Empire was in decline by the 14th century, and the ascendancy of Serbia was marked by the Serbian victory over the Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbazhd in 1330. By 1346, the Serbian king Stefan Dušan had been proclaimed emperor. Yet Serbian dominance was short-lived; the Serbian army led by the Lazar Hrebljevanovic was defeated by the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, where most of the Serbian nobility was killed and the south of the country came under Ottoman occupation, as much of southern Bulgaria had become Ottoman territory in 1371. Northern remnants of Bulgaria were finally conquered by 1396, Serbia fell in 1459, Bosnia in 1463, and Albania was finally subordinated in 1479 only a few years after the death of Skanderbeg. Belgrade, an Hungarian domain at the time, was the last large Balkan city to fall under Ottoman rule, in 1521. By the end of the medieval period, the entire Balkan peninsula was annexed by, or became vassal to, the Ottomans.

Question: In what year did Belgrade fall to the Ottomans?
Answer: 1521

Question: Who led led the Serbian Army at the Battle of Kosovo?
Answer: Lazar Hrebljevanovic

Question: In what year was the Battle of Kosovo?
Answer: 1389

Question: What event resulted in the triumph of Serbia over Bulgaria in 1330?
Answer: Battle of Velbazhd

Question: Which country was conquered by the Ottomans in 1479?
Answer: Albania
Late_Middle_Ages

Avignon was the seat of the papacy from 1309 to 1376. With the return of the Pope to Rome in 1378, the Papal State developed into a major secular power, culminating in the morally corrupt papacy of Alexander VI. Florence grew to prominence amongst the Italian city-states through financial business, and the dominant Medici family became important promoters of the Renaissance through their patronage of the arts. Other city states in northern Italy also expanded their territories and consolidated their power, primarily Milan and Venice. The War of the Sicilian Vespers had by the early 14th century divided southern Italy into an Aragon Kingdom of Sicily and an Anjou Kingdom of Naples. In 1442, the two kingdoms were effectively united under Aragonese control.

Question: What city was the seat of the papacy for most of the 14th century?
Answer: Avignon

Question: In what year did the papacy return to Rome?
Answer: 1378

Question: What 14th century conflict resulted in the division of southern Italy into two kingdoms?
Answer: The War of the Sicilian Vespers

Question: What were the names of the two kingdoms into which southern Italy was divided?
Answer: Aragon Kingdom of Sicily and an Anjou Kingdom of Naples

Question: In what year were the two southern Italian kingdoms re-united?
Answer: 1442
Late_Middle_Ages

Around 1300–1350 the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age. The colder climate resulted in agricultural crises, the first of which is known as the Great Famine of 1315-1317. The demographic consequences of this famine, however, were not as severe as the plagues that occurred later in the century, particularly the Black Death. Estimates of the death rate caused by this epidemic range from one third to as much as sixty percent. By around 1420, the accumulated effect of recurring plagues and famines had reduced the population of Europe to perhaps no more than a third of what it was a century earlier. The effects of natural disasters were exacerbated by armed conflicts; this was particularly the case in France during the Hundred Years' War.

Question: Which climactic epoch followed the Medieval Warm Period?
Answer: the Little Ice Age

Question: What was the high end of the estimated death rate of the Black Plague?
Answer: sixty percent

Question: What major conflict rocked France during the 13th and 14th centuries?
Answer: Hundred Years' War

Question: When did the Medieval Warm Period end?
Answer: Around 1300–1350

Question: What was the effect of the Little Ice Age?
Answer: agricultural crises
Late_Middle_Ages

As the European population was severely reduced, land became more plentiful for the survivors, and labour consequently more expensive. Attempts by landowners to forcibly reduce wages, such as the English 1351 Statute of Laborers, were doomed to fail. These efforts resulted in nothing more than fostering resentment among the peasantry, leading to rebellions such as the French Jacquerie in 1358 and the English Peasants' Revolt in 1381. The long-term effect was the virtual end of serfdom in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, landowners were able to exploit the situation to force the peasantry into even more repressive bondage.

Question: When did the French Jacquerie take place?
Answer: 1358

Question: What English law was enacted in order to forcibly reduce wages?
Answer: Statute of Laborers

Question: In what year was the Statute of Laborers enacted?
Answer: 1351

Question: Which economic system was ultimately ended by the upheavals of the 14th century?
Answer: serfdom

Question: In what year did the English Peasants' Revolt occur?
Answer: 1381
Late_Middle_Ages

Up until the mid-14th century, Europe had experienced steadily increasing urbanisation. Cities were also decimated by the Black Death, but the role of urban areas as centres of learning, commerce and government ensured continued growth. By 1500, Venice, Milan, Naples, Paris and Constantinople each probably had more than 100,000 inhabitants. Twenty-two other cities were larger than 40,000; most of these were in Italy and the Iberian peninsula, but there were also some in France, the Empire, the Low Countries, plus London in England.

Question: Which European cities likely had populations greater than 100,000 in 1500?
Answer: Venice, Milan, Naples, Paris and Constantinople

Question: What event decimated urban populations in the 14th century?
Answer: the Black Death

Question: How many other cities had populations larger than 40,000 by 1500?
Answer: Twenty-two

Question: Which English city had a population greater than 40,000 in 1500?
Answer: London
Late_Middle_Ages

Changes also took place within the recruitment and composition of armies. The use of the national or feudal levy was gradually replaced by paid troops of domestic retinues or foreign mercenaries. The practice was associated with Edward III of England and the condottieri of the Italian city-states. All over Europe, Swiss soldiers were in particularly high demand. At the same time, the period also saw the emergence of the first permanent armies. It was in Valois France, under the heavy demands of the Hundred Years' War, that the armed forces gradually assumed a permanent nature.

Question: Which conflict in France resulted in the establishment of permanent armies?
Answer: Hundred Years' War

Question: The use of paid mercenaries and domestic retinues replaced which method of raising troops?
Answer: national or feudal levy

Question: Which soldiers were in high demand under the mercenary system?
Answer: Swiss

Question: Which English king is associated with the use of mercenaries in the 14th century?
Answer: Edward III
Late_Middle_Ages

Parallel to the military developments emerged also a constantly more elaborate chivalric code of conduct for the warrior class. This new-found ethos can be seen as a response to the diminishing military role of the aristocracy, and gradually it became almost entirely detached from its military origin. The spirit of chivalry was given expression through the new (secular) type of chivalric orders; the first of these was the Order of St. George, founded by Charles I of Hungary in 1325, while the best known was probably the English Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III in 1348.

Question: What was the chivalric order established by Edward III in 1348?
Answer: Order of the Garter

Question: Who founded the Order of St. George?
Answer: Charles I of Hungary

Question: In what year was the Order of St. George founded?
Answer: 1325

Question: What was the code of conduct of the military orders called?
Answer: chivalry

Question: In what year was the Order of the Garter established?
Answer: 1348
Late_Middle_Ages

The French crown's increasing dominance over the Papacy culminated in the transference of the Holy See to Avignon in 1309. When the Pope returned to Rome in 1377, this led to the election of different popes in Avignon and Rome, resulting in the Papal Schism (1378–1417). The Schism divided Europe along political lines; while France, her ally Scotland and the Spanish kingdoms supported the Avignon Papacy, France's enemy England stood behind the Pope in Rome, together with Portugal, Scandinavia and most of the German princes.

Question: What was the result of the election of two popes at the same time?
Answer: Papal Schism

Question: Where was the Holy See transferred to in 1309?
Answer: Avignon

Question: In what year did the Pope return to Rome from Avignon?
Answer: 1377

Question: What was the time frame of the Papal Schism?
Answer: 1378–1417

Question: Who were the supporters of the Avignon Papacy?
Answer: France, her ally Scotland and the Spanish kingdoms
Late_Middle_Ages

Though many of the events were outside the traditional time-period of the Middle Ages, the end of the unity of the Western Church (the Protestant Reformation), was one of the distinguishing characteristics of the medieval period. The Catholic Church had long fought against heretic movements, but during the Late Middle Ages, it started to experience demands for reform from within. The first of these came from Oxford professor John Wycliffe in England. Wycliffe held that the Bible should be the only authority in religious questions, and he spoke out against transubstantiation, celibacy and indulgences. In spite of influential supporters among the English aristocracy, such as John of Gaunt, the movement was not allowed to survive. Though Wycliffe himself was left unmolested, his supporters, the Lollards, were eventually suppressed in England.

Question: Which Oxford professor believed that the Bible should be the sole authority in religious questions?
Answer: John Wycliffe

Question: What were Jon Wycliffe's supporters called?
Answer: the Lollards

Question: What was the event that ended religious unity in the Western Church?
Answer: the Protestant Reformation

Question: Which Catholic practices did Wycliffe speak out against?
Answer: transubstantiation, celibacy and indulgences

Question: Who was one of the English aristocrats who supported the Lollard movement?
Answer: John of Gaunt
Late_Middle_Ages

The marriage of Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia established contacts between the two nations and brought Lollard ideas to her homeland. The teachings of the Czech priest Jan Hus were based on those of John Wycliffe, yet his followers, the Hussites, were to have a much greater political impact than the Lollards. Hus gained a great following in Bohemia, and in 1414, he was requested to appear at the Council of Constance to defend his cause. When he was burned as a heretic in 1415, it caused a popular uprising in the Czech lands. The subsequent Hussite Wars fell apart due to internal quarrels and did not result in religious or national independence for the Czechs, but both the Catholic Church and the German element within the country were weakened.

Question: In what year was Jan Hus burned at the stake?
Answer: 1415

Question: Who did Richard II of England marry?
Answer: Anne of Bohemia

Question: Whose teachings did Jan Hus base his own on?
Answer: John Wycliffe

Question: What were the followers of Jan Hus called?
Answer: Hussites

Question: What conflict resulted from death of Jan Hus?
Answer: Hussite Wars
Late_Middle_Ages

Martin Luther, a German monk, started the German Reformation by posting 95 theses on the castle church of Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. The immediate provocation spurring this act was Pope Leo X’s renewal of the indulgence for the building of the new St. Peter's Basilica in 1514. Luther was challenged to recant his heresy at the Diet of Worms in 1521. When he refused, he was placed under the ban of the Empire by Charles V. Receiving the protection of Frederick the Wise, he was then able to translate the Bible into German.

Question: Into what language did Martin Luther translate the Bible?
Answer: German

Question: What did Martin Luther post on the castle church of Wittenberg?
Answer: 95 theses

Question: In what year did Martin Luther post his 95 theses?
Answer: 1517

Question: What was Martin Luther's response when challenged to recant his heresy?
Answer: he refused

Question: Who acted as protector to Martin Luther when he was under the ban of the Empire?
Answer: Frederick the Wise