This month’s post is going to be a quiz, I haven’t done one for a while so I thought it’d be a nice change. The rules are straight forward: Read the question, look at the picture (it will be some type of extra information) and scroll down below the picture for the answer. Keep track of your score-including bonus points- and find out how you did at the end. There are four sections: Easy, Medium, Hard, Evil. Five questions to a section. All of the answers can be found somewhere on this blog, or in posts that will be written soon.

Enjoy.

Easy

Question 1: Which King of England was known as the Coeur de Lion?

Answer: Richard I: The photo is of his effigy in Fontevraud Abbey

Question 2: What was sealed in Runnymede in June 1215?

Answer: The Magna Carta. The photo is Runnymede

Question 3: What city is home to the medieval cathedral in the photo below? (sadly it doesn’t look like this now)

Answer: Paris: The Cathedral is Notre Dame (taken in 2012 so well before the fire)

Question 4: What is the name of the medieval illuminated manuscript written by monks in a small town in Ireland in the 9th century and now housed in Trinity College Dublin?

Answer: The Book of Kells.

Question 5: What abbey are a significant number of the Kings and Queens of England buried in?

Answer: Westminster Abbey.

Medium

Question 1: Where was Richard III buried? (the name of the town but you get a bonus point for being more specfic)

Answer: Leicester. Bonus point if you said either under a car park, Leicester Cathedral or Greyfriars)

Question 2: Which English queen (arguably) was known as an Empress and bonus point for why?

Answer: Matilda or Maud and because she had been married to Henry the Holy Roman Emperor. The photo is her burial plaque in Rouen Cathedral.

Question 3: Which Irish saint baptised the grandsons of the King at the Rock of Cashel?

Answer: Saint Patrick

Question 4: What embroidery depicts the events leading up the Battle of Hastings in 1066 as well as the battle itself?

Answer: The Bayeux Tapestry.

Question 5: Which Granddaughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine ruled France as the regent for her son Louis IX

Blanche of Castile. The picture is Angers castle which she was instrumental in building.

Hard

Question 1: Which Irish King was responsible for bringing the English to Ireland in the 1170s?

King Diarmuid MacMurrough of Leinster. The photo is his grave in Ferns Ireland.

Question 2: Which welshman wrote The Topography of Ireland and The Conquest of Ireland in the 1180s?

Answer: Gerald of Wales (also acceptable Giraldus Cambrensis). The photo is his birthplace Manorbier Castle.

Question 3: Which Icelandic Lawman and writer from the 13th century is responsible for much of what we know about Norse Mythology- as he was one of the first to write down the sagas?

Answer: Snorri Sturlson. The photo is of his hot spring at his home in Reykholt in Iceland.

Question 4: What former capital of Norway is home to the castle known as Haakon’s Hall?

Answer: Bergen.

Question 5: Where was Iceland’s Alpingi (a sort of early parliament) held?

 Answer: Þingvellir

Evil

Question 1: What is the name of the oldest stave church in Norway? Bonus point for the decade it was built in.

Answer: Urnes. It was built in 1150. The photo is of some of the remarkable carvings.

Question 2: Which French king built Sainte Chapel and for what purpose? You need both to get the point.

Answer: Louis IX and to house his holy relics- including the crown of thorns.

Question 3: What date did William the Conqueror die? And where is he buried?

Answer: 1087 and Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen.

Question 4: Where is the lighthouse built under William Marshal’s direction?

Answer: Hook Head in Ireland.

Question 5: What castle Henry I imprison his cousin Robert Curthoes in?

Answer: Cardiff Castle

So that’s it. How did you do?

1-5: Ok you know some medieval stuff

6-10: Impressive ish, nearly half way there

11-15: Excellent well done, you might actually have read a lot of this blog.

16-20: Stupendous, well done. Long time follower of Historical Ragbag- or a really impressive knowledge of random medieval history.

21-22 (remember those bonus point): Inconceivable!

23: Sure you didn’t write the quiz?