The first exam will be on Wednesday, March 10. I will provide the 'blue books' in which you will write your answers. You will have 50 minutes to complete the exam. There will be two parts to the exam; each is described in more detail below.

In addition to reviewing the material from the reading, discussions, and lectures, there are two things that I would especially recommend that you do. One is to practice writing out an answer to one or two of the study questions so that you can get a sense of how much time it takes to do so. Year after year, the single biggest problem that students have with history essay exams is running out of time because they have not managed it well. The second thing to do is to make sure that you can offer specific examples to support the points you want to make. Grammar and spelling are not important so don't waste time fussing over them. Spend your time giving me information and demonstrating that you understand the material at a specific, not a vague and general, level. Answers that rely simply on generalizations, without supporting examples, are unlikely to get more than a C+, even if completely accurate.

Part 1. Objective ("ID") section: This section of the exam will be relatively small, and it will be worth only 20% of the exam grade. I will present you with 5 or 6 important names, words, or concepts and you will have to write on 3 of them. Complete answers need not be more than a couple of tightly worded sentences. I am not going to put anything tricky or obscure on the exam. The way to prepare for this section is to review your notes and the reading thoroughly.

Part 2. Analytical (essay) section: You will have to write 2 essays; each will be worth 40% of the grade. Although you will have some choice, I will set up the exam so that you will have to write one essay on the material on life in early modern Europe and one on the Renaissance. The questions on the exam will be selected from those printed below. I may make minor wording changes, but essentially what you find in this guide is what will appear on the exam.

1. In what ways were work in the European countryside and in European cities similar and different? In particular, how did gender, marital status and social status affect the nature of work for people in those different environments?
   
   
2. Based on your reading of Peasant Fires, what were the principal values, goals and anxieties of 15th century peasants? How understand their world and interpret what happened to them? How much control did they believe they had over their lives?
   
   
3. Leaving aside the controversial issue of the emotional quality of their marriage, in what ways were Magdalena and Balthasar Paumgartner probably typical of 16th century married couples? In what ways were they probably different? In what ways is their life distinctively urban?
   
   
4. What was the most important factor leading to social change in early modern Europe? What were the most important short term and long term consequences of that factor?
   
   
5. What were the principal ways in which Northern Italy was unlike the rest of Western Europe when the Renaissance began? In what ways are the values, aspirations and experiences of the Northern Italians out of synch with medieval ways of thinking? Why/how are these differences relevant to the success of Renaissance humanism?
   
   
6. What are the three principal “isms” and the most important topics of study in the Renaissance? In what ways are these a departure from medieval ways of thinking? How are they related to the urban Italian environment of the Renaissance?
   
   
7. [You may be given examples of Renaissance paintings and asked the following about them:] In what way(s) do these paintings manifest the values and teachings of the Renaissance?