Through History with the Monday Quiz in Exile: The 1470's

 Post 1 of ? for Blaugust 2018.


What better way to kick off another Blaugust than with a reboot of the Monday Quiz in exile, a project that's been dropped more times than Kevin's famous chilli? The quiz was originally the brainchild of Michael5000, spiritual blogmother of this humble site, but I've kept it on life support for a little while, and though there's been no signs of life for a year or so, but it's never too late to give up hope.

The format is simple. Each week the quiz asks ten often absurdly difficult questions about events that occurred in a decade of history. All you have to do is answer the questions using your knowledge and powers of deduction rather than your ability to search references for information, and then leave your guesses in the comments for the chance to win fame and fabulous prizes*. Showing your logic is strongly encouraged so that I can have a good giggle, if for no other reason.

The answers from the 1460's are as follows:
1. Saravejo was founded in 1461. 
2. Prussia was ceded to Poland-Lithuania in 1466. 
3. The Florentine Signoria were appointed from among the guilds of the city.
4. The Mentelin bible was in German.
5. Shetland and Orkney became Scottish after a deal made in 1469. 
6. The Ōnin war kicked off the Sengoku period. 
7. The polyalphabetic cipher is not as vulnerable to frequency analysis. 
8. Pope Pius died in Ancona while on crusade. 
9. The people of Great Fula are heading north east into modern Nigeria. 
10. A Catholicon is a multi-lingual dictionary. I'll give half a point to those that said just dictionary.

Thus the winner of the fame and glory of the 1460's goes to John, with 6.5 points, closely followed by Michael on 6.

Zeitz Map: Anon. (German) 1470

This week we're transported to...the 1470's, when the world looked like this! Be particularly wary of the many islands of the cannibals. Those who inhabit them are said to have tails.

1. It's 1478. Which heretic-hunting organisation responsible for 3000-5000 executions, mostly of forced converts from Judaism and Islam, aren't you expecting a question about?

2. Printing is just going nuts all over Europe at the moment, and printers are in a desperate race to find stories that will appeal to the masses. Which middle-English text, widely distributed in manuscript forms over the past century but first printed by Caxton in 1476, features this woodcut?

3. In response to renewed Mongol raids, the Emperor of China commissioned new sections of 'temporary' defensive fortification along the Northern border, which would eventually become in large part what we know today as the Great Wall of China. Any idea which dynasty we're talking about, here? 
(Bonus point for naming the Emperor).

4. The first recorded game of recognisably modern chess was played in Valencia in 1475 between Franci de Castellvi and Narcis Vinyoles and recorded in the lines of a long allegorical poem. Whose ascension to the throne is thought to have inspired the change in rules in the game?

5. Around this time, the Novgorod republic, the Easternmost part of the Hanseatic League, was defeated and annexed. Who dunnit?

6. In 1472 Fernão do Po claims the central-African islands Bioko and Annobón for Portugal. Which modern-day country are they part of now?

6b. After a short-lived period of independence, the people of Tlatelolco were defeated by and made subjects of Tenochtitlan again in 1473. The ruins of the city can now be seen in which modern city?

8. In 1475, the Landshut wedding between George, Duke of Bavaria, and Hedwig, the daughter of the King of Poland, was celebrated by ten thousand guests, all of whom presumably ate themselves silly, an event celebrated in modern times through a huge-scale recreation every four years. Who was the alliance between Bavaria and Poland designed to defend against?

9. "There are in this city, and also there come temporarily by reason of its greatness and goodness, men from different places and most clever minds, capable of devising and inventing all manner of ingenious contrivances." This is the opening sentence of an act established in Venice in 1474 which is widely considered the first of what kind of law?

10. This is the Baptism of Christ as depicted by the workshop of Andrea del Verrochio in the period between 1472-1475. Modern scholars believe that many parts of the painting, especially the leftmost angel, are actually the work of which of Verrochio's apprentices?

Do let me know what you think of the quiz when you enter your answers below. Too hard? Too easy? Too European? Too many maps? Lay that sweet criticism on me, I can take it.
*Fame and fabulous prizes not included.