This GCSE RE quiz on Catholicism takes a look at creative heritage. The Catholic Church has been a huge patron of the creative arts down the ages: we have a fine heritage of ecclesiastical buildings from Roman times, through the Renaissance and since, many of which have been fervently decorated with masterpieces of art and sculpture, and which have resonated with beautiful music from plainchant to the great polyphonic Masses and the sumptuous works of the Romantic composers. The Reformation produced its own, generally more modest, Protestant traditions in music and has tended to shun whatever might smack of ‘worldly extravagance’ in the decorative arts.
Catholicism and its tenets have meanwhile left their mark on other aspects of cultural life ~ such as through the Hays Code, which dominated moral standards in the US film industry between the heyday of Hollywood and the ‘swinging sixties’ period of Vietnam angst when ‘anything went’.
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Meanwhile it is almost certainly safe to claim that in anyone's reckoning of the world's most iconic &/or impressive buildings (certainly from prior to the coming of skyscrapers in the late Victorian era), it would be surprising not to find Catholic religious examples bubbling well up into the Top Ten: great European cathedrals such as Cologne, Notre-Dame and Salisbury …
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1.
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An easy enough, but hopefully thought-provoking question: which of the following mechanical aids were available to the builders of mediaeval abbeys and cathedrals? |
|
[ ] |
Diesel-engined heavy haulage trucks |
[ ] |
Gantry cranes to 25m and above |
[ ] |
CAD software |
[ ] |
None of the above |
|
|
2.
|
In which part of a traditional monastery would the beautiful hand-written copies of books be made, before the days of movable-type printing (which came in as powerful 'new technology' around the same time as the Reformation, and indeed was instrumental in spreading its ideas)? |
|
[ ] |
The dormitories |
[ ] |
The scriptorium |
[ ] |
The chapel |
[ ] |
The refectory |
|
|
3.
|
To evoke the setting of a monastery (or similar institution) onscreen, it seems almost obligatory to play the sound of monks chanting in Plainsong as they have done since time almost immemorial. Another more formal label for this simple style of music comes from the name of the Pope under whom it was (supposedly) codified: who was he? |
|
[ ] |
Saint Francis |
[ ] |
Saint Benedict |
[ ] |
Pope Saint Gregory |
[ ] |
Saint Cecilia |
|
|
4.
|
Probably the most famous single example of Renaissance religious art is the painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican ... done by whom? |
|
[ ] |
Michaelangelo |
[ ] |
Leonardo da Vinci |
[ ] |
Donatello |
[ ] |
Piranesi |
|
|
5.
|
To complement the visual arts, the Church has a magnificent repertoire of music to enrich worship and encourage religious contemplation. All the following composers wrote settings of the Mass, but we have intercalated one Protestant (Lutheran) composer among the Catholics. Who was this odd one out? |
|
[ ] |
Franz Joseph Haydn |
[ ] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |
[ ] |
Johann Sebastian Bach |
[ ] |
Franz Schubert |
|
|
6.
|
How did the mediaeval craftsmen at Chartres Cathedral (in France) achieve the spectacular blue tint in their stained-glass which is known as 'bleu de Chartres'? |
|
[ ] |
They followed a recipe from the Roman archives that had previously been on the same site |
[ ] |
They relied on prayer and heavenly guidance |
[ ] |
They used vegetable dyes to replicate a blue tint associated with relics of the cloak of the Virgin Mary |
[ ] |
Nobody knows: there is no other glass quite like it, no chemical explanation nor process to explain its composition, and one theory has it that airborne pollution within the past century may have contributed in some subtle way |
|
|
7.
|
Many practising Catholics regard it as part of their life's duty to take, and express, a clear moral stance on a range of issues such as public and private ethics. The Hays Code, which dominated Hollywood film-making during its formative years (1930-66 usually being quoted), was principally the outworking of concerns from which pressure group? |
|
[ ] |
Father Daniel Lord SJ and the Catholic/National Legion of Decency |
[ ] |
The Catholic Daughters of America |
[ ] |
Joseph I Breen and the Production Code Administration |
[ ] |
The (Catholic) Crusaders for Clean Cinema |
|
|
8.
|
Europe's largest Gothic cathedral is at Ulm in Germany: built in 1890 (with the benefit of what we might call Victorian technology: steam-cranes, rail freighting of stone etc.) but by the Protestants. Its spire deliberately surpasses that of the world's tallest Catholic cathedral, also in Germany and built just 10 years earlier. In which city does this second cathedral stand? |
|
[ ] |
Berlin |
[ ] |
Cologne |
[ ] |
Augsburg |
[ ] |
Munich |
|
|
9.
|
For non-Catholic British people, the 'nearest English-speaking Catholics' (apart from those living amongst them) are probably the Irish, some of whom have certainly had cultural influence through the world of entertainment. Which of the following popular series tells of the activities of a trio of disgraced priests and their housekeeper? |
|
[ ] |
All Gas and Gaiters |
[ ] |
Holy Smoke! |
[ ] |
Father Ted |
[ ] |
Mrs Brown's Boys |
|
|
10.
|
What artist from the Low Countries, who died in 1516, remains deservedly famous for his extraordinary pictures such as the triptych altarpieces on 'The Last Judgment' and 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', that feature proto-surrealist and deformed people and animals? |
|
[ ] |
Hieronymus Bosch |
[ ] |
Giovanni Battista Piranesi |
[ ] |
Rembrandt van Rijn |
[ ] |
Moritz Escher |
|
|
1.
|
An easy enough, but hopefully thought-provoking question: which of the following mechanical aids were available to the builders of mediaeval abbeys and cathedrals? |
|
[ ] |
Diesel-engined heavy haulage trucks |
[ ] |
Gantry cranes to 25m and above |
[ ] |
CAD software |
[x] |
None of the above |
|
|
2.
|
In which part of a traditional monastery would the beautiful hand-written copies of books be made, before the days of movable-type printing (which came in as powerful 'new technology' around the same time as the Reformation, and indeed was instrumental in spreading its ideas)? |
|
[ ] |
The dormitories |
[x] |
The scriptorium |
[ ] |
The chapel |
[ ] |
The refectory |
|
|
3.
|
To evoke the setting of a monastery (or similar institution) onscreen, it seems almost obligatory to play the sound of monks chanting in Plainsong as they have done since time almost immemorial. Another more formal label for this simple style of music comes from the name of the Pope under whom it was (supposedly) codified: who was he? |
|
[ ] |
Saint Francis |
[ ] |
Saint Benedict |
[x] |
Pope Saint Gregory |
[ ] |
Saint Cecilia |
|
|
4.
|
Probably the most famous single example of Renaissance religious art is the painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican ... done by whom? |
|
[x] |
Michaelangelo |
[ ] |
Leonardo da Vinci |
[ ] |
Donatello |
[ ] |
Piranesi |
|
|
5.
|
To complement the visual arts, the Church has a magnificent repertoire of music to enrich worship and encourage religious contemplation. All the following composers wrote settings of the Mass, but we have intercalated one Protestant (Lutheran) composer among the Catholics. Who was this odd one out? |
|
[ ] |
Franz Joseph Haydn |
[ ] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |
[x] |
Johann Sebastian Bach |
[ ] |
Franz Schubert |
|
|
6.
|
How did the mediaeval craftsmen at Chartres Cathedral (in France) achieve the spectacular blue tint in their stained-glass which is known as 'bleu de Chartres'? |
|
[ ] |
They followed a recipe from the Roman archives that had previously been on the same site |
[ ] |
They relied on prayer and heavenly guidance |
[ ] |
They used vegetable dyes to replicate a blue tint associated with relics of the cloak of the Virgin Mary |
[x] |
Nobody knows: there is no other glass quite like it, no chemical explanation nor process to explain its composition, and one theory has it that airborne pollution within the past century may have contributed in some subtle way |
|
|
7.
|
Many practising Catholics regard it as part of their life's duty to take, and express, a clear moral stance on a range of issues such as public and private ethics. The Hays Code, which dominated Hollywood film-making during its formative years (1930-66 usually being quoted), was principally the outworking of concerns from which pressure group? |
|
[x] |
Father Daniel Lord SJ and the Catholic/National Legion of Decency |
[ ] |
The Catholic Daughters of America |
[ ] |
Joseph I Breen and the Production Code Administration |
[ ] |
The (Catholic) Crusaders for Clean Cinema |
|
|
8.
|
Europe's largest Gothic cathedral is at Ulm in Germany: built in 1890 (with the benefit of what we might call Victorian technology: steam-cranes, rail freighting of stone etc.) but by the Protestants. Its spire deliberately surpasses that of the world's tallest Catholic cathedral, also in Germany and built just 10 years earlier. In which city does this second cathedral stand? |
|
[ ] |
Berlin |
[x] |
Cologne |
[ ] |
Augsburg |
[ ] |
Munich |
|
|
9.
|
For non-Catholic British people, the 'nearest English-speaking Catholics' (apart from those living amongst them) are probably the Irish, some of whom have certainly had cultural influence through the world of entertainment. Which of the following popular series tells of the activities of a trio of disgraced priests and their housekeeper? |
|
[ ] |
All Gas and Gaiters |
[ ] |
Holy Smoke! |
[x] |
Father Ted |
[ ] |
Mrs Brown's Boys |
|
|
10.
|
What artist from the Low Countries, who died in 1516, remains deservedly famous for his extraordinary pictures such as the triptych altarpieces on 'The Last Judgment' and 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', that feature proto-surrealist and deformed people and animals? |
|
[x] |
Hieronymus Bosch |
[ ] |
Giovanni Battista Piranesi |
[ ] |
Rembrandt van Rijn |
[ ] |
Moritz Escher |
|
|