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ASSIGNMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE (2014-2015)

M.H.I.-1
Ancient and Medieval Socities
Disclaimer/Special Note: These are just the sample of the Answers/Solutions to some of the Questions given in the
Assignments. These Sample Answers/Solutions are prepared by Private Teacher/Tutors/Auhtors for the help and Guidance
of the student to get an idea of how he/she can answer the Questions of the Assignments. We do not claim 100% Accuracy
of these sample Answers as these are based on the knowledge and cabability of Private Teacher/Tutor. Sample answers
may be seen as the Guide/Help Book for the reference to prepare the answers of the Question given in the assignment. As
these solutions and answers are prepared by the private teacher/tutor so the chances of error or mistake cannot be denied.
Any Omission or Error is highly regretted though every care has been taken while preparing these Sample Answers/
Solutions. Please consult your own Teacher/Tutor before you prepare a Particular Answer & for uptodate and exact
information, data and solution. Student should must read and refer the official study material provided by the university.
Section - A
Q. 1. How humans shifted to agriculture? What were its implications for social structures?
Ans. Agriculture and industry have traditionally been viewed as two separate sectors both in terms of their characteristics
and their role in economic growth. Agriculture has been considered the hallmark of the first stage of development, while
the degree of industrialization has been taken to be the most relevant indicator of a countrys progress along the development
path. Moreover, the proper strategy for growth has often been conceived as one of a more or less gradual shift from
agriculture to industry, with the onus on agriculture to finance the shift in the first stage.
This view, however, no longer appears to be appropriate. On the one hand, the role of agriculture in the process of
development has been reappraised and revalued from the point of view of its contribution to industrialization and its
importance for harmonious development and political and economic stability. On the other hand, agriculture itself has
become a form of industry, as technology, vertical integration, marketing and consumer preferences have evolved along
lines that closely follow the profile of comparable industrial sectors, often of notable complexity and richness of variety
and scope. This has meant that the deployment of resources in agriculture has become increasingly responsive to market
forces and increasingly integrated in the network of industrial interdependencies. Agricultural products are shaped by
technologies of growing complexity, and they incorporate the results of major research and development efforts as well as
increasingly sophisticated individual and collective preferences regarding nutrition, health and the environment. While
one can still distinguish the phase of production of raw materials from the processing and transformation phase, often this
distinction is blurred by the complexity of technology and the extent of vertical integration: the industrialization of
agriculture and development of agroprocessing industries is thus a joint process which is generating an entirely new type
of industrial sector.
Man has been known as the tool using animal. Man is the only animal capable of grasping tools and weapons. The
tools of other animals such as beaks and claws are built into the body. They cannot be separated by the possessors. Man
has the brain to fashion the tools. According to archaeologists successive stages of human culture are based on the
materials man employed or used to manufacture tools and weapons. The major tools made by and during different ages.
These ages are the Stone Age, the copper age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. These ages are not uniform in origin or
duration in different parts of the world. For example, when Egypt entered into the Bronze age, Europe was lingering in
the Stone age. The Stone Age has been divided into four unequal successive divisions of human culture. These are:
Eolithic, Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.
It is difficult to know precisely what impact the shift to agriculture had on the social structure of the communities that
made the transition. It is likely that social distinctions were heightened due to occupational differences, but that well-defined
social stratification, such as that which produces class identity, was nonexistent. Leadership remained largely communal,
though village alliances may have existed in some areas. Judging by research on peoples who still live at roughly Stone Age
levels, such as in New Guinea, property in Neolithic times was held in common by the community, or at least all households
in the community were given access to village lands and water.

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By virtue of their key roles as plant gatherers in prefarming cultures, it can be surmised that women played a critical part
in the domestication of plants. Nonetheless, there is evidence that their position declined in many agricultural communities.
They worked, and have continued to work the fields in most cultures. But men took over tasks involving heavy labor, for
example, land clearing, hoeing, and plowing. Men monopolized the new tools and weapons devised in the Neolithic era and
later times, and they controlled the vital irrigation systems that developed in most of the early centres of agriculture.
Q. 2. Give a detailed account of development of writing and methods of communications in Bronze Age societies.
Ans. The earliest form of writing, cuneiform, was developed by the Sumerians. The earliest cuneiform tablets discovered
by archaeologists were formed by pressing a reed stylus into a wet clay tablet and then letting it dry. The Epic of Gilgamesh
is the oldest written literature in the world, dating back to 2500 BC. The Egyptians developed their own hieroglyphic and
hieratic script not long after. The Linear B script of the Mycenaean Civilization developed independently from the two in
ancient Greece.
Writing emerged in many different cultures in the Bronze Age. Examples are the cuneiform writing of the Sumerians,
Egyptian hieroglyphs, Cretan hieroglyphs, Chinese logographs, and the Olmec script of Mesoamerica. The Chinese
script likely developed independently of the Middle Eastern scripts, around 1600 BC. The pre-Columbian Mesoamerican
writing systems (including Olmec and Maya scripts) are also generally believed to have had independent origins. It is
thought that the first true alphabetic writing was developed around 2000 BC for Semitic workers in the Sinai by giving
mostly Egyptian hieratic glyphs Semitic values. The Geez writing system of Ethiopia is considered Semitic. It is likely to
be of semi-independent origin, having roots in the Meroitic Sudanese ideogram system. Most other alphabets in the world
today either descended from this one innovation, many via the Phoenician alphabet, or were directly inspired by its
design. In Italy, about 500 years passed from the early Old Italic alphabet to Plautus (750 to 250 BC), and in the case of
the Germanic peoples, the corresponding time span is again similar, from the first Elder Futhark inscriptions to early texts
like the Abrogans (ca. 200 to 750 CE).
Egyptian Hieroglyphs is the earliest script, and the longest duration. The first hieroglyphs are in the form of short
label texts on stone and pottery objects. The script was originally employed for different kinds of texts, but as other
writings developed, hieroglyphic was increasingly confined to religious and monumental contexts. The signs of the
hieroglyphic script are largely pictorial in character. A few are indeterminate in form, but most characters are recognizable
pictures which may exhibit fine detail and colouring, although not always realistic. Many people think that it is a kind of
primitive picture-writing because of its artistic beauty. But it is a full writing system, capable of communicating the
same kind of information as our own alphabet although it does so in a different manner. The script is a mixed system: its
components do not all perform the same function; some of the signs convey meaning, others convey sound.
Beginning about 1000 B.C., Phoenician traders carried their alphabet from the Mediterranean ports, spreading the
seed for all the alphabets in the world. Three ancient scripts incorporate the traitsthe form and number of the characters,
the sounds they express, the sequences they follow, even the names of the characters themselvesthat mark them as
possible predecessors of the Phoenician alphabet, which emerged around 1100 B.C. By 1000 B.C. their alphabet had
come into full flower. This fertile Phoenician alphabet was a script of 22 characters, and it was a modern alphabet in all
respects but one: it had no vowels.
Q. 3. Give a comparative account of slavery in ancient Greek and Roman societies.
Ans. The English word slave comes from Old French sclave, from the Medieval Latin sclavus, from the Byzantine
Greek, which, in turn, comes from the ethnonym Slav, because in some early mediaeval wars many Slavs were captured
and enslaved. An older theory connected it to the Greek verb skyleo to strip a slain enemy.
The word used to call a slave has also been utilized to express general dependency to someone else. In many cases,
such as in ancient Persia, the situation and lives of such slaves could be better than those of other common citizens.
Slavery was a widespread practice in the ancient world but ancient Greece and Rome were the only true slave
societies. Slavery has continued to exist as an institution throughout human history and still exists, even today, in
numerous parts of the world. The institution of Gorean slavery most closely resembles the slavery practiced by the
ancient Romans though there are some important differences as well. This scroll will discuss the institutions of ancient
Greek and Roman slavery. It will compare and contrast them to Gorean slavery. By most definitions, Gor would not be
considered an actual slave society. It would only be considered a slave owning society. There have only been five
societies in history that most scholars agree were true slave societies. These include Athens, Roman Italy, Brazil, the
Caribbean and the United States. The latter three were those societies that existed during the sixteenth to nineteenth
centuries. Different scholars have their own ways of defining a slave society though there are three primary definitions.
First, a slave society is one in which slaves play a significant role in production and also form a significant portion of the

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population. Such a portion must usually be at least 20%. Second, is a more qualitative approach, ascertaining whether
slaves play a significant role within a societys economy and production. Third, relies upon the second definition as well
but expands the definition of slave to include other forms of dependent labour.
Ancient Greece practiced slavery and Athens was considered in many ways to be the model for other city-states.
During the 5th century B.C., Athens contained approximately 100,000 slaves and this constituted from 1/3 to of the
total population. Most Athenians, except for the very poor, owned at least one slave. These proportions were common
throughout ancient Greece except in Sparta. Sparta enslaved the entire population of the city-state of Messenia. These
slaves were called helots and they worked the land of the Spartans, performing all of the agricultural duties. The helots
outnumbered the Spartans possibly by as much as ten times. Thus, the outnumbered Spartans had to work hard to
suppress the helots from revolting.
Athens treated slaves more humanely than the Romans, and more humanely than Goreans, and even allowed their
slaves certain rights. Slaves could bring a civil suit to trial or even receive income. Slaves worked in many different
fields and could even run a merchant shop, most of the profits going to the owner. Goreans do not allow slaves to work in
numerous fields that are limited to Caste members. Slaves were not often beaten and they could not be killed by their
owner, except with the specific permission of the state. This varies greatly from Gorean society. Oddly enough, slaves
could be tortured to obtain their legal testimony, similar to Gor.
Slaves could be freed in Athens but they could not attain the status of a free person. They could only become a
freed person which came with lesser rights than a free person. A freed person bore the same status as a resident alien,
also known as a metic.
Section - B
Q. 6. What do you understand by Feudalism? Discuss its main features in Europe.
Ans. Feudalism is a grouping of legal and military customs, prevalent in medieval Europe, which flourished between
the 9th and 15th centuries, or any similar grouping of legal and military customs. Simply defined, it was a system for
structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
Feudalism is a grouping of legal and military customs, prevalent in medieval Europe, which flourished between the
9th and 15th centuries, or any similar grouping of legal and military customs. Simply defined, it was a system for structuring
society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour. Although derived from
the Latin word feodum or feudum (fief), then in use, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of
as a formal political system by the people living in the medieval period. In its classic definition, by Franois-Louis
Ganshof (1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving
around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs.
There is also a broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), that includes not only warrior nobility but all
three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clerics and the peasantry bonds of manorialism; this is sometimes referred to as
a feudal society. Since the publication of Elizabeth A. R. Browns The Tyranny of a Construct (1974) and Susan
Reynolds Fiefs and Vassals (1994), there has been ongoing inconclusive discussion among medieval historians as to
whether feudalism is a useful construct for understanding medieval society. Abels notes that, Western Civilization and
World Civilization textbooks now shy away from the term feudalism.
Feudalism, in its various forms, usually emerged as a result of the decentralization of an empire: especially in the
Japanese and Carolingian (European) empires which both lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to support
cavalry without the ability to allocate land to these mounted troops. Mounted soldiers began to secure a system of hereditary
rule over their allocated land and their power over the territory came to encompass the social, political, judicial, and
economic spheres. These acquired powers significantly diminished unitary power in these empires. Only when the
infrastructure existed to maintain unitary poweras with the European monarchiesdid Feudalism begin to yield to this
new power structure and eventually disappear.
The feudal system first appears in definite form in the Frankish lands in the 9th and 10th century. A long dispute
between scholars as to whether its institutional basis was Roman or Germanic remains somewhat inconclusive; it can
safely be said that feudalism emerged from the condition of society arising from the disintegration of Roman institutions
and the further disruption of Germanic inroads and settlements. Of course, the rise of feudalism in areas formerly dominated
by Roman institutions meant the breakdown of central government; but in regions untouched by Roman customs the
feudal system was a further step toward organization and centralization.
The system used and altered institutions then in existence. Important in an economic sense was the Roman villa, with
the peculiar form of rental, the precarium, a temporary grant of land that the grantor could revoke at any time. Increasingly,
the poor landholder transferred his land to a protector and received it back as a precarium, thus giving rise to the manorial
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of fiefs was also influenced by the Roman institution of patricinium and the German institution of mundium, by which the
powerful surrounded themselves with men who rendered them service, especially military service, in exchange for
protection. More and more, this service-and-protection contract came to involve the granting of a beneficium, the use of
land, which tended to become hereditary. Local royal officers and great landholders increased their power and forced the
king to grant them rights of private justice and immunity from royal interference. By these processes feudalism became
fixed in Frankish lands by the end of the 10th cent.
Q. 10. Write short notes on any two of the following in 250 words each:
(i) Protestantism
Ans. Protestantism is the form of Christian faith and practice which originated with the Protestant Reformation, a
movement against what the Protestants considered to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the major
divisions of Christendom, together with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Anglicanism is often considered to
be independent from Protestantism, although its origins lie in the English Reformation, which was concurrent with the
Protestant Reformation. The term refers to the letter of protestation from Lutheran princes in 1529 against an edict
condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical.
Protestantism is one of the major branches of Christianity today stemming from the movement known as the Protestant
Reformation. The Reformation began in Europe in the early 16th century by Christians who opposed many of the unbiblical
beliefs, practices, and abuses taking place within the Roman Catholic Church. In a broad sense, present-day Christianity
can be divided into three major traditions: Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. Protestants make up the second
largest group, with approximately 800 million Protestant Christians in the world today. Protestantism is the form of
Christian faith and practice that originated with the Protestant Reformation.
The Protestant movement has its origins in present-day Germany and is popularly considered to have begun in 1517
when Luther published The Ninety-Five Theses as a reaction against perceived abuses in the sale of indulgences, which
offered remission of sin to purchasers. Although there were unsuccessful attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church
long before Martin Luthernotably these of Peter Waldo, Arnold of Brescia, John Wycliffe and Jan Hus-it was Luther who
finally succeeded in sparking a wider movement. The various Protestant denominations share a rejection of the universal
authority of the Pope and generally deny the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, although they disagree
among themselves about the doctrine of Christs presence in the Eucharist. They generally emphasize the priesthood of
all believers, the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide) apart from good works, and a belief in the Bible alone
(rather than with Roman Catholic tradition) as the supreme authority in matters of faith and morals (sola scriptura).
(ii) Rise of Islam in Arab
Ans. A real Islamization only came about in the subsequent centuries. The year 622CE is used by Muslims as the start
of their chronology and it marks the migration (Hijra in Arabic) of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca
to Medina. Muhammad had been preaching in Mecca for about thirteen years but the Meccans were not responsive to his
teaching. In contrast, the inhabitants of Medina welcome him and the town became the centre of the Muslim faith and
community. Muhammad was not only a religious leader but also a temporal leader and he soon became involved in
warfare with the pagan rulers of Mecca. The Muslims won and abolished the Mecca idols while keeping the city as well
as the old shrine, Kaaba, as centre of Islamic worship. (It is an interesting coincidence that in the Christian world pagan
temples were converted to churches.) By the time of Muhammads death (632CE) the Muslims had conquered the rest of
the Arabian peninsula.
The history of Islam has several parallels with the history of Judaism where Moses was both a prophet and the leader
of his people, even though Moses did not live long enough to enter the promised land. Like Moses, Muhammad made no
claim to divinity and he had a wife. In contrast, Christians believe that Jesus was divine and he never held temporal
authority. The divinity of Jesus and the related dogma of Trinity has been at the root of the many schisms in Christianity.
Islam is also similar to Judaism in two other respects. It requires circumcision of the male followers and it imposes dietary
restrictions that include the prohibition of eating pork. While theological issues are beyond the scope of this writing we
cannot help but observed that Islam and Judaism are much closer to each other than either of them is to Christianity. There
are two questions about Islam that we need to answer. First, why it was successful in the Arabian peninsula and second,
why it spread so quickly after its founding.
About two-thirds of the Muslim world today is Sunni, and one-third Shiite. The Muslim religion was originally
supposed to be for the Arabs only. And the Arabs do basically control it. The Sharif (Governor) of Mecca, for instance, is
from the Hashemite family. Nevertheless, most Muslims in the world are not Arabs.

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