Bits of Early German History Trivia Quiz

Answer: Celtic

La Tene culture spread over much of western Europe, covering an area from the British Isles to Spain, Italy, and Austria. In German areas it was found in Switzerland and southern Germany just north of the Alps.

Answer: Hanseatic League

The Hansa was the term for the league of merchant guilds and their cities. We still see the term in "Lufthansa," the name of the well-known German airline and the largest airline in Europe.

The Delian League was a group of polises in ancient Greece. The Iroquois League was a confederacy of five Iroquoian-speaking tribes in what is now New York state in the Eighteenth Century. The Balkan League was an alliance against the Ottoman Empire formed by Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro in 1912.

Answer: Minnesänger

By the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries, the Minnesänger, or minnesinger in English, had developed into a guild of singers known as the Meistersänger, or master-singers, who were immortalized by the great German composer Richard Wagner through his opera, "Die Meistersänger von Nürnberg." Chief among the master singers was Wolfram von Eschenbach, who was a knight and poet, and author of the epic poem, "Parzival."

Answer: Albrecht Dürer

Dürer was a painter and etcher. Frauenlob was a Meistersinger who established the first meistersinger school in Mainz early in the fourteenth century. Gutenberg was a printer and is credited with the first printing press with movable type, on which he printed the "Gutenberg Bible" in 1455, also in Mainz. Hildegard von Bingen was a Benedictine abbess. Considered to be the founder of natural history in Germany, she was a composer, philosopher, and Christian mystic.

She died in 1179.

Answer: Franks

Of the choices, only Franks and Angles were Germanic. The Franks settled in what is now France, and the Angles in Britain. There was a Germanic tribe called the Jutes, but Utes were a Native American tribe. The Huns were not Germanic. Although originally a German king, Charlemagne is considered the founder of both France and Germany in many ways. His capital was at Aachen.

Answer: The election the Holy Roman Emperor

These men and their successors thus became known as the Seven Electors. The Golden Bull was announced by Emperor Charles IV. Charles was named Wenceslas at birth and was the first King of Bohemia to become Holy Roman Emperor. He ruled as emperor from 1355 to 1378.

This first group remained intact until 1623, when the first of several changes were made. The Holy Roman Empire was abolished in the summer of 1806.

Answer: the Rhine

The leader of the Roman legions that day was Publius Quinctilius Varus. He took his own life as a result of the battle. Coincidentally, the date, 9/9/9, when pronunced in English as nine, nine, nine, sounds the same in German as nein, nein, nein, or three noes, or one for each legion, as though Hermann were saying, "No, no, no, Roman dudes, you shall not have our land!"

The Jura, by the way, or Swabian Jura, is a small mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. There is also a much larger and better-known Jura range that lies between France and Switzerland, but since this is a German quiz, we'll use the "schwäbische Alb," as they call their German Jura, as an incorrect response.

Answer: the (Second) Defenestration of Prague

There were three defenestrations in Prague, but the one in 1618 was the best known. Two Catholic counts and their secretary were thrown out of a third-floor window, but were not killed. Catholic witnesses said they were held up by angels enough to save them, while Protestant spokesmen later claimed they landed in a dung pile, which saved them. Either way, the event triggered the Bohemian Revolt.

Answer: Leipzig

Another indication of the size of the battle was the number of cannon: 700 at Napoleon's disposal and the Allies up to 1500.

There can be no doubt that the Battle of Leipzig had to contribute to Napoleon's fall at Waterloo. The French suffered 38,000 casualties, dead and wounded, and 20,000 captured. After the first two days, Allied strength actually grew from 380,000 to 430,000 with the addition of 50,000 defecting Saxon & Württemberg troops.

Answer: Augsburg

The Peace of Augsburg established the principle of "cuius regio, eius religio," meaning "whose realm, his religion," which meant that the religion of the prince would be the religion of all of the inhabitants of his state, with some exceptions. One problem which this "Augsburg Settlement" did not resolve lay in the fact that only Lutheran Protestantism was recognized (along with Catholicism, of course), thus leaving Reformed churches, like the Calvinists and Anabaptists, without protection.

The principle was not confined to the Holy Roman Empire. Arguably, it was taken even further in England.