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8th grade · Social Studies · Unit 7 of 13

Crusades & the Black Death

Conflict and disease in the postclassical world

What your child practices

Disputes between popes, emperors and churches, the causes and effects of the Crusades and the Reconquista, and how the Black Death spread along trade routes and changed society, the economy and the Church.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 8.8 · the Crusades and the Black Death, and how they changed later medieval Europe

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. In 1095, Pope Urban II called on Christians in Western Europe to begin the First Crusade to control Jerusalem.
  2. The Reconquista was the effort by Christian kingdoms to take back the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rulers; it ended in 1492.
  3. The Black Death, a plague spread along trade routes, killed about a third of Europe’s people in the 1300s.

Example: Who called for the First Crusade in 1095? The call came from the head of the Church. He spoke at Clermont in France. He was Pope Urban II. Answer: Pope Urban II

Crusades & the Black Death in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 7 of 13 in 8th grade Social Studies, after Medieval Europe and before Renaissance & Reformation.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    One lasting effect of the Crusades was that…

    • Europeans stopped using ships
    • Islam disappeared from Southwest Asia
    • the Silk Road closed forever
    • trade grew between Western Europe and the eastern Mediterranean

  2. Question 2

    In 1054, the Christian church split into…

    • Sunni and Shia
    • Catholics and Lutherans
    • the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church
    • Hindus and Buddhists

  3. Question 3

    In 1095, who called on Christians in Western Europe to begin the First Crusade?

    • Martin Luther
    • Emperor Justinian
    • Pope Urban II
    • Genghis Khan

  4. Question 4

    The Black Death was an outbreak of…

    • smallpox
    • influenza
    • bubonic plague
    • malaria

  5. Question 5

    In 1204, soldiers of the Fourth Crusade attacked and looted…

    • Timbuktu
    • Constantinople, a Christian city
    • Beijing
    • Mecca

  6. Question 6

    Which is a cause-and-effect pair from this period?

    • The plague killed many workers, so serfdom weakened in Western Europe
    • Saladin took Jerusalem, so the First Crusade was called
    • The printing press was invented, so the Black Death began
    • The Crusades began, so the Roman Empire was founded

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