Unquiet Women Quiz: 20 Questions Spanning Fifteen Centuries of Hidden History
About This Quiz
The following 20 questions test your understanding of Max Adams's Unquiet Women: From the Dusk of the Roman Empire to the Dawn of the Enlightenment. Spanning the book's full range, the quiz mixes multiple-choice and short-answer formats across four categories: plot and sequence (8 questions), character motivation (5), themes and symbols (4), and synthesis (3). A complete answer key follows the questions, with brief explanations for every correct response. All distractors in multiple-choice questions are plausible but unambiguously wrong based on the book's evidence.
Quiz Questions
Plot and Sequence (Questions 1–8)
Question 1 (Multiple Choice) According to the book, what was Egeria's first major undertaking when she reached the Holy Land in the 380s? A) She documented the Easter liturgy at the Anastasis B) She climbed Mount Sinai guided by local monks C) She sailed to Cyprus to visit a shrine D) She interviewed the garrison commander at a Roman fort
Question 2 (Multiple Choice) Which of the following correctly orders Wu Zhao's ascent to power? A) Empress consort, regent after Gaozong's stroke, concubine to Taizong, emperor in 690 B) Concubine to Taizong, monastic exile, Gaozong's lover, empress consort, regent, emperor C) Gaozong's lover, concubine to Taizong, emperor, regent, monastic exile D) Regent, empress consort, monastic exile, emperor, concubine to Taizong
Question 3 (Short Answer) What specific law was promulgated at the Synod of Birr in 697 AD, and what did it grant to women?
Question 4 (Short Answer) Summarize the chain of events that led to the murder of Hypatia of Alexandria in 415.
Question 5 (Multiple Choice) What military achievement did Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, NOT accomplish after her husband's death in 911? A) Refortifying Chester and building a chain of sixteen burhs B) Capturing Derby and Leicester from the Danelaw C) Receiving York's submission D) Defeating a Norman invasion fleet on the south coast
Question 6 (Short Answer) After returning from Vinland, how did Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir spend the remainder of her life?
Question 7 (Short Answer) What distinctive grave goods accompanied the young woman in the seventh-century Trumpington bed burial?
Question 8 (Multiple Choice) Before embarking on her Holy Land pilgrimage, Margery Kempe attempted two commercial ventures. What were they? A) Baking and innkeeping B) Brewing and milling C) Weaving and dairy farming D) Tailoring and midwifery
Character Motivation (Questions 9–13)
Question 9 (Short Answer) Why did Héloïse fiercely oppose marrying Peter Abélard despite their relationship and her pregnancy?
Question 10 (Multiple Choice) According to a ninth-century tradition, what experience motivated Adamnán to secure the Cáin Adomnáin protecting women? A) A vision of the Virgin Mary during a pilgrimage to Rome B) His mother Rónnat showing him a battlefield strewn with slain female warriors C) A plea from an abbess whose nuns had been abducted in a raid D) The death of his sister in childbirth
Question 11 (Short Answer) Why did Christina of Markyate resist marriage to Beorhtred, and what specific action did she take in defiance?
Question 12 (Multiple Choice) What was Anne Bradstreet's underlying purpose in writing her poem praising Queen Elizabeth I? A) To secure royal patronage from the Stuart court B) To deliver a coded critique of Charles I by contrasting his failings with Elizabeth's virtues C) To advocate for women's suffrage in the Massachusetts Bay Colony D) To commemorate Elizabeth's death anniversary for a Puritan congregation
Question 13 (Short Answer) Under what personal circumstances did Dhuoda write her moral handbook for her son William?
Themes and Symbols (Questions 14–17)
Question 14 (Multiple Choice) In Njál's Saga, what does the valkyries' grisly loom—with men's heads as loom-weights and intestines as thread—represent? A) The domestic drudgery of Norse women during wartime B) A symbolic act of weaving that both prophesies and memorializes a battle C) A literal curse cast by witches to destroy a rival clan's crops D) A punishment meted out to women who refused to marry
Question 15 (Short Answer) How does the symbol of the hearth or eternal flame connect the goddess Hestia, St. Brigit of Kildare, and the Roman Vesta in the book's thematic argument?
Question 16 (Multiple Choice) What overarching concept ties together the book's treatment of Hestia, the Virgin Mary in Byzantium, and St. Brigit's flame? A) The replacement of pagan goddesses by male Christian saints B) The enduring presence of feminine guardianship of community and domestic stability, persisting despite religious change C) The complete erasure of female spiritual authority after the fourth century D) The incompatibility of motherhood with civic leadership
Question 17 (Short Answer) Explain what Max Adams means by the word "unquiet" in the book's title. How does it function as the central thematic idea?
Synthesis (Questions 18–20)
Question 18 (Short Answer) Compare what the wills of Wynflæd (tenth-century Anglo-Saxon England) and Ana de la Calle (eighteenth-century colonial Peru) reveal about female legal and economic agency across centuries. Identify at least two specific parallels.
Question 19 (Multiple Choice) How does Max Adams explicitly connect the fourth-century pilgrim Egeria with the seventeenth-century traveller Celia Fiennes? A) Both women wrote their travel accounts in Latin B) Both women journeyed to Jerusalem and described the Church of the Holy Sepulchre C) Adams frames Fiennes as a modern, secular counterpart driven by the same insatiable curiosity and practical bravery D) Both women were nuns who travelled under their abbess's orders
Question 20 (Short Answer) What common challenge did Wu Zhao, Æthelflæd, and Njinga of Ndongo face as female rulers, and what specific strategy or action did each employ to legitimize her authority?
Answer Key
Plot and Sequence (Questions 1–8)
Answer 1: B Egeria's journey began with a demanding climb of Mount Sinai, guided by local monks. She documented the Anastasis liturgy only after returning to Jerusalem.
Answer 2: B Wu Zhao entered the Tang court as concubine to Emperor Taizong. After his death she endured monastic exile, returned as Gaozong's lover, eliminated rivals, became empress consort, co-governed after his stroke, and declared herself emperor in 690. Option B represents this sequence correctly.
Answer 3 The Synod of Birr promulgated the Lex Innocentium or Cáin Adomnáin. It granted non-combatant status to clerics, boys, and all women—an early medieval attempt to protect women from violence and warfare. Penalties included amputation for murder and heavy fines for sexual assault.
Answer 4 A sectarian conflict escalated in Alexandria between Bishop Cyril and the governor Orestes. After the expulsion of Jews and a violent attack on Orestes by monks, rumors spread that Hypatia was preventing political reconciliation. In 415, a Christian mob led by a lector named Peter dragged her into a church, murdered her with roof tiles, and burned her body.
Answer 5: D Æthelflæd refortified Chester, built a chain of sixteen burhs, captured Derby and Leicester, and received York's submission. She never fought a Norman invasion fleet—the Normans did not arrive in England until more than a century after her death in 918.
Answer 6 After returning from Vinland, Gudrid settled at Glaumbaer in Iceland, gained her mother-in-law's approval, and raised two sons who founded bishop-holding dynasties. Following her husband Thorfinn Karlsefni's death, she made a pilgrimage (likely to Rome), then became a nun in her son's church.
Answer 7 The young woman was buried on a wooden bed with a gold-and-garnet pectoral cross, jewelled pins, and a chatelaine. These grave goods identify her as an elite Christian woman, possibly holding authority within a religious community.
Answer 8: B Margery Kempe attempted brewing and milling, both of which failed. She interpreted these commercial disasters as divine signs steering her toward a life of intense piety.
Character Motivation (Questions 9–13)
Answer 9 Héloïse believed marriage would ruin Abélard's scholarly reputation and trap her in a mercenary bond. She argued that being called his whore was sweeter than being called his wife, and prized intellectual and emotional freedom over domestic constraint.
Answer 10: B A ninth-century tradition holds that Adamnán's mother Rónnat showed him a battlefield where slain female warriors lay, including a beheaded mother with a living infant at her breast. This horrified him into undertaking years of penance and ultimately securing the law.
Answer 11 Christina resisted marriage because she had taken a secret vow of chastity. Her refusal led to years of familial abuse, imprisonment, and attempted coercion by her parents and Bishop Ranulf Flambard. She eventually escaped with the help of the hermit Roger and lived in hiding at Markyate.
Answer 12: B Bradstreet used conventional praise of Elizabeth I as a vehicle for coded political critique. By extolling Elizabeth's virtues, she implicitly highlighted the failings of Charles I and asserted a Puritan woman's right to comment on governance.
Answer 13 Dhuoda wrote the handbook while separated from both her sons, living in enforced solitude at Uzès as her husband Bernard's feudal deputy. Her younger son was taken away unnamed before baptism, and she feared dying without repaying the debts she had incurred to sustain her husband's affairs.
Themes and Symbols (Questions 14–17)
Answer 14: B The valkyries' loom is a symbolic act of weaving that functions as both prophecy and battle memorial. The women manipulate the threads as puppeteers, determining who lives and dies, directly anticipating the embroidered martial narrative of the Bayeux Tapestry.
Answer 15 All three figures guard a sacred fire symbolizing the stability and continuity of the community. Hestia receives first and last offerings as guardian of the hearth in Greek tradition; Vesta performs the same role in Rome; and St. Brigit's eternal flame at Kildare, tended by nineteen sisters, preserves this ancient feminine guardianship into the Christian era. The book argues that such symbols persisted despite religious change.
Answer 16: B Adams traces a throughline of feminine guardianship of community, fire, and domestic stability. Rather than being fully displaced by the Virgin Mary or male clergy, these female-centered symbols endured through syncretism, showing that women's spiritual authority was never entirely erased.
Answer 17 "Unquiet" describes women who defied quiet compliance—those who asserted intellectual, spiritual, or political agency despite patriarchal systems that expected them to remain silent and invisible. The book uses this term to characterize figures from Egeria to Mary Astell, arguing that women across fifteen centuries were active agents, not passive decorations, even when official chroniclers tried to erase them.
Synthesis (Questions 18–20)
Answer 18 Both wills reveal that widows in very different times and places could own and bequeath property independently. Wynflæd's tenth-century Anglo-Saxon will shows her controlling extensive landholdings, freeing enslaved workers, and gifting valuable textiles and drinking horns. Ana de la Calle's 1719 testament from colonial Peru likewise disposes of a house, household goods, and enslaved people, passing status through her daughter. In both cases, the legal document provides rare direct evidence of female economic agency that formal chronicles typically omit. Both women also used their wills to direct assets to other women—daughters or granddaughters—rather than to male heirs.
Answer 19: C Adams frames Celia Fiennes as a modern counterpart to Egeria. Both were unquiet women driven by insatiable curiosity and practical bravery, but Fiennes travelled for secular pleasure and health through pre-industrial England rather than for religious pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Answer 20 All three ruled in societies with deep patriarchal expectations and had to overcome skepticism about female authority. Wu Zhao sponsored Buddhism, gathered scholars (the North Gate group), and performed the traditionally male Feng and Shan rites to underpin her legitimacy. Æthelflæd led military campaigns herself, built fortifications, and retrieved sacred relics to cement her status as Lady of the Mercians. Njinga adopted masculine roles, led armies, formed strategic alliances with the Jaga warriors, and deployed sophisticated diplomacy in surviving Portuguese letters. Each woman crafted a strategy that worked within—or cleverly manipulated—her culture's existing symbols of power.