Oxford Cambridge and RSA June 2017 A2 GCE HISTORY A F965/01 Historical Interpretations and Investigations *5187940403* *F96501* INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES • You must submit one piece of work, up to 2000 words long, for the Interpretations task. Interpretations tasks are set by OCR. • You must also submit one piece of work, up to 2000 words long, for the Investigation element. This may either be an approved OCR Investigation title or an adapted generic OCR question. • Your answers must be submitted in the format specified in the History Coursework Guidance document. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES • Each question carries 40 marks. The total number of marks available for the unit is 80. • You are reminded that before submitting your final answers you must refer to the relevant table of prohibited combinations of investigation and interpretation questions. • For the interpretation questions, answers should be based on the arguments presented by these historians, any evidence they present and your own knowledge of the topic. © OCR 2017 OCR is an exempt Charity DC (AL) 136205 Turn over 2 Oxford Cambridge and RSA Contents Topic Page 1. The Age of Justinian 3 2. The Reign of Charlemagne 768-814 10 3. Alfred the Great 871-899 17 4. The Reign of King John 1199-1215 24 5. The Wars of the Roses 1450-85 31 6. Philip II of Spain 1556-98 38 7. Elizabeth I 1558-1603 45 8. Oliver Cromwell 1599-1658 52 9. Peter the Great 1689-1725 59 10. Louis XIV 1661-1715 67 11. British India 1784-1878 74 12. Napoleon I 1795-1815 81 13. Gladstone and Disraeli 1865-86 88 14. Bismarck and German Unification 1815-71 95 15. Russian Revolutions 1894-1924 102 16. America between the Wars 1918-41 109 17. The Causes of World War II 1918-41 116 18. The Cold War 1941-56 123 19. The War in Vietnam 1955-75 130 20. The Development of Rights for Women in Great Britain 1867-1918 138 21. Nazi Germany 1933-45 145 22. Britain under Margaret Thatcher 1979-90 152 © OCR 2017 F965/01 Jun17 3 1. The Age of Justinian 1a. Justinian’s Administration Using these four passages and your own knowledge, assess the view that Justinian was successful domestically because he chose excellent administrators. [40 marks] Interpretation A: This historian believes that Justinian himself was responsible for initiating policies. In his own law-making Justinian was largely concerned with administrative reform. In 535-6 he took this burning question in hand. General edicts abolished the sale of offices and commanded vigilant government with a rigid care of the revenue. In special edicts Justinian endeavoured to simplify provincial government, no longer sticking closely to the elaborate hierarchy of separate civil and military authorities devised by Diocletian. Under Theodora’s influence prostitutes were protected by the law from white slave-traders. There was a desire for public utility as well as for splendour and art in Justinian’s passion for building. There was wholesale new building and new cities were founded, like Justinian’s birthplace. Above them all Constantinople was favoured after the destruction caused by the Nika riot. To the public usefulness of these works may be added the employment they gave to an industrious population. Trade, too, was favoured with paternal care. Justinian’s diplomacy aimed at opening routes to the Far East which circumvented Persian control of products. The best help to industry was given by two patriotic missionaries who smuggled some silk worm eggs in hollow wands from China and so the Empire could produce its own silk which became a government monopoly. From: C. W. Previté-Orton, The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, published in 1960. Interpretation B: This historian argues that Justinian chose competent, but not necessarily popular, officials. For all Justinian’s projects, the necessary funds were raised by a general streamlining of the system of tax collection. These measures led to popular discontent which was increased by John of Cappadocia, the official appointed by the Emperor to put them into effect. John was rough and uncouth, but Justinian recognised a superb administrator when he saw one and in 531 promoted him to Praetorian Prefect. In this capacity he instituted stringent economies to the provisioning of the army, launched a determined campaign against corruption, introduced at least 26 new taxes and did much to centralise the government. Most of these reforms were long overdue and John certainly left the financial machinery of the state in much better shape than he found it. Unfortunately he combined with his industry and efficiency, a degree of moral depravity that aroused universal contempt. By 532 he was the most hated man in the Empire. One other official ran him close and that was the jurist Tribonian. He was a man of immense erudition and breadth of learning and this quality appealed to Justinian, who was a considerable scholar himself. In Tribonian he found the one man who could bring to fruition his planned undertaking of a complete recodification of the Roman law. From: John Julius Norwich, Byzantium; The Early Centuries, published in 1988. © OCR 2017 F965/01 Jun17 Turn over 4 Interpretation C: This historian considers that there was a change in Justinian’s administration towards the end of his reign. In Justinian’s later years his regime became almost a gerontocracy. There was a noticeable lack of new blood. Incompetence or disfavour might necessitate retirement but old age did not. Liberius, the prefect of Egypt, was sent by Justinian to investigate charges against his predecessor and had him put to death, despite his claim that he had been carrying out Justinian’s orders. Justinian sent a replacement for Liberius but, at the same time instructed Liberius not to desert his post. Even when Liberius was past 80, Justinian considered him for a post in Italy as he was too elderly to be ambitious. He died aged 89. Narses who worked his way up the ranks by sheer ability and attracted the attention of Theodora, became the Emperor’s confidant. He died, immensely wealthy, at the age of 95 under Justinian’s successor. Justinian maintained faith in his officials. Corruption was a way of life in the bureaucracy but he was lenient and in return the officials kept the administrative momentum under way. In its last years, Justinian’s government showed all the defects of an ageing regime, but, one way or another, it kept the dark clouds at bay until after his death. From: J. A. S. Evans,The Age of Justinian: The Circumstances of Imperial Power, published in 1996. Interpretation D: This historian considers Justinian’s choice of officials. The Empress Theodora cheerfully accepted many of the public appearances required of the sovereign, appearances which her introverted husband was happy to forego. The result was to reinforce the emperor’s isolation in his capital, which made him extraordinarily dependent upon the men he selected to act in his name. Justinian was born with an instinct for selecting men of ability to do his bidding, notably men of intelligence and determination. Skill in government mattered far more than virtue; a good family was the sort that gave its sons native ability rather than noble ancestors. Above all, the emperor’s men possessed ambition enough to be successful, but enough loyalty to value their emperor’s success above their own. Justinian learned early that he could more easily bind a wealthy man to his will than a poor one, provided that he was the source of that wealth. He may not have excited the adoration of his lieutenants, but he was also never betrayed by any of them. This is not to say that they never betrayed one another. While Justinian may not have encouraged loathing among his closest advisers, he was clearly unbothered by it. History records no greater hatred than that exhibited by the inner circle of Justinian’s court; by Theodora for her husband’s de facto Prime Minister, John the Cappadocian, and by the Cappadocian for Justinian’s greatest general, Belisarius. From: William Rosen, Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe, published in 2006. © OCR 2017 F965/01 Jun17 5 1b. Justinian’s Vision Using these four passages and your own knowledge, assess the view that Justinian’s imperial policies were driven by vision rather than circumstances. [40 marks] Interpretation A: This historian evaluates Justinian’s reputation. Few Emperors established their threatened position with such inspired opportunism as Justinian in the 530s, but, in doing so, he cast his own shadow over the rest of his reign. Compared with the euphoria of the 530s, the remaining twenty-five years of his reign seem an anti-climax. For modern scholars Justinian has been trapped in his own image. His astute manipulation of the resources of propaganda has been taken at face value. Hence he has gained the reputation of being a romantic idealist, haunted by the mirage of a renewal of the Roman Empire; and the difficulties of the succeeding years have usually been presented as the collapse of a grandiose policy. Justinian is, in fact, a more complex figure. He sought glory while the going was good, because he sorely needed it to maintain his position. He had the genius to understand the vast resources available to an east Roman emperor of the early sixth century, with its past history, a full treasury and an unrivalled supply of talent in every field. But the history of his reign was written by the alienated and the embittered. In their view Justinian had betrayed the traditionalist governing class of the empire and outflanked them in a policy of flamboyant glory.