Lesson Y7-U05-L02

Y7-U05-L02 Medieval Towns and Trade Quiz: KS3 History, Unit 5

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

In partnership with Revision Ninja

Lesson Y7-U05-L02, Medieval Towns and Trade: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 History (National Curriculum), Unit 5: Year 7: Medieval Lives, written with Revision Ninja.

Host it live on the board and students join with a game code on their own devices, or revise alone with Free Play. The answers are revealed in the game.

Host this setFree Play

The 20 questions

  1. Which English towns grew into busy centres of trade in the Middle Ages?

    • London, York and Bristol
    • Hastings, Dover and Pevensey
    • Lincoln, Chester and Bath
    • Winchester, Canterbury and Durham

  2. What was the main difference between a village and a town?

    • Towns were ruled by the Church, while villages were ruled by the king
    • Towns were smaller, quieter places where people farmed the land
    • Towns were bigger and people there lived by trade and craft, not farming
    • Towns had no churches, while villages always had one

  3. What was the heart of any medieval town?

    • Its market
    • Its castle keep
    • Its fishing harbour
    • Its monastery

  4. What did a royal charter give a town?

    • An army of knights to defend the town walls
    • A monastery and a bishop to run the town's affairs
    • A permanent exemption from the king's taxes forever
    • The right to hold markets and to govern itself

  5. What was a medieval fair?

    • A weekly market selling only the food grown in the village
    • A court where the lord judged crimes committed in the manor
    • A yearly event where merchants travelled from far away to trade rare goods
    • A festival where peasants were paid their wages for the harvest

  6. Why did towns often grow up where it was easy to trade?

    • They were built only on land owned by the Church
    • They were built by rivers, on roads, near bridges or castles
    • They were built on high mountains far from every road
    • They were built in forests where merchants could hide

  7. What did a king gain from a charter for a town?

    • Money paid by the town to the king
    • Control of every craft workshop in the town
    • The right to appoint the town's priest and the bishop
    • A share of every harvest grown by the town's peasants

  8. What did a blacksmith make?

    • Bread and pies baked in a large oven in the town's bakehouse for the whole street
    • Horseshoes, nails, tools and weapons, all made of iron in a hot forge with an anvil
    • Leather shoes and boots made from animal skins in a small shop on a busy street
    • Woollen cloth woven on a wooden loom in a workshop by the town's weavers and their families

  9. What did a weaver make in medieval England?

    • Leather boots made in the town tanneries
    • Bread and pies sold in the market
    • Iron horseshoes for knights' warhorses
    • Woollen cloth, which was England's biggest export

  10. Why was the tanner's yard placed at the edge of a town?

    • Because tanners were paid to stay outside the walls of the town
    • Because tanners were forbidden to trade with the rest of the town
    • Because tanning leather was smelly and wasteful
    • Because tanners needed to be close to the Church for blessings

  11. Why did most homes have no oven in medieval towns?

    • Ovens were too expensive for the Church to allow in towns
    • Most people bought bread from a baker's bakehouse instead
    • Ovens were illegal in towns under a royal ban on fire
    • Ovens were only used by the king in his castle kitchens

  12. What was a craftsperson in a medieval town?

    • A monk who copied books in a monastery's scriptorium
    • A knight who fought for the king on horseback in battle
    • Someone who made one kind of thing by hand in a small workshop
    • A lord who collected rent from the peasants in the manor

  13. Which craft made shoes and boots from new leather?

    • Cordwainer
    • Weaver
    • Tanner
    • Baker

  14. Why did towns put their market in the centre of the map?

    • So that the market would be closest to the tanners' smelly yards
    • So that the market could be hidden from the Church and the king
    • So that the market could be defended by the town's stone wall alone
    • So that townspeople and visiting traders could reach it easily

  15. What was the purpose of the town wall and gate?

    • To defend the town and control who came in
    • To keep the peasants from farming the fields outside the town
    • To show the Pope's power over the king in each town square
    • To store grain and tithes for the lord during the winter

  16. Which craft used a hot forge with a furnace and an anvil?

    • Baker
    • Weaver
    • Blacksmith
    • Cordwainer

  17. Which craft made leather from animal skins?

    • Tanner
    • Cordwainer
    • Baker
    • Weaver

  18. Which craftsperson baked bread and pies in a large oven?

    • Tanner
    • Baker
    • Weaver
    • Blacksmith

  19. A merchant wants to sell rare goods to buyers from far away. Which event would suit him best?

    • A lord's feast in the manor house
    • A weekly market in the village square
    • A church service on a Sunday morning
    • A yearly fair

  20. Why did a town near a river and a bridge grow quickly?

    • Rivers were used only to supply water for the monastery
    • Rivers and bridges stopped traders from reaching the town
    • Boats and roads made it easy to bring goods in and out
    • Bridges were only built to keep the peasants out of the town

All KS3 History quizzes