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50 free Ivanhoe trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Ivanhoe is the Walter Scott novel that turned the Middle Ages into a place people wanted to visit. Published anonymously in December 1819 as one of the Waverley novels, it left Scotland for 1190s England and gave the world the Disinherited Knight, the Black Sluggard, a Jewish physician on trial for witchcraft, and a cheerful outlaw called Locksley who has been Robin Hood ever since. These 50 questions follow the story from Rotherwood to the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the siege and burning of Torquilstone, the witchcraft trial at Templestowe and the final trial by combat. They also cover how the book was made: the stomach pains that forced Scott to dictate the first half, the Buckinghamshire village and old rhyme behind the title, the Saxon name he accidentally invented, the historians and antiquaries he drew on, and the anachronisms critics have picked at ever since. The easy tier asks who wrote it and who the Black Knight really is; the expert tier wants the Templar's horse, the real Grand Master of 1194 and the man who wrote the Sullivan opera's libretto. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a short explanation. Play it alone or print it for a book-club night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote the 1819 historical romance Ivanhoe?
Walter Scott
It became by far the best-known of his nearly thirty Waverley novels.
Q 02In which year was Ivanhoe first released?
1819
All first editions carry the date 1820, but the book went on sale in Edinburgh on 20 December 1819.
Q 03Ivanhoe belongs to which series of Scott novels?
Waverley
The series of nearly thirty books is considered seminal to the genre of historical fiction.
Q 04In which decade is Ivanhoe set?
1190s
It broke from Scott's habit of setting stories in 16th- and 17th-century Scotland.
Q 05What is the first name of the novel's hero, the knight of Ivanhoe?
Wilfred
He is one of the last Anglo-Saxon nobles in an England ruled by Normans.
Q 06Who is Ivanhoe's father?
Cedric
He disinherits his son for serving a Norman king and for loving his ward.
Q 07Whom does Ivanhoe's father want his ward to marry?
Athelstane
The match was meant to unite two Saxon bloodlines and revive a claim to the English crown.
Q 08The Saxon pretender in the novel claims descent from which king?
Harold Godwinson
That descent is why his kinsman sees him as a pretender to the English crown.
Q 09From which Crusade is Ivanhoe returning?
The Third
He is said to have played a notable role in the Siege of Acre.
Q 10Ivanhoe first appears in disguise as what?
A palmer
A palmer was a pilgrim; he guides the Norman party to his father's hall and later helps the moneylender escape.
Q 11Which Jewish moneylender supplies Ivanhoe's armour and horse for the tournament?
Isaac of York
He guesses that the palmer is secretly a knight and offers the gear as repayment for his rescue.
Q 12Where is the great tournament held?
Ashby-de-la-Zouch
The real castle there is now a ruin in the care of English Heritage.
Q 13Ivanhoe jousts under which name, taken to mean "Disinherited"?
Desdichado
The book describes it as Spanish; the masked knight refuses to unmask even when the prince asks.
Q 21The captured travellers are taken to which castle?
Torquilstone
It is an ancient Saxon fortress now held by a Norman lord.
Q 22Who holds the castle where the Saxon party is imprisoned?
Front-de-Bœuf
He tries to wring a hefty ransom from the moneylender and dies in the fire during the assault.
Q 23Which Saxon crone, also called Urfried, sets the castle ablaze?
Ulrica
She is the daughter of the castle's original Saxon lord and burns it as revenge for her father's death.
Q 24Who slips into the besieged castle disguised as a priest and swaps places with his master?
Q 14Who presides over the tournament?
Prince John
His dinner for the local Saxons afterwards ends in insults.
Q 15Whom does the Disinherited Knight name Queen of the Tournament?
Rowena
As champion of the day he may choose the queen, and he gives the honour to the woman he loves.
Q 16How does the nickname "Le Noir Faineant" translate?
The Black Sluggard
He rescues the hard-pressed Disinherited Knight in the melee and then slips away.
Q 17Who is the Black Knight finally revealed to be?
King Richard
He unmasks after the castle falls, accepting the surrender of de Bracy and then releasing him.
Q 18Which skilled physician tends Ivanhoe's tournament wounds?
Rebecca
She persuades her father to take the wounded knight home to York with them.
Q 19Which famous Robin Hood archery feat appears for the first time in Ivanhoe?
Splitting a rival's arrow
He also splits a willow reed with an arrow at the end of the tournament.
Q 20Under what name does Robin Hood appear in the novel?
Locksley
Scott took the name from an anonymous 1600 manuscript, and it has stuck to the outlaw ever since.
Wamba
The jester's trick lets his master escape with details of the garrison and its layout.
Q 25Gurth, the Saxon servant who helps the moneylender escape, has which job?
Swineherd
In the opening chapter he and the jester discuss life under Norman rule.
Q 26Why was the Saxon noble presumed dead found alive at his own wake?
Monks wanted the funeral money
Reviewers hated the resurrection; Francis Jeffrey kindly called it introduced out of the very wantonness of merriment.
Q 27Which Templar Grand Master puts the Jewish physician on trial for witchcraft?
Lucas de Beaumanoir
He is outraged by the Templar knight's infatuation and orders that same knight to fight as the order's champion.
Q 28How does the Templar villain die in the climactic trial by combat?
He collapses, barely touched
Scott writes that he dies a victim of his own contending passions.
Q 29Where do the Jewish physician and her father plan to settle after leaving England?
Granada
Critics note the anachronism: the Emirate of Granada and its ruler Boabdil came centuries later.
Q 30Who was the real Grand Master of the Templars in 1194, rather than Scott's invention?
Gilbert Horal
The witchcraft trial itself is anachronistic: a non-Christian woman would not have faced the charge in 1194.