Thanks!!

Thanks a lot for helping me to write the guide for our school trip. It was interesting and unusual to work with the Britannica at the school library, wasn't it? It looked like another trip, this time to the past.

The USA

UNITED STATED

Hello, I’m going to talk to you about my country, The United States of America (also called the USA). It’s a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district.

American people, like me, speak English; it’s the official language here.

The population in The U.S.A. is about 313,025,000 inhabitants.

My country is situated mostly in central North America, where its states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering.

The capital city in my country is Washington, but there are some other very important cities : New York, Los Angeles.

The currency in my country is United Stated dollar.

Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American foods. Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants.

My country, is one of the most important countries in the world, a lot of important people live there: singers like Elvis Presley, Madonna, and Michael Jackson; actors like Will Smith, Matt Damon or Morgan Freeman.The American presidents are very popular too, for example George Bush or Barack Obama.’m really proud about my country, it is one of the most important countries in the world.

Pilgrimages

In the middle Ages the Church encouraged people to make pilgrimages to special divine places called shrines. It was believed that if you prayed at these shrines you might be forgiven for your sins and has more chance of going to heaven. Others went to shrines hoping to be cured from an illness they were suffering from.

The most popular shrine in England was the tomb of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. When Becket was murdered local people managed to obtain pieces of cloth soaked in his blood. Rumours soon spread that, when touched by this cloth, people were cured of blindness/ epilepsy and leprosy. It was not long before the monks at Canterbury Cathedral were selling small glass bottles of Becket's blood to visiting pilgrims.

The Way of St. James has existed for over a thousand years. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during medieval times, together with Rome and Jerusalem, and a pilgrimage route on which a plenary indulgence could be earned; other major pilgrimage routes include the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

The most popular shrine in England was the tomb of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. When Becket was murdered local people managed to obtain pieces of cloth soaked in his blood. Rumours soon spread that, when touched by this cloth, people were cured of blindness/ epilepsy and leprosy. It was not long before the monks at Canterbury Cathedral were selling small glass bottles of Becket's blood to visiting pilgrims.

The Way of St. James has existed for over a thousand years. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during medieval times, together with Rome and Jerusalem, and a pilgrimage route on which a plenary indulgence could be earned;^[1] other major pilgrimage routes include the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

The Cook by Irene

The Cook who knew how to cook delicious meals with herbs ans spices. Then there was a brown-faced Sea-Captain who looked like a pirate. He had fought battles at sea and made his prisoners walk the plank.

PREFACE TO THE STORY OF COOK

As he spoke the manager, the cook of London burst into laughter as if he were being tickled on the back.
- Ha! Ha! For the Passion of Christ! The arguments about the accommodation you have brought painful consequences to this miller. Solomon said it best: "Watch who covers your house." It is dangerous for a stranger in a strange house overnight. Who gives shelter should be aware of these dangers. May the Lord give me miseries and penalties if, as my name is Hodge of Ware, I heard one story with more shorn miller. The night tricks worked perfectly. But God does not allow us standing here. If you want to hear my story, I will relate what happened in my city, the best way possible.
-You have permission, Roger. Try to be good. You have lowered the sauce of many stews. Have you sold many Jacks of Dover doubly reheated and cooled. Many pilgrims have cursed you greatly because they suffered the effects of your parsley when they tested your old stuffed geese stubble. Many flies loose in your kitchen. Start your story, my dear Roger. I beg you not be angry if I tease you. Joke, you can say many truths.
'Upon my life you're right, Roger said. The Flemings say, "A joke seriously is a bad joke." Therefore, Harry Bailey, do not give vent to your anger before we part if my story is about a host. However, I have no intention of telling yet. I'll pay before we say goodbye.
Then began to laugh and joke and was immediately afterwards that will listen.

The Plowman

My character is a plowman. He plows the fields with manure.The plowman uses manure from animals to plow the fields to fertilize the soil. The plowman is a peasant, which is a low social standing. There is no education needed to be a plowman, and the majority of plowmen at this time cannot read or write. This indicates that he is poor but earns enough to pay his taxes and therefore is not living in complete debt and poverty.

This character is a very chivalrous workman, just as the knight was. By looking closely at this character's, it can be inferred that he is the type of individual who would gladly work for a person without pay. He pays all his Church taxes on time, and is a devoted churchgoer. This citizen treats his neighbour as he would want to be treated, making him well-liked. He is a decent human being, and portrays a hard-working, devoted citizen, giving him much in common with the chivalrous knight. The Plowman is stressed as the example of an ideal middle class citizen.

"A trewe swinker and a good was he,

Living in pees and parfit charite;"

The Plowman wore a tabard smock and rode a Mare. The plowman had many job skills such as: thrashing corn, digging ditches, scooping manure, or crushing and plowing soil.The Plowman's brother is the Parson. He does not tell a tale.

ST THOMAS BECKET

St Thomas Becket

St Thomas, or Thomas à Becket, served as chancellor of England from 1155 to 1162, during which time he won the trust of King Henry II. In 1162, the king appointed him Archbishop of Canterbury. After he refused to give the royal court powers over the church, Henry sent him into exile. He returned in 1170 and was murdered in the cathedral by Henry's knights. Roman Catholics venerate him as a saint.
He was born in 1118 in Cheapside, London, Eng and he died on Dec. 29, 1170, Canterbury, Kent; he also was canonized 1173; feast day December 29) Archbishop of Canterbury (1162–70). The son of a Norman merchant, he served as chancellor of England (1155–62) under Henry II, whose entire trust he won. A brilliant administrator, diplomat, and military strategist, he aided the king in increasing the royal power. Resistant to the Gregorian reform movement that asserted the autonomy of the church, Henry hoped to reinforce royal control of the church by appointing Becket archbishop of Canterbury in 1162. Becket, however, embraced his new duties devoutly and opposed royal power in the church, especially proclaiming the right of offending clerics to be tried in ecclesiastical courts. The king issued the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) listing royal rights over the church, and he summoned the archbishop to trial. Becket fled to France and remained in exile until 1170, when he returned to Canterbury and was murdered in the cathedral by four of Henry's knights, traditionally said to be acting in response to the king's angry words. Becket's tomb, which was visited by Henry in an act of penance, became a site of pilgrimage.

The Prioress

THE PRIORESS

The Prioress is trying to be very well, dainty. She has all these funny habits, like singing through her nose, speaking incorrect French, and eating so carefully that she never spills a drop. When she sees a mouse caught in a trap, she weeps, perhaps believing that this is how a damsel of the court would behave. Of course, two lines later, we learn that she has no problem feeding her hounds flesh, so her weeping over the trapped mouse is probably, like most of her habits, an affectation – a behavior the Prioress adopts to seem a certain way (in this case, like a courtly damsel), but which doesn't really reveal her true feelings.

Though the Prioress may try to seem dainty, in point of fact she's a very large woman: Chaucer tells us her forehead is a full hand-span broad and, come to think of it, she's not underfed. In keeping with her goal of seeming courtly, the Prioress is very elegantly dressed, with a string of coral beads attached to a pendant that reads "Amor Vincit Omnia," or "Love Conquers All." The beads and the pendant are interesting because this being a prioress, or nun who is in charge of a convent, we would expect her to be carrying rosary beads with a crucifix on the end. But instead she is carrying vanity beads. The pendant, which could refer to God's love, in her case more probably refers to the courtly love between a damsel and hero in one of the romances that were popular reading material for women of this time period.

So here's the thing about the Prioress: as a religious figure, she should be all kinds of things that she very clearly is not. What are these things? Well, take a look at the Parson's portrait, which represents an ideal religious figure in the General Prologue, to find out the answer. With the Prioress, our first example of someone from the religious life, we have not only our first supposedly pious person with her priorities out of whack (a situation we'll definitely see again), but also our first example of someone who's trying way too hard to be perceived a certain way, and how ridiculous that looks.

We should note that the Prioress has a nun with her who serves as her "chapelyne" or secretary, and three priests, who probably help her out by saying mass and administering the sacraments in the abbey she runs. Although we get no portraits of these pilgrims, two of them, the Second Nun, and the Nun's Priest, tell tales later on.

THE NUN

The nun is not described in The Prologue, but she tells a saint's life history. She is the secretary of The Prioress and she relates the history of Santa Cecilia. Some scholars  speculate that the tale is merely the second tale of the single Prioress but this idea is not widely held.

Santa Cecilia is the daughter of a Roman. She is engaged to be married to a man named Valerian. But Cecilia, hopes to remain a virgin all her life, and prays to God to make it so. On her wedding night, she offers to tell her new husband a secret. She tells him that she has an angel protecting her chastity and If her new husband trys to take her virginity, this angel will kill him. Valerian asks to see the angel as a token that he should trust her, but Cecilia tells him he can only see it if he becomes a Christian. So, she sends Valerian to be baptised by The Papa Urban.

When he came back, Valerian is able to see Cecilia's angel. It offers to grant one request of Valerian's. Valerian asks that his brother Tiburtius be brought to the true faith, and the angel assents. Finally, Tiburtius meets Pope Urban and is baptised too for can see the angel.

After a time, the Roman prefect Almachius declares that all people who refuse to adore at the shrine of Jupiter will be killed. So Valerian and Tiburtius refuse to adore and they are executed.

Almachius orders Cecilia brought before him. Furious, Almachius sends his executioner to kill Cecilia with a sword. Despite taking three strokes, however, the man is unable to kill her. Cecilia continues to live, spurting blood and with her head partially severed from her body, for three days.

During this time, Celia continually preaches to and teaches the people.

The Wife of Bath

The Wife of Bath was born in Abbey.

She wears a huge hat as big as a boat and a long coat over her wide hips. Her tights are red and her shoes are new.

She had been married five times, and she had lived longer than them all, this is how she became rich.

The wife of Bath likes to laugh and talk about love. She also loves sex.

She lived in Glasgow for fifteen years, were she had been married with Jorge, Peter and Albert.

After Albert's death, she had been married in London with Edward and Charles. Charles died two years after they got married.

Now, the Wife of Bath has two more boyfriends. The first one is from China and the other one is from Germany.

The squire

Hello! I'm the squire. My father is the knight. He is bravely and sincere. I travelled with him in his battles around the world and I met lots of girls. I am very handsome and modest and I hope one day I will be like my father. I usually wear old clothes.

In the book I tell a tale about a royal family. The king , Cambyuskan , received a knight in the royal hall during a feast, who gived him lots of present. One of the present is a ring that gived the owner the power to comunicate with the birds and the knowledge of the healing powers of every herb in the wood. The king thought 'what a stupid object' and he gave it to his daughter called 'Canace'.
One day she was walking in the forest with her ring and found a female falcon who was injured because her husband hit her. Canace took it to the palace and nursed the falcon

I can't tell the end because I want that you read the book.

The host

I'm the Host, I live and work in the Taberr Inn in London because I don´t have much money to buy a house, so what, I live in the Inn how an occupant.

I'm a hefty, manly man also I'm large, loud, merry and also I have a quick temper.

My clothes are not very fashionable because I don´t have much money so my clothes are very old.

One day I was washing the dishes when a great crowd of people arrived at the Inn, they were sitting at a tablea anD they asked me for something to eat.

I was really disappointed because I was so tired but finally I prepared a great meal for the crowd 

The said to me, that they go to Canterbury to visit the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket.

Then, I had an idea so I started to talk to the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlman, I dedice to go with you to Canterbury and I have an idea which will help us to enjoy our journey to Canterbury. Each person must tell a story on the way to Canterbury and another story on the way of back, the best story has a prize".

This was my idea a few days ago and now wa are lost in a dark forest, because we tried to catch the wife of Bath when she started to run behind her possible sixth husband.

My country France

I'm going to talk about my country France so I'm French.

In France the official language is French, nobody speak English unless will you are a tourist.

The political system in France is a smipresidencialist Republic whose president is Nicolai Sarkozy.

The popullation France is around 66 millions of unhabitans,also the situation of France in in the south-west of Europe and she is boulder for Spain, Germany, Belgium, Swizerland and Italy, her total area is about
675417Km Squares and her currency is the Euro.

The Capital of France is Paris and other important cities are Lyon, Marsella, Montpelier and Toulose

Th eimportant history fact in France is for example: The French Revolution in 1789 when the people of bourgeoisie assault "La Bastilla".


Some people famous in France is The architect Gustave Eiffel, The pinter Claude Monet, The inventor Joseph Ignace Gillotin...


The typical food in France is for example Ratatouille is a provenzal plate result of cook olive oil and some vegetables
(Tomatoes, garlic, onions, aubergine, courghettes...)


My country is the Europena Union  1952.


I'm like live here because is The city of love.

Russia

The name of my country is Russia or The Russian Federation. A person who lives in Russia is a Russian, so I am Russian. In my country, the official language is Russian too. However, there are over one hundred minority languages spoken in Russia today. Some of them are Abaza, Adyghe, Lezgy, etc.
The capital city is Moscow. Other important cities are Saint Petersbourg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Omsk or Kazan.
Russia has international borders with 14 sovereign states. They are Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, North Korea. With a land border of 20,241 kilometres in total it has, behind China, the second-longest land border of any country.
For a long time, Russia had a communist regime with many other states. They were together in the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation was the largest nation to emerge from the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Nowadays, the Russian political system is a democracy, one of the younger democracies in Europe and it has changed from Communism to Capitalism.
The currency of the Russian Federation is the ruble or rouble.
At 17,075,400 square kilometres, Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation. The population of Russia in 2011 is 141,837,976, according to Rosstat, the official Russian Government statisticians.
Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the number one natural gas producer.
Russian cuisine widely uses fish, poultry, mushrooms, berries, and honey. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provide the ingredients for various breads, pancakes and cereals, as well as for beer and vodka drinks. Black bread is rather popular in Russia, compared to the rest of the world. Flavourful soups and stews include shchi, borsch, ukha, solyanka and okrosshka. Chicken Kiev, pelmeni and shashlyk are popular meats dishes. Other meat dishes include stuffed cabbage rolls usually filled with meat. Salads are really good.
The history of Russia has important events. Some of them are: Human bones of the age of 35000-40000 years have been found in Russia; this people were the first modern humans in Europe.
From 1721 until 1917, Russia was an empire, ruled by the Russian Tsars. The family name of the Tsars was the Romanovs. The last Russian Tsar was Nicholas II. He abdicated in February 1917, and a Provisional Governement ruled Russia until the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917 that led to the formation of the Soviet Union.
There are really important people in the history of Russia. Some of them are:
Ivan the Terrible, the first Czar.
Catherine the Great, the Russian Empress during the Age of Enlightenment.
Czar Nicholas II and his family who were murdered in the Russian Revolution.
Vladimir Lenin, founder of Bolshevik party, the lider of the October Revolution. He was the founder of the Soviet Union.
Yuri Gagarin, the first human to travel into space.
Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.
Mihail Gorbachov was the last General Secretary of the Communist party. He was one of the most important person in the changes from Communism to Capitalism in The Soviet Union.
Russia is not a member of the European Union.In my opinion, Russia is a beautiful country, with wonderful landscapes and important monuments like the Kremlin. But I would not like living there because it is a cold country and the language is really difficult to learn. However, I would like traveling to Russia and know cities like Moscow or San Petersbourg.

NORWAY

Hello my name is Agnes and I am from Norway. So I am Norwegian. In my country there are four official languages Norwegian, English, French and Germany.
Norway is in the north of Europe. This country shares borders with Sweden and the North Sea, Norwegian Sea and Arctic Ocean and its currency is the kroner. Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometers and a population of about 4.99 million. It is a unitary constitutional monarchy. The capital city of Norway is Oslo but there are other important cities like Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Kristiansand and Drammen. They are beautiful cities.

The History of my country is very important. Norway was absorbed into a union with Denmark
that lasted more than four centuries. In 1814, Norwegians resisted the cession of their country to Sweden and adopted a new constitution. Norway remained neutral in World War I, it suffered heavy losses to its shipping. Norway was occupied for five years by the Third Reich in the Second World War. Norway became a founding member of NATO.

Norway remains one of the biggest financial contributors to the United Nations. Norway isn’t a member of the European Union.
Last summer my country suffered a terrorist attack. 78 people were murdered in this attack.

There are a lot of famous people in my country. The most important people are writer Henrik Ibsen, mathematicians Caspar Wessel and Niels Henrik Abel, explorers Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen, the expressionist painter Edvard Munch, composer Edvard Grieg, the novelist Knut Hamsun, he won the Nobel Prize of literature of 1920 and the sculptor Gustav Vigeland.

The best thing of my country is the food. Fish is popular in Norway. People there have developed numerous delicious ways to prepare seafood. The most important dishes are Seafood Bisque and Smoked Salmon. Norwegians eat meat too. The most typical food is Kjøttkaker - meatcakes: rough and large cakes of ground beef, onion and salt and pepper. It is served with sauce. The pork version is called medisterkake.

I like my country so much because the sceneries are wonderful. The fjords are the most typical places and famous in Norway. The houses are very beautiful. They are of many colours: blue, white, red, oranges, all colours. You can go to ski every days of the year because there is always snow in the mountains.

People are very cheerful and friendly. Norwegians are very generous.
The worst thing is the weather. It’s terrible. It’s always cold and cloudy so the sun does not usually appear.
I think Norway is the best place where you can spend your holidays, if you like the weather, of course.

Henry II

Henry II was born at Le Mans on 5 March 1133 and he died on 6 July 1189, aged 56.

Henry II ruled as King of England in 1154 when he was twenty-one. He married Eleanor of Aquitanie.

Henry was good.looking, red-haired, freckled, with a large head. He had a short, stocky body. Henry was famous for his energy. Henry spoke only Latin and French.

Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler. Henry wanted to rebuild the terriroties that his granfather, Henry I, has once controlled. During the early years of the younger Henry's reign he restored the royal administration in England. He soon came into conflict with Louis VII and they fought over several decades. Henry expanded his empire. He undertook various legal reforms in England.

He appointed his best friend, Thomas Becket, as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Although Henry usually worked well with the Church, his desire to control and reform the relationship between the churches and Englnad led to conflict with his friend Thomas Becket. Henry became so angry with Thomas because he defended the power of the Church. As a resulte, Becket was murdered by four knights of Henry.

After the murder, King Henry II showed his sorrow and he walked barefoot through Canterbury and was whipped by the monks. He was the first pilgrim to Canterbury.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey was born in London in about 1340, known as the Father of English literature, and he is sometimes considered the source of the English vernacular tradition. His achievement for the language can be seen as part of a general historical trend towards the creation of a vernacular literature is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. Among his many works, which include 'The Book of the Duchess' or the 'House of Fame', he is best known today for 'The Canterbury Tales', which is a collection of stories told by fictional pilgrims on the road to the cathedral at Canterbury; these tales would help to shape English literature.

Chaucer drew on real life for his cast of pilgrims: the innkeeper shares the name of a contemporary keeper of an inn in Southwark, and real-life identities for the Wife of Bath, the Merchant, the Man of Law and the Student have been suggested. The many jobs that Chaucer held in medieval society—page, soldier, messenger, valet, bureaucrat, foreman and administrator—probably exposed him to many of the types of people he depicted in the Tales. He was able to shape their speech and satirise their manners in what was to become popular literature among people of the same types.

He died in 1400 on 25 October and he was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.

The Merchant

The Merchant is the fashionable of the group because he's wearing a cloak, a Flemish beaver hat, and has a forked beard, all of which were current fashions at this time period. The merchant's main motivation is making money, and the military protection of trade routes that allows him to do so – these subjects are all he talks about. Although he appears prosperous, we know that the Merchant is actually in debt. He manages to keep his head above water by borrowing more and more. In medieval England, to be in debt was a sign of weak morals. So when Chaucer tells us that the Merchant was a "worthy man withal," we can probably take that a bit ironically.

In the Merchant's Prologue, we learn that he is unhappily married to a shrewish woman who could win a fight against the devil. This state of affairs motivates him to tell a tale about a man who ignores his friend's advice against marriage and comes to regret it.

With the Merchant we have our first example of the "new" up-and-coming middle class. The Merchant's more cosmopolitan sensibilities – knowledge about the latest international fashions, for example – are probably meant to serve as a contrast to the concerns of those like the Knight, who hail from more traditional and entrenched social groups.

The Monk

The Monk is a lover of hunting, fine foods; bald headed, ugly, fat; dressed in fine clothes.

Chaucer presents a corrupt Monk who loves the good life and finds more pleasure in hunting than studying in the cloister. The Monk’s weakness for good food and expensive clothing and his love for hunting violate the monastic vows of poverty and simplicity. He is riding a sleek brown horse on his way to Canterbury. Chaucer ironically pronounces that the Monk is perfectly suitable for the office of abbot. He spends more time outside his cloister than he should. He does not care at all about the rules laid down by St. Benedict and bears no guilt about the fact that he rides out instead of devoting himself to his monastic duties. Chaucer ironically agrees with the Monk’s point of view and innocently asks why should the Monk make himself mad by pouring over a book in a cloister. The Monk’s pleasure in hunting is a fitting object of satire. In the Middle Ages Monks who took delight in hunting were severely condemned by the reformers. In fact hunting itself was considered an immoral activity. Chaucer’s Monk is a perfect hunter and one who takes extreme interest and pleasure in tracking and hunting wild rabbits. He thus keeps fine horses and well bred hunting hounds in his stable. The Monk is a worshipper of materialism. The sleeves of his coat are trimmed with the finest gray fur in the land. His hood is fastened under his chin with an exquisite gold love knot. His boots are supple and expensive. His bald - head and face shine radiantly as if anointed with oil. His large eyes roll in his head and gleam like a furnace under a cauldron. He is healthy and well fed and loves to eat a plump roasted swan. Chaucer ironically concludes that the Monk is certainly a "fair prelat". Chaucer’s subtle ironic portraiture of the ‘manly’ Monk and repeated approbation of the Monk’s abilities only arouses the reader’s derision.

THE COUNTRYMAN

Hello I am the countryman. I am forty-two years old and I go to Canterbury. I am going with my friend The Squire. I think that I am an attractive person although I am a countryman.

My face is brown and my clothes are green. I love green because when I go to hunt I wear green clothes and people can’t see me.

I don’t use guns for hunt. I prefer use my bow and my arrows with peacock feathers, a sword and a hunting horn.

The Squire and I ride the same horse. We are many time together therefore we are good friends. I do not tell any story because I have not imagination and while we go to Canterbury I am very busy hunting some deer.

I think I am a good person because I do not steal and I like helping people.

I am going on the pilgrimage to accompany Squire and I like visiting new places and being with people. This experience is very good for me.