1.Under the feudal system a local king sat at the top of the social order.

He was supported by nobles, who swore their loyalty to the king and provided him with soldiers, called knights, for protection. Knights developed customs all their own, with complex rules about how to treat women and intricate and sophisticated systems of armor. The nobles controlled the land, which was worked by peasants and other members of the lower classes. Life was not easy under the feudal system. People had to work very hard just to get by, and there were few diversions for those outside the king's immediate court. Living conditions were dirty and difficult, and people lived very short lives. As towns emerged, new social classessuch as merchants and artisansdisrupted the established social patterns of medieval society. According to the traditional view, three orders worked together in the rural community: the warrior aristocracy, or people who fight; the peasantry, or people who work; and the clergy, or people who pray.

Schools and universities were forming across Western Europe that would help medieval society evolve from the Dark Ages on its way to a Renaissance of art and learning.

2. 1.Medieval romance usually idealizes chivalry 2. Medieval romance Idealizes the hero-knight and his noble deeds 3. An important element of the medieval romance is the knight's love for his lady. 4. The settings of medieval romance tend to be imaginary and vague. 5. Medieval romance derives mystery and suspense from supernatural elements. 6. Medieval romance uses concealed or disguised identity.

3.Chaucer's innovation was to use such a diverse assembly of narrators, whose stories are interrupted and interlinked with interludes in which the characters talk with each other, revealing much about themselves.

4. It is impossible to reduce the iconic complexity of Inferno to a short list of important symbols. Because the
poem is an overarching allegory, it explores its themes using dozens, even hundreds, of symbols, ranging from the minutely particular (the blank banner chased by the Uncommitted in Canto III, symbolizing the

meaninglessness of their activity in life) to the hugely general (the entire story of The Divine Comedy itself, symbolizing the spiritual quest of human life). Many of the symbols in Inferno are clear and easily interpretable, such as the beast Geryonwith the head of an innocent man and the body of a foul serpent, he represents dishonesty and fraud. Others are much more nuanced and difficult to pin down, such as the trio of creatures that stops Dante from climbing the sunlit mountain in Canto I. When reading Inferno, it is extremely important to consider each element of the poem according to how it fits into Dantes larger system of symbolismwhat it says about the scene, story, and themes of the work and about human life. Perhaps the most important local uses of symbolism in Inferno involve the punishments of the sinners, which are always constructed so as to correspond allegorically to the sins that they committed in life. The Lustful, for example, who were blown about by passion in life, are now doomed to be blown about by a ferocious storm for all of time. Other major types of symbols include figures who represent human qualities, such as Virgil, representative of reason, and Beatrice, representative of spiritual love; settings that represent emotional states, such as the dark forest in Canto I, embodying Dantes confusion and fear; and figures among the damned who may represent something more than merely their sins, such as Farinata, who seems to represent qualities of leadership and political commitment that transcend his identity as a Heretic in Hell. 5.Chaucer, Dante, and Boccacio developed a scholarly interest in the work of ancient Greek and Roman

writings.