Chaucer and His Times

idence upon which this statement is based, the more fully do we find it endorsed. The name Chaucer itself has been variously derived from the Latin calcearius, a shoemaker, the

f Thames Street, London, though at one time his birth was dated as early as 1328, and Mr. Snell, in his Age of Chaucer, endeavours further to darken counsel-already sufficiently obscure-by suggesting that there may have been two contemporary Geoffreys, and that the facts which are usually accepted as throwing light on the history

ro the whyte a

ro the whyte

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Spayne cre

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at he be at h

e, right at th

Tale, l.

an once Chaucer goes out of his w

hing is wyn,

yving and of

··

esse is ver

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the life of other boys of that time: Lydgate's portrai

tom to come

arn but for a

llows read

ape was set all

ked was my C

syng and ther

assed myself

··

e, lother t

handes ready

r, my Creed,

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arnestness of those who have applied themselves most diligently to learning.... He left the University an acute logician, a delightful orator, an elegant poet, a profound philosopher, and an able mathematician"; and to this list of accomplishm

I called am

bridge

the records of any college at either university, and, as Professor Lounsbury has conclusively shown, wide as are the poet's interests, and great as his knowledge undoubtedly is, the scholarship shown by h

s matières à nul

Bretagne, et de

embellishments and modifications. A veil of romance covers and colours the history of Greece and Rome. To Chaucer, Cleopatra is akin to the

subtil workme

rubies and t

te that she

l the shryne

s embaume;[5] an

and in the shryn

ryne a pit than

erpents that s

hem in tha

··

ord, naked, wit

ents in the pi

of the early sixteenth century, regards it as a moral allegory of the soul's progress, cast in the form of an epic. But while Chaucer's occasional mistranslations of Latin words and misrenderings of classical legends cannot be said to disprove his residence at one of the universities, they certainly cannot be said to support Leland's statement, and the probability is that he early became attached to the court. The reign of Edward III witnessed a marked increase in the prosperity of the merchant class. The members of the great trade guilds were men of wealth and importance and there is nothing surprising in finding a vintner's son one of the household of Elizabeth, wife of the

ch looks as if he were considered a person of some importance. Apparently he returned to court life in England, and to the duties of valettus camerae regis. A valet of the King's Chamber had to "make beddis, to beare or hold torches, to sett boardis, to apparell all chambres, and suc

een a court-

ot,[8] though

den in ful

des of ful

ver with noon

contraried

t my lord can[

th, I holde it f

or elles thing

fool is any

any lord of

sume, or ell

l sholde passe

een no foles,

s Tale, l.

pts have been made to show that the marriage was an unhappy one. Some of these will be noticed later in treating of Chaucer's women, here it may suffice to say that although it is true that he paints a sufficiently gloomy picture of married life in the Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton, that neither the host nor the merchant are happy in their choice, and that the Lenvoy which concludes the Clerkes Tale warns husbands that if they expect to find their wives patient Griseldas they will certainly be disappointed, we have to

hought and b

de thing which

adde that thin

ving suffered for eight years from a sickness which one physician alone can cure, this is taken as an unmistakable reference to the same unrequited passion. But we have nothing to show that in these pass

we not lo

he quyteth fol

of Foules

hardly have felt complimented by the affectio

yk walwed i

am walwed and

roof one way

a well-known man of wealth and position in the early fifteenth century, more than once Speaker of the House of Commons, as Geoffrey's son, but no mention is made of him by Chaucer himself or by any of his contemp

s of an esquire seem better suited to a poet than those of a valet: "These Esquires of houshold of old be accustumed winter & summer in afternoons & in eunings to drawe to Lordes Chambres within Court, there to keep honest company a

th the army in France, but no particula

1370 he was sent abroad on an important mission-the exact nature of which we do not know-and two years later he went to Genoa to arrange which En

arch and Boccaccio, the other members of that great trilogy of the earlier Renaissance

owe of a w

··

trark, the l

lerk, whos re

Itaille of

rologue, l

and Criseyde, he confesses that he is indebted to an earlier poet for his story, he gives him the apparently fictitious name of Lollius. Mr. Coulton suggests that Boccaccio's works may have been published anonymously and that Chaucer may have been ignorant of their real author, and this could hardly have been the case if the two had me

ouse of Aldgate from the corporation of London. A month later he was appointed controller of customs for wool, etc., in the port of London, receiving a few days afterwards an additional pension of ￡10 a year from John of

hast no

olk, if th

t elles th

only fro f

o tyding co

verray ne

n almost at

neither th

hy labour

-maad thy

reste and

oom to thy

domb as

est at an

aswed is th

t thus as

yn abstinen

the position of guardian was highly coveted, and not infrequently bought for a good round sum, since the holder had a right to a certain percentage (sometimes

ce with Charles V, for which service he received ￡48 13s. 4d. In June of this year Edward III died, but for a time John of G

o Visc

and scourge

ale, ll.

ct for him during his absence, was h

relation of the abductor, which were not infrequent at the time. Chaucer's own father had been the victim of such an attempt, being kidnapped in order that he might be married to Joan de Westhale. The case had come before the courts and the jury found that "the defendants had by night forcibly abducted John le Chaucer from the plaintiff's custody, but did not marry him," and assessed the damages at ￡2

seem to have looked with favour upon a corresponding increase in office hours. In February 1385 he was granted the privilege of appointing a permanent deputy to perform his official duties. Professor Skeat suggests t

eenwich. The lease of the Aldgate house was made over to a certain Richard Foster in 1386, an

lest at the

alle honour a

at the other end o

solitarie w

ption in the prologue to the Legend of Good Women is not mere poetic fiction, it would seem that the poet had a pleasant country h

his absence his brother and rival, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, succeeded in establishing his ascendancy over the king. Chaucer felt the change at once. He was deprived of both his controllerships, and the money loss must have been considerable. In 1387 his wife died, so that her pension mus

the Thames or the erection of scaffolds in Smithfield for the king and queen to view the tournament held there in May 1390. One of his appointments was that of Clerk of the Works to his Majesty, which gave him charge of the fabric of the Tower,

k, and eek th

the cofre unt

r;[19] holm[20]

[21] the cipres,

3] the asp for s

n

ees, and eek t

r

ictor

of Foules,

is taken from Bo

court on the ground that he had no malicious intent and had only dug the pit to repair his mill, and because he really did not know of any other place to get the kind of clay he wanted save the highroad" (Mrs. Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Vol. II, pp. 31-2). The modern traveller in the United States is sometimes surprised at dusk by finding the highway temporarily blocked by a house which is being moved from one side to the other and has been dumped down at the end of the day's work, but this is nothing to finding that the road itself has been removed bodily. It is true that the corporation of Nottingham issued an order in 1507 forbidding people to dig holes in the market-place without leave, but this was long after Chaucer's day, and if such ordinances were necessary to protect the actual market-place of a busy commercial city, it is n

stminster of the sum of ￡10, on the Tuesday after the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (i. e. September 6); and in the same year "near the Fowle Ok" at Hatcham, in Surrey, Chaucer was robbed of a horse worth ￡10, goods w

three years later the king granted him a pension of ￡20 (about ￡300 of our money) a year for life. During the interval he

on came to the throne, and Chaucer, who was still struggling with his creditors, addressed an impassioned appeal to him. Already, in 1398, the poet had been threatened with legal proceedings, and although

rse, and to n

for ye be m

y, now that

but ye make

of Chaucer to h

nk believes this

g Richard, but P

it was addre

to a prosperous and comfortable old age, for, on December 24, 1399, he took the lease of a house in the garden of St. Mary's, Westminster, for fifty-four years. He was not, however, to make long use of his new possession, for on October 25, 1400, he died, and his gra

nt, receyve in

for this world

m,[26] her nis

orth! Forth best

ee, look up, t

, and lat thygos

l delivre, hit