17-) English Literature
The Best English Writers and Poets of the Middle English Period
In the latter half of the fourteenth century, two of
the era's most famous poets emerged from this urban merchant background:
Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower. Chaucer is famous for his Canterbury Tales and
Gower for Confessio Amantis. Each is a collection of tales united by a frame
narrative.
Geoffrey Chaucer
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Geoffrey
Chaucer (/ˈtʃɔːsər/; (born c. 1342/43, London?, England—died October 25, 1400,
London) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The
Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer the outstanding English poet before
Shakespeare and “the first finder of our language.” His The Canterbury Tales
ranks as one of the greatest poetic works in English. He has been called the
"father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father
of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since
come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame
as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the
Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil
service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.
He
also contributed importantly in the second half of the 14th century to the
management of public affairs as courtier, diplomat, and civil servant. In that
career he was trusted and aided by three successive kings—Edward III, Richard
II, and Henry IV. But it is his avocation—the writing of poetry—for which he is
remembered.
Among
Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The
Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde. He is seen as crucial in
legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary
languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin.[4] Chaucer's
contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair
langage" (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in
English). Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian
manuscripts.
Life
Chaucer
was born in London most likely in the early 1340s (by some accounts, including
his monument, he was born in 1343), though the precise date and location remain
unknown. The Chaucer family offers an extraordinary example of upward mobility.
His great-grandfather was a tavern keeper, his grandfather worked as a purveyor
of wines, and his father John Chaucer rose to become an important wine merchant
with a royal appointment. Several previous generations of Geoffrey Chaucer's
family had been vintners and merchants in Ipswich. His family name is derived
from the French chaucier, once thought to mean 'shoemaker', but now known to
mean a maker of hose or leggings.
In
1324, his father John Chaucer was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying
the 12-year-old to her daughter in an attempt to keep the property in Ipswich.
The aunt was imprisoned and fined £250, now equivalent to about £200,000, which
suggests that the family was financially secure.
John
Chaucer married Agnes Copton, who inherited properties in 1349, including 24
shops in London from her uncle Hamo de Copton, who is described in a will dated
3 April 1354 and listed in the City Hustings Roll as "moneyer", said
to be a moneyer at the Tower of London. In the City Hustings Roll 110, 5, Ric
II, dated June 1380, Chaucer refers to himself as me Galfridum Chaucer, filium
Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie, which translates as: "I, Geoffrey
Chaucer, son of the vintner John Chaucer, London".
Forebears and early years
Chaucer’s
forebears for at least four generations were middle-class English people whose
connection with London and the court had steadily increased. John Chaucer, his
father, was an important London vintner and a deputy to the king’s butler; in
1338 he was a member of Edward III’s expedition to Antwerp, in Flanders, now
part of Belgium, and he owned property in Ipswich, in the county of Suffolk,
and in London. He died in 1366 or 1367 at age 53. The name Chaucer is derived
from the French word chaussier, meaning a maker of footwear. The family’s
financial success derived from wine and leather.
Although
c. 1340 is customarily given as Chaucer’s birth date, 1342 or 1343 is probably
a closer guess. No information exists concerning his early education, although
doubtless he would have been as fluent in French as in the Middle English of
his time. He also became competent in Latin and Italian. His writings show his
close familiarity with many important books of his time and of earlier times.
Chaucer
first appears in the records in 1357, as a member of the household of
Elizabeth, countess of Ulster, wife of Lionel, third son of Edward III.
Geoffrey’s father presumably had been able to place him among the group of
young men and women serving in that royal household, a customary arrangement
whereby families who could do so provided their children with opportunity for
the necessary courtly education and connections to advance their careers. By
1359 Chaucer was a member of Edward III’s army in France and was captured
during the unsuccessful siege of Reims. The king contributed to his ransom, and
Chaucer served as messenger from Calais to England during the peace
negotiations of 1360. Chaucer does not appear in any contemporary record during
1361–65. He was probably in the king’s service, but he may have been studying
law—not unusual preparation for public service, then as now—since a
16th-century report implies that, while so engaged, he was fined for beating a
Franciscan friar in a London street. On February 22, 1366, the king of Navarre
issued a certificate of safe-conduct for Chaucer, three companions, and their
servants to enter Spain. This occasion is the first of a number of diplomatic
missions to the continent of Europe over the succeeding 10 years, and the
wording of the document suggests that here
Chaucer served as “chief of mission.”
By
1366 Chaucer had married. Probably his wife was Philippa Pan, who had been in
the service of the countess of Ulster and entered the service of Philippa of
Hainaut, queen consort of Edward III, when Elizabeth died in 1363. In 1366
Philippa Chaucer received an annuity, and later annuities were frequently paid
to her through her husband. These and other facts indicate that Chaucer married
well.
In
1367 Chaucer received an annuity for life as yeoman of the king, and in the
next year he was listed among the king’s esquires. Such officers lived at court
and performed staff duties of considerable importance. In 1368 Chaucer was
abroad on a diplomatic mission, and in 1369 he was on military service in
France. Also in 1369 he and his wife were official mourners for the death of
Queen Philippa. Obviously, Chaucer’s career was prospering, and his first
important poem—Book of the Duchess—seems further evidence of his That poem of
more than 1,300 lines, probably written in late 1369 or early 1370, is an elegy
for Blanche, duchess of Lancaster, John of Gaunt’s first wife, who died of
plague in September 1369. Chaucer’s close relationship with John, which continued
through most of his life, may have commenced as early as Christmas 1357 when
they, both about the same age, were present at the countess of Ulster’s
residence in Yorkshire. For this first of his important poems, Chaucer used the
dream-vision form, a genre made popular by the highly influential 13th-century
French poem of courtly love, the Roman de la rose. Chaucer translated that
poem, at least in part, probably as one of his first literary efforts, and he
borrowed from it throughout his poetic career. The Duchess is also indebted to
contemporary French poetry and to Ovid, Chaucer’s favourite Roman poet. Nothing
in these borrowings, however, will account for his originality in combining
dream-vision with elegy and eulogy of Blanche with consolation for John. Also
noteworthy here—as it increasingly became in his later poetry—is the tactful
and subtle use of a first-person narrator, who both is and is not the poet
himself. The device had obvious advantages for the minor courtier delivering
such a poem orally before the high-ranking court group. In addition, the
Duchess foreshadows Chaucer’s skill at presenting the rhythms of natural
conversation within the confines of Middle English verse and at creating
realistic characters within courtly poetic conventions. Also, Chaucer here
begins, with the Black Knight’s account of his love for Good Fair White, his
career as a love poet, examining in late medieval fashion the important
philosophic and religious questions concerning the human condition as they
relate to both temporal and eternal aspects of love.
Career
While
records concerning the lives of his contemporaries William Langland and the
Gawain Poet are practically non-existent, since Chaucer was a public servant
his official life is very well documented, with nearly five hundred written
items testifying to his career. The first of the "Chaucer Life
Records" appears in 1357, in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh,
the Countess of Ulster, when he became the noblewoman's page through his father's
connections, a common medieval form of apprenticeship for boys into knighthood
or prestige appointments. The countess was married to Lionel of Antwerp, 1st
Duke of Clarence, the second surviving son of the king, Edward III, and the
position brought the teenage Chaucer into the close court circle, where he was
to remain for the rest of his life. He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat,
and a civil servant, as well as working for the king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk
of the King's Works.
In
1359, the early stages of the Hundred Years' War, Edward III invaded France and
Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the
English army. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims. Edward paid
£16 for his ransom, a considerable sum equivalent to £12,261 in 2021, and
Chaucer was released.
After
this, Chaucer's life is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France,
Spain, and Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a
pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa
(de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of
Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later (c. 1396) became the
third wife of John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa
had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer, had an
illustrious career, as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker
of the House of Commons. Thomas's daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk.
Thomas's great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson), John de la Pole,
Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he
was deposed. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a
nun at Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV's coronation; and another
son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" was written
for Lewis.
According
to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court) at this
time. He became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de
chambre, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a
wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment.
He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet.
In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante
Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan. Two other literary stars
of the era were in attendance: Jean Froissart and Petrarch. Around this time,
Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess in honour of
Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369 of the
plague.
Chaucer
travelled to Picardy the next year as part of a military expedition; in 1373 he
visited Genoa and Florence. Numerous scholars such as Skeat, Boitani, and
Rowland suggested that, on this Italian trip, he came into contact with
Petrarch or Boccaccio. They introduced him to medieval Italian poetry, the
forms and stories of which he would use later. The purposes of a voyage in 1377
are mysterious, as details within the historical record conflict. Later
documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a
marriage between the future King Richard II and a French princess, thereby
ending the Hundred Years' War. If this was the purpose of their trip, they seem
to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred.
In
1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy (secret dispatch) to the Visconti and
to Sir John Hawkwood, English condottiere (mercenary leader) in Milan. It has
been speculated that it was Hawkwood on whom Chaucer based his character the
Knight in the Canterbury Tales, for a description matches that of a
14th-century condottiere.
A
possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when
Edward III granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his
life" for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but given on a
day of celebration, St George's Day, 1374, when artistic endeavours were traditionally
rewarded, it is assumed to have been for another early poetic work. It is not
known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the reward, but the
suggestion of him as poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets
laureate. Chaucer continued to collect the liquid stipend until Richard II came
to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on 18 April 1378.
Chaucer
obtained the very substantial job of comptroller of the customs for the port of
London, which he began on 8 June 1374. He must have been suited for the role as
he continued in it for twelve years, a long time in such a post at that time.
His life goes undocumented for much of the next ten years, but it is believed
that he wrote (or began) most of his famous works during this period. Chaucer's
"only surviving handwriting" dates from this period. This is a
request for temporary leave from work presented to King Richard II, hitherto
believed to be the work of one of his subordinates due to the low level of
language.
On
16 October 1379 Thomas Staundon filed a legal action against his former servant
Cecily Chaumpaigne and Chaucer, accusing Chaucer of unlawfully employing
Chaumpaigne before her term of service was completed, which violated the
Statute of Labourers. Though eight court documents dated between October 1379
and July 1380 survive from the action,[28] the case was never prosecuted and no
details survive about Chaumpaigne's service or how she came to leave Staundon's
employ for Chaucer's.
It
is not known if Chaucer was in the City of London at the time of the Peasants'
Revolt, but if he was, he would have seen its leaders pass almost directly
under his apartment window at Aldgate.
While
still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent, being
appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent, at a time when French
invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on The
Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He also became a member of parliament for
Kent in 1386, and attended the 'Wonderful Parliament' that year. He appears to
have been present at most of the 71 days it sat, for which he was paid £24 9s.
On 15 October that year, he gave a deposition in the case of Scrope v.
Grosvenor. There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's
wife, and she is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political
upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants, despite the fact that Chaucer knew
some of the men executed over the affair quite well.
On
12 July 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works, a sort of
foreman organising most of the king's building projects. No major works were
begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St.
George's Chapel, Windsor, continued building the wharf at the Tower of London,
and built the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a
difficult job, but it paid two shillings a day, more than three times his
salary as a comptroller. Chaucer was also appointed keeper of the lodge at the
King's park in Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire, which was a largely honorary
appointment.
While
records concerning the lives of his contemporaries William Langland and the
Gawain Poet are practically non-existent, since Chaucer was a public servant
his official life is very well documented, with nearly five hundred written
items testifying to his career. The first of the "Chaucer Life
Records" appears in 1357, in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh,
the Countess of Ulster, when he became the noblewoman's page through his
father's connections, a common medieval form of apprenticeship for boys into
knighthood or prestige appointments. The countess was married to Lionel of
Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, the second surviving son of the king, Edward
III, and the position brought the teenage Chaucer into the close court circle,
where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He also worked as a courtier,
a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for the king from 1389 to
1391 as Clerk of the King's Works.
In
1359, the early stages of the Hundred Years' War, Edward III invaded France and
Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the
English army. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims. Edward paid
£16 for his ransom, a considerable sum equivalent to £12,261 in 2021and Chaucer
was released.
After
this, Chaucer's life is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France,
Spain, and Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a
pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa
(de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of
Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later (c. 1396) became the
third wife of John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how many children Chaucer and
Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas
Chaucer, had an illustrious career, as chief butler to four kings, envoy to
France, and Speaker of the House of Commons. Thomas's daughter, Alice, married the
Duke of Suffolk. Thomas's great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson),
John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by
Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffrey's other children probably included
Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV's
coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer's "Treatise on the
Astrolabe" was written for Lewis.
According
to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court) at this
time. He became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de
chambre, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a
wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment.
He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet.
In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante
Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan. Two other literary stars
of the era were in attendance: Jean Froissart and Petrarch. Around this time,
Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess in honour of
Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369 of the
plague.
Chaucer
travelled to Picardy the next year as part of a military expedition; in 1373 he
visited Genoa and Florence. Numerous scholars such as Skeat, Boitani, and
Rowland suggested that, on this Italian trip, he came into contact with
Petrarch or Boccaccio. They introduced him to medieval Italian poetry, the
forms and stories of which he would use later. The purposes of a voyage in 1377
are mysterious, as details within the historical record conflict. Later
documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a
marriage between the future King Richard II and a French princess, thereby
ending the Hundred Years' War. If this was the purpose of their trip, they seem
to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred.
In
1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy (secret dispatch) to the Visconti and
to Sir John Hawkwood, English condottiere (mercenary leader) in Milan. It has
been speculated that it was Hawkwood on whom Chaucer based his character the
Knight in the Canterbury Tales, for a description matches that of a
14th-century condottiere.
A
possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when
Edward III granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his
life" for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but given on a
day of celebration, St George's Day, 1374, when artistic endeavours were
traditionally rewarded, it is assumed to have been for another early poetic
work. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the
reward, but the suggestion of him as poet to a king places him as a precursor
to later poets laureate. Chaucer continued to collect the liquid stipend until
Richard II came to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on
18 April 1378.
Chaucer
obtained the very substantial job of comptroller of the customs for the port of
London, which he began on 8 June 1374. He must have been suited for the role as
he continued in it for twelve years, a long time in such a post at that time.
His life goes undocumented for much of the next ten years, but it is believed
that he wrote (or began) most of his famous works during this period. Chaucer's
"only surviving handwriting" dates from this period. This is a
request for temporary leave from work presented to King Richard II, hitherto
believed to be the work of one of his subordinates due to the low level of
language.
On
16 October 1379 Thomas Staundon filed a legal action against his former servant
Cecily Chaumpaigne and Chaucer, accusing Chaucer of unlawfully employing
Chaumpaigne before her term of service was completed, which violated the
Statute of Labourers. Though eight court documents dated between October 1379
and July 1380 survive from the action, the case was never prosecuted and no
details survive about Chaumpaigne's service or how she came to leave Staundon's
employ for Chaucer's.
It
is not known if Chaucer was in the City of London at the time of the Peasants'
Revolt, but if he was, he would have seen its leaders pass almost directly
under his apartment window at Aldgate.
While
still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent, being
appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent, at a time when French
invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on The
Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He also became a member of parliament for
Kent in 1386, and attended the 'Wonderful Parliament' that year. He appears to
have been present at most of the 71 days it sat, for which he was paid £24 9s.
On 15 October that year, he gave a deposition in the case of Scrope v.
Grosvenor. There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's
wife, and she is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political
upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants, despite the fact that Chaucer knew
some of the men executed over the affair quite well.
On
12 July 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works, a sort of
foreman organising most of the king's building projects. No major works were
begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St.
George's Chapel, Windsor, continued building the wharf at the Tower of London,
and built the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a
difficult job, but it paid two shillings a day, more than three times his
salary as a comptroller. Chaucer was also appointed keeper of the lodge at the
King's park in Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire, which was a largely honorary
appointment.
Diplomat and civil servant
During
the decade of the 1370s, Chaucer was at various times on diplomatic missions in
Flanders, France, and Italy. Probably his first Italian journey (December 1372
to May 1373) was for negotiations with the Genoese concerning an English port
for their commerce, and with the Florentines concerning loans for Edward III.
His next Italian journey occupied May 28 to September 19, 1378, when he was a
member of a mission to Milan concerning military matters. Several times during
the 1370s, Chaucer and his wife received generous monetary grants from the king
and from John of Gaunt. On May 10, 1374, he obtained rent-free a dwelling above
Aldgate, in London, and on June 8 of that year he was appointed comptroller of
the customs and subsidy of wools, skins, and tanned hides for the Port of
London. Now, for the first time, Chaucer had a position away from the court,
and he and his wife had a home of their own, about a 10-minute walk from his
office. In 1375 he was granted two wardships, which paid well, and in 1376 he
received a sizable sum from a fine. When Richard II became king in June 1377,
he confirmed Chaucer’s comptrollership and, later, the annuities granted by
Edward III to both Geoffrey and Philippa. Certainly during the 1370s fortune
smiled upon the Chaucers.
So
much responsibility and activity in public matters appears to have left Chaucer
little time for writing during this decade. The great literary event for him
was that, during his missions to Italy, he encountered the work of Dante,
Petrarch, and Boccaccio, which was later to have profound influence upon his
own writing. Chaucer’s most important work of the 1370s was Hous of Fame, a
poem of more than 2,000 lines, also in dream-vision form. In some ways it is a
failure—it is unfinished, its theme is unclear, and the diversity of its parts
seems to overshadow any unity of purpose—but it gives considerable evidence of
Chaucer’s advancing skill as a poet. The eight-syllable metre is handled with
great flexibility; the light, bantering, somewhat ironic tone—later to become
one of Chaucer’s chief effects—is established; and a wide variety of subject
matter is included. Further, the later mastery in creation of memorable
characters is here foreshadowed by the marvelous golden eagle who carries the
frightened narrator, “Geoffrey,” high above the Earth to the houses of Fame and
Rumour, so that as a reward for his writing and studying he can learn “tydings”
to make into love poems. Here, too, Chaucer’s standard picture of his own
fictional character emerges: the poet, somewhat dull-witted, dedicated to
writing about love but without successful personal experience of it. The comedy
of the poem reaches its high point when the pedantic eagle delivers for
Geoffrey’s edification a learned lecture on the properties of sound. In
addition to its comic aspects, however, the poem seems to convey a serious
note: like all earthly things, fame is transitory and capricious.
The middle years: political and personal anxieties
In
a deed of May 1, 1380, one Cecily Chaumpaigne released Chaucer from legal
action, “both of my rape and of any other matter or cause.” Rape (raptus) could
at the time mean either sexual assault or abduction; scholars have not been
able to establish which meaning applies here, but, in either case, the release
suggests that Chaucer was not guilty as charged. He continued to work at the
Customs House and in 1382 was additionally appointed comptroller of the petty
customs for wine and other merchandise, but in October 1386 his dwelling in
London was leased to another man, and in December of that year successors were
named for both of his comptrollerships in the customs; whether he resigned or
was removed from office is not clear. Between 1382 and 1386 he had arranged for
deputies—permanent in two instances and temporary in others—in his work at the
customs. In October 1385 he was appointed a justice of the peace for Kent, and
in August 1386 he became knight of the shire for Kent, to attend Parliament in
October. Further, in 1385 he probably moved to Greenwich, then in Kent, to
live. These circumstances suggest that, for some time before 1386, he was
planning to move from London and to leave the Customs House. Philippa Chaucer
apparently died in 1387; if she had suffered poor health for some time
previously, that situation could have influenced a decision to move. On the
other hand, political circumstances during this period were not favourable for
Chaucer and may have caused his removal. By 1386 a baronial group led by Thomas
of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, had bested both Richard II and John of
Gaunt—with whose parties Chaucer had long been associated—and usurped the
king’s authority and administration. Numerous other officeholders—like Chaucer,
appointed by the king—were discharged, and Chaucer may have suffered similarly.
Perhaps the best view of the matter is that Chaucer saw which way the political
wind was blowing and began early to prepare to move when the necessity arrived.
The
period 1386–89 was clearly difficult for Chaucer. Although he was reappointed
justice of the peace for 1387, he was not returned to Parliament after 1386. In
1387 he was granted protection for a year to go to Calais, in France, but seems
not to have gone, perhaps because of his wife’s death. In 1388 a series of
suits against him for debts began, and he sold his royal pension for a lump
sum. Also, from February 3 to June 4, 1388, the Merciless Parliament,
controlled by the barons, caused many leading members of the court party—some of
them Chaucer’s close friends—to be executed. In May 1389, however, the
23-year-old King Richard II regained control, ousted his enemies, and began
appointing his supporters to office. Almost certainly, Chaucer owed his next
public office to that political change. On July 12, 1389, he was appointed
clerk of the king’s works, with executive responsibility for repair and
maintenance of royal buildings, such as the Tower of London and Westminster
Palace, and with a comfortable salary.
Although
political events of the 1380s, from the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 through the
Merciless Parliament of 1388, must have kept Chaucer steadily anxious, he
produced a sizable body of writings during this decade, some of very high
order. Surprisingly, these works do not in any way reflect the tense political
scene. Indeed, one is tempted to speculate that during this period Chaucer
turned to his reading and writing as escape from the difficulties of his public
life. The Parlement of Foules , a poem of 699 lines, is a dream-vision for St.
Valentine’s Day, making use of the myth that each year on that day the birds
gathered before the goddess Nature to choose their mates. Beneath its playfully
humorous tone, it seems to examine the value of various kinds of love within
the context of “common profit” as set forth in the introductory abstract from
the Somnium Scipionis (The Dream of Scipio) of Cicero. The narrator searches
unsuccessfully for an answer and concludes that he must continue his search in
other books. For this poem Chaucer also borrowed extensively from Boccaccio and
Dante, but the lively bird debate from which the poem takes its title is for
the most part original. The poem has often been taken as connected with events
at court, particularly the marriage in 1382 of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia.
But no such connection has ever been firmly established. The Parlement is
clearly the best of Chaucer’s earlier works.
The
Consolation of Philosophy, written by the Roman philosopher Boethius (early 6th
century), a Christian, was one of the most influential of medieval books. Its
discussion of free will, God’s foreknowledge, destiny, fortune, and true and
false happiness—in effect, all aspects of the manner in which the right-minded
individual should direct his thinking and action to gain eternal salvation—had
a deep and lasting effect upon Chaucer’s thought and art. His prose translation
of the Consolation is carefully done, and in his next poem—Troilus and
Criseyde—the influence of Boethius’s book is pervasive. Chaucer took the basic
plot for this 8,239-line poem from Boccaccio’s Filostrato.
Some
critics consider Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer’s finest work, greater even than
the far more widely read Canterbury Tales. But the two works are so different
that comparative evaluation seems fruitless. The state of the surviving
manuscripts of Troilus shows Chaucer’s detailed effort in revising this poem.
Against the background of the legendary Trojan War, the love story of Troilus,
son of the Trojan king Priam, and Criseyde, widowed daughter of the deserter
priest Calkas, is recounted. The poem moves in leisurely fashion, with
introspection and much of what would now be called psychological insight
dominating many sections. Aided by Criseyde’s uncle Pandarus, Troilus and
Criseyde are united in love about halfway through the poem, but then she is
sent to join her father in the Greek camp outside Troy. Despite her promise to
return, she gives her love to the Greek Diomede, and Troilus, left in despair,
is killed in the war. These events are interspersed with Boethian discussion of
free will and determinism. At the end of the poem, when Troilus’s soul rises
into the heavens, the folly of complete immersion in sexual love is viewed in
relation to the eternal love of God. The effect of the poem is controlled
throughout by the direct comments of the narrator, whose sympathy for the
lovers—especially for Criseyde—is ever present.
Also
in the 1380s Chaucer produced his fourth and final dream-vision poem, The
Legend of Good Women, which is not a success. It presents a Prologue, existing
in two versions, and nine stories. In the Prologue the god of love is angry
because Chaucer had earlier written about so many women who betrayed men. As
penance, Chaucer must now write about good women. The Prologue is noteworthy
for the delightful humour of the narrator’s self-mockery and for the passages
in praise of books and of the spring. The stories—concerning such women of
antiquity as Cleopatra, Dido, and Lucrece—are brief and rather mechanical, with
the betrayal of women by wicked men as a regular theme; as a result, the whole
becomes more a legend of bad men than of good women. Perhaps the most important
fact about the Legend, however, is that it shows Chaucer structuring a long
poem as a collection of stories within a framework. Seemingly the static nature
of the framing device for the Legend and the repetitive aspect of the series of
stories with a single theme led him to give up this attempt as a poor job. But
the failure here must have contributed to his brilliant choice, probably about
this same time, of a pilgrimage as the framing device for the stories in The
Canterbury Tales.
Later life
Last
years and The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer’s
service as clerk of the king’s works lasted only from July 1389 to June 1391.
During that tenure he was robbed several times and once beaten, sufficient
reason for seeking a change of jobs. In June 1391 he was appointed sub-forester
of the king’s park in North Petherton, Somerset, an office that he held until
his death. He retained his home in Kent and continued in favour at court,
receiving royal grants and gifts during 1393–97. The records show his close
relationship during 1395–96 with John of Gaunt’s son, the earl of Derby, later
King Henry IV. When John died in February 1399, King Richard confiscated John’s
Lancastrian inheritance; then in May he set forth to crush the Irish revolt. In
so doing, he left his country ready to rebel. Henry, exiled in 1398 but now
duke of Lancaster, returned to England to claim his rights. The people flocked
to him, and he was crowned on September 30, 1399. He confirmed Chaucer’s grants
from Richard II and in October added an additional generous annuity. In
December 1399 Chaucer took a lease on a house in the garden of Westminster
Abbey. But in October of the following year he died. He was buried in the
Abbey, a signal honour for a commoner.
n
September 1390, records say that Chaucer was robbed and possibly injured while
conducting the business, and he stopped working in this capacity on 17 June. He
began as Deputy Forester in the royal forest of Petherton Park in North
Petherton, Somerset on 22 June. This was no sinecure, with maintenance an
important part of the job, although there were many opportunities to derive
profit.
Richard
II granted him an annual pension of 20 pounds in 1394 (equivalent to £18,558 in
2021), and Chaucer's name fades from the historical record not long after
Richard's overthrow in 1399. The last few records of his life show his pension
renewed by the new king, and his taking a lease on a residence within the close
of Westminster Abbey on 24 December 1399. Henry IV renewed the grants assigned
by Richard, but The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse hints that the grants
might not have been paid. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June 1400 when
some debts owed to him were repaid.
Chaucer
died of unknown causes on 25 October 1400, although the only evidence for this
date comes from the engraving on his tomb which was erected more than 100 years
after his death. There is some speculation that he was murdered by enemies of
Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV, but the case is
entirely circumstantial. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as
was his right owing to his status as a tenant of the Abbey's close. In 1556,
his remains were transferred to a more ornate tomb, making him the first writer
interred in the area now known as Poets' Corner.
Relationship to John of Gaunt
Chaucer
was a close friend of John of Gaunt, the wealthy Duke of Lancaster and father
of Henry IV, and he served under Lancaster's patronage. Near the end of their
lives, Lancaster and Chaucer became brothers-in-law when Lancaster married
Katherine Swynford (de Roet) in 1396; she was the sister of Philippa (de) Roet,
whom Chaucer had married in 1366.
Chaucer's
The Book of the Duchess (also known as the Deeth of Blaunche the Duchesse) was
written in commemoration of Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's first wife.
The poem refers to John and Blanche in allegory as the narrator relates the
tale of "A long castel with walles white/Be Seynt Johan, on a ryche
hil" (1318–1319) who is mourning grievously after the death of his love,
"And goode faire White she het/That was my lady name ryght" (948–949).
The phrase "long castel" is a reference to Lancaster (also called
"Loncastel" and "Longcastell"), "walles white" is
thought to be an oblique reference to Blanche, "Seynt Johan" was John
of Gaunt's name-saint, and "ryche hil" is a reference to Richmond.
These references reveal the identity of the grieving black knight of the poem
as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Richmond. "White" is
the English translation of the French word "blanche", implying that
the white lady was Blanche of Lancaster.
Poem Fortune
Chaucer's
short poem Fortune, believed to have been written in the 1390s, is also thought
to refer to Lancaster. "Chaucer as narrator" openly defies Fortune,
proclaiming that he has learned who his enemies are through her tyranny and
deceit, and declares "my suffisaunce"
and that "over himself hath the maystrye".
Fortune, in turn, does not understand Chaucer's harsh
words to her for she believes that she has been kind to him, claims that he
does not know what she has in store for him in the future, but most importantly,
"And eek thou hast thy beste frend alyve". Chaucer retorts, "My
frend maystow nat reven, blind goddesse"
and orders her to take away those who merely pretend to be his friends.
Fortune
turns her attention to three princes whom she implores to relieve Chaucer of
his pain and "Preyeth his beste frend of his noblesse/That to som beter
estat he may atteyne". The three princes are believed to represent the
dukes of Lancaster, York, and Gloucester, and a portion of line 76 ("as
three of you or tweyne") is thought to refer to the ordinance of 1390
which specified that no royal gift could be authorised without the consent of
at least two of the three dukes.
Most
conspicuous in this short poem is the number of references to Chaucer's
"beste frend". Fortune states three times in her response to the
plaintiff, "And also, you still have your best friend alive"; she
also refers to his "beste frend" in the envoy when appealing to his
"noblesse" to help Chaucer to a higher estate. The narrator makes a
fifth reference when he rails at Fortune that she shall not take his friend
from him.
Religious beliefs
Chaucer seems to have respected and admired
Christians and to have been one himself, though he also recognised that many
people in the church were venal and corrupt. He wrote in Canterbury Tales,
"now I beg all those that listen to this little treatise, or read it, that
if there be anything in it that pleases them, they thank our Lord Jesus Christ
for it, from whom proceeds all understanding and goodness."
Descendants
and posthumous reputation of Geoffrey Chaucer
Information
concerning Chaucer’s children is not fully clear. The probability is that he
and Philippa had two sons and two daughters. One son, Thomas Chaucer, who died
in 1434, owned large tracts of land and held important offices in the 1420s,
including the forestership of North Petherton. He later leased Chaucer’s house
in Westminster, and his twice-widowed daughter Alice became duchess of Suffolk.
In 1391 Chaucer had written Treatise on the Astrolabe for “little Lewis,”
probably his younger son, then 10 years old. Elizabeth “Chaucy,” probably the
poet’s daughter, was a nun at Barking in 1381. A second probable daughter,
Agnes Chaucer, was a lady-in-waiting at Henry IV’s coronation in 1399. The records
lend some support to speculation that John of Gaunt fathered one or more of
these children. Chaucer seems to have had no descendants living after the 15th
century.
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