THE AGE OF CHAUCER 59 bered as the author of three important works. The Speculum Meditantis, or the Mirror of One Meditating, was written in French. His second work, the Vox Clamantis, or the Voice of One Crying, is a Latin poem in hexameter and pentameter verse; it was composed just after the rebellion under Wat Tyler and Jack Straw in 1381, and pictures the condition of society and moralizes on its ills. Gower's third production is the Confessio Amantis, or the Lover's Confession; this is in English, and is a poetical collection of tales bound together by a story-thread in the style of Boccaccio's Decameron and of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It seems to have been written about 1385. Although a studious and industrious writer, John Gower was not a model story-teller; his tales are too dull to hold the interest of present-day readers, and by the side of Chaucer he occupies an inferior place. III. THE AGE OF CHAUCER. The beginnings of English literature as we have traced them seem to belong to the shadow-land of a dim past. The makers of that early literature are often nameless, and the personality of many whose names are known is vaguely indistinct. It is as though we saw men only through the mists of a gray, chill twilight before the dawn. In the latter half of the fourteenth century, however, there comes a burst of sunlight that brightens and warms every reader's heart. Men move in a visible and a familiar world; they speak in hearty English tones. We know them for our kinsfolk, although the modulations and the accent strike somewhat strangely on our ears. There is the song of lark and throstle. The breath of an English May is in the atmosphere. It is the age of Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer's "Poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Rise odors of plowed field or flowery mead." 1 The England of Chaucer's day was the England of Edward III., of Richard II., and of Henry England. IV. The great Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, was himself the poet's patron and protector. It was a confused but eventful epoch in English history, a period of foreign war and civil strife. When Geoffrey Chaucer was a boy of five or six, the English won the historic victory of Crécy; ten years later he was old enough to shout with the rest over the news of Poictiers, and to join in the tumult of triumph when the Black Prince led his pikesmen and his archers through the crowded London streets, with the king of France, a royal prisoner, riding at his side. At nineteen Chaucer was himself a soldier, fighting on French soil in maintenance of Edward's claim to France. The commotions which attended the rise of the Lancastrians affected directly the fortunes of the poet, and the accession of John of Gaunt's son to the throne occurred a twelvemonth before Chaucer's death. Society. In appearance England was still medieval. The age of chivalry was in its very flower. The knight, attended by esquire and yeomen, rode abroad, engaged in crusade or on private quarrel, fought the pagans of the Orient, or contended in the lists with knights of other nations for the glory of his own. Rural England was gradually developing. Manor houses, with all the barns and buildings of a fertile, prosperous countryside, are more typical of this age than the heavy threatening towers and ramparts of 1 Longfellow's sonnet, Chaucer. LUXURY AND EXTRAVAGANCE 61 the northern castles, now gray with time. In these more peaceful abodes of the well-to-do franklins, or free landholders, the gentry of a later day, - was dispensed a hospitality as abundant as it was rude. Along the highways moved a picturesque procession, typical of English life: chapmen or peddlers, dickering with perhaps a ploughman, or with some village girl or gossip more curious for news than wares; merchants riding busily, somewhat wrapped in thoughts of trade; soldiers, farm hands, mendicant friars, officers of the law, minstrels, pilgrims, - wayfarers of varying rank and class. And men in buckram suits, or Kendal green, harbored in the tracts of forest wilderness, or slunk behind the thickets at the roadside; it was safer to travel in company than alone. trava In the world of trade the merchant-companies, or guilds, such as the merchant-tailors, the fish- Luxury mongers, or the goldsmiths' companies, en- and Exjoyed a prestige and privilege which made gance. them a political as well as a commercial power. Under Edward III. they received the right to elect members to Parliament. Wealthy merchants lent large sums of money to the king. English travelers, not only those engaged in trade, or dispatched on official errands, but sightseers, pilgrims, pleasure seekers, were found in every country of Europe; they observed closely and intelligently, and became conversant with the customs and literatures of foreign lands. Often they imitated or imported the luxuries enjoyed abroad. Edward III. played chess on a board of jasper and crystal silver-mounted. He gave his daughter Margaret a wedding present of 2000 pearls, and to his mistress, Alice Perrers, 20,000 large pearls in a single gift. Fine gothic structures rise; splendid tapestries adorn the walls of the rich; beautiful windows of stained glass admit the light. The newer houses of the wealthy now have chimneys. Singular dishes are concocted for the luxurious taste of the time. Hens and rabbits are prepared chopped together with almonds, raisins, sugar, ginger, herbs, onions, rice-flour - the whole colored with saffron. Peacocks are roasted and served in their own plumage. Along with this extravagance of table there are incongruities in etiquette, and an absence of many simple conveniences, indispensable to-day, that impress us, perhaps unduly, with the uncouth crudities of the age. Forks are not yet invented; one holds his meat with his left hand and carves with his right. We find one particular cook commended because he does not scratch his head or wipe his plates with his tongue. There is an extreme frankness in habits and in speech on the part of both women and men. What to us ap pears grossly out of place to both eye and ear is in many cases tolerated without a thought. On the whole the position of woman is not altogether enviable. Evils of the Time. Moreover, there were many contrasts and some strong shadows in English life during Edward's brilliant and extravagant reign. The Church had fallen on evil times; its corruption was notorious even among the people themselves. Already, in the protests of Langland and the threatenings of Wyclif, the spirit of the Reformation had begun to speak, but the fullness of time had not yet come. The great abbeys supported a luxury no less extravagant than that of the castle. The sensual, ease-loving monks, the shrewd and conscienceless priests, the pardoners with their gross impostures, the friars pertinaciously begging their vagabond way over England - these classes furnished types. which were deemed fairly representative of the time, and which appealed to others than Chaucer as the bane of rich and poor alike. Happily, now and then was found some poor parish priest, benignant, humble, devoted to his flock, versed in the spirit as in the letter of the Word, forgetful of his own needs in errands of mercy, himself a safe example to the sheep, following faithfully the precepts that he taught, a veritable shepherd and no hireling. Among the common people were many troublous signs. There was a great gulf between rich and poor, who had little in common except the air they breathed. But that air was English air, and when the abuse of power became too gross, or the callous indifference of the one class to the woes of the other intolerable, there were outbreaks and revolts. Wat the Tyler was a day laborer, yet the rebellion he headed in 1381 threw the entire south of England into the turmoil of war. The commons were beginning to feel their strength and to clamor for rights. London was a populous and busy city-then, as now, the heart of England's life. Upon the London. broad surface of the Thames floated ships from the Mediterranean and the Baltic, some of them laden with the silks and spices of the East. Wharves and warehouses are piled with English products, wool, skins, cloth, metals, butter, and cheese, consignments to Germany and Russia, to France and Spain. Shipmen and customs officers, merchants and exchangers, tradesmen, carters, travelers, men with foreign faces, mingle in confused activity. The river is the main thoroughfare as well for rowboats and barges, which convey business men and pleasure parties from point to point. Near one extreme of the town is Westminster; near the eastern limit rises the historic Tower. St. Paul's, a gothic structure, stands between the two, not far from the riverside and near the approach to Lon |