CHAPTER I. CHAUCER. IN the history of most literatures, excellence is found to develop in poetry sooner than in prose, and the first great name in English literature is that of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. He The story of his life is little known. Born in or about 1340, he must have grown up among the triumphs of Crecy and Poitiers. His father was a wine merchant who had close relations with the king (it must be remembered that Chaucer's London was smaller than Bath is today). Geoffrey Chaucer was placed at court, and we find documentary proof that in 1357 he was attached to the household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife to Edward III.'s second son. saw service in France, was captured and ransomed by Edward. By 1367 he was a valet of the king's own chamber, and in the next year was promoted Esquire. In 1372 he was sent on an embassy to Pisa and Genoa to treat concerning the settlement of Genoese traders in England--and this mission, we shall see, was of immense importance in his literary life. Seemingly in reward for his services, he was appointed Comptroller of the Customs in the port of London. He was sent abroad on A diplomatic missions, to Flanders in 1377, and in 1378 again to Italy. He had married, probably before 1366, a lady in waiting of the Countess of Ulster's household, who as well as himself enjoyed a pension. It is probable that she was sister to the second wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; it is, at all events, certain that John of Gaunt was Chaucer's special patron at Court, and perhaps the first of his original poems was The Dethe of Blaunche the Duchesse, an allegorical lament for John of Gaunt's first wife, who died in 1369. It will be seen that Chaucer lived a much occupied life. First a courtier, with some experience of soldiering; then a diplomat rewarded with a post in what we should now call the Civil Service, to which was added in 1382 the Comptrollership of the Petty Customs. Up to 1386, therefore, he was a busy and a successful man. But in that year John of Gaunt's influence at the Court of the young king Richard II. waned, and Chaucer, falling with his patron, was dismissed from his offices. It was probably in April of this year that he made his pilgrimage to Canterbury. For the rest of his life, though he was given certain small employments, and in 1394 a small pension, he was a courtier in disgrace and in distress for money. He was a widower also, though we have no reason to believe that he specially regretted his wife. The latest of his compositions which can be dated with certainty is, The Compleynt of Chaucer to his Purse, addressed to Henry IV. after his usurpation of the throne in 1399: To you, my purse, and to noon other wyght Compleyne I, for ye be my lady dere! I am so sory, now that ye been light ; For, certes, but ye make me hevy chere, Me were as leef be leyd up-on my bere; For whiche unto your mercy thus I crye: Beth hevy ageyn, or elles mot I dye! |