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- NOT in point of genius only, but even in point of time, Chaucer
- may claim the proud designation of "first" English poet. He
- wrote "The Court of Love" in 1345, and "The Romaunt of the
- Rose," if not also "Troilus and Cressida," probably within the
- next decade: the dates usually assigned to the poems of
- Laurence Minot extend from 1335 to 1355, while "The Vision
- of Piers Plowman" mentions events that occurred in 1360 and
- 1362 -- before which date Chaucer had certainly written "The
- Assembly of Fowls" and his "Dream." But, though they were
- his contemporaries, neither Minot nor Langland (if Langland
- was the author of the Vision) at all approached Chaucer in the
- finish, the force, or the universal interest of their works and the
- poems of earlier writer; as Layamon and the author of the
- "Ormulum," are less English than Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-
- Norman. Those poems reflected the perplexed struggle for
- supremacy between the two grand elements of our language,
- which marked the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; a struggle
- intimately associated with the political relations between the
- conquering Normans and the subjugated Anglo-Saxons.
- Chaucer found two branches of the language; that spoken by
- the people, Teutonic in its genius and its forms; that spoken by
- the learned and the noble, based on the French Yet each branch
- had begun to borrow of the other -- just as nobles and people
- had been taught to recognise that each needed the other in the
- wars and the social tasks of the time; and Chaucer, a scholar, a
- courtier, a man conversant with all orders of society, but
- accustomed to speak, think, and write in the words of the
- highest, by his comprehensive genius cast into the simmering
- mould a magical amalgamant which made the two half-hostile
- elements unite and interpenetrate each other. Before Chaucer
- wrote, there were two tongues in England, keeping alive the
- feuds and resentments of cruel centuries; when he laid down his
- pen, there was practically but one speech -- there was, and ever
- since has been, but one people.
- Geoffrey Chaucer, according to the most trustworthy traditions-
- for authentic testimonies on the subject are wanting -- was born
- in 1328; and London is generally believed to have been his
- birth-place. It is true that Leland, the biographer of England's
- first great poet who lived nearest to his time, not merely speaks
- of Chaucer as having been born many years later than the date
- now assigned, but mentions Berkshire or Oxfordshire as the
- scene of his birth. So great uncertainty have some felt on the
- latter score, that elaborate parallels have been drawn between
- Chaucer, and Homer -- for whose birthplace several cities
- contended, and whose descent was traced to the demigods.
- Leland may seem to have had fair opportunities of getting at the
- truth about Chaucer's birth -- for Henry VIII had him, at the
- suppression of the monasteries throughout England, to search
- for records of public interest the archives of the religious
- houses. But it may be questioned whether he was likely to find
- many authentic particulars regarding the personal history of the
- poet in the quarters which he explored; and Leland's testimony
- seems to be set aside by Chaucer's own evidence as to his
- birthplace, and by the contemporary references which make him
- out an aged man for years preceding the accepted date of his
- death. In one of his prose works, "The Testament of Love," the
- poet speaks of himself in terms that strongly confirm the claim
- of London to the honour of giving him birth; for he there
- mentions "the city of London, that is to me so dear and sweet,
- in which I was forth growen; and more kindly love," says he,
- "have I to that place than to any other in earth; as every kindly
- creature hath full appetite to that place of his kindly engendrure,
- and to will rest and peace in that place to abide." This tolerably
- direct evidence is supported -- so far as it can be at such an
- interval of time -- by the learned Camden; in his Annals of
- Queen Elizabeth, he describes Spencer, who was certainly born
- in London, as being a fellow-citizen of Chaucer's -- "Edmundus
- Spenserus, patria Londinensis, Musis adeo arridentibus natus, ut
- omnes Anglicos superioris aevi poetas, ne Chaucero quidem
- concive excepto, superaret." <1> The records of the time notice
- more than one person of the name of Chaucer, who held
- honourable positions about the Court; and though we cannot
- distinctly trace the poet's relationship with any of these
- namesakes or antecessors, we find excellent ground for belief
- that his family or friends stood well at Court, in the ease with
- which Chaucer made his way there, and in his subsequent
- career.
- Like his great successor, Spencer, it was the fortune of Chaucer
- to live under a splendid, chivalrous, and high-spirited reign.
- 1328 was the second year of Edward III; and, what with Scotch
- wars, French expeditions, and the strenuous and costly struggle
- to hold England in a worthy place among the States of Europe,
- there was sufficient bustle, bold achievement, and high ambition
- in the period to inspire a poet who was prepared to catch the
- spirit of the day. It was an age of elaborate courtesy, of high-
- paced gallantry, of courageous venture, of noble disdain for
- mean tranquillity; and Chaucer, on the whole a man of peaceful
- avocations, was penetrated to the depth of his consciousness
- with the lofty and lovely civil side of that brilliant and restless
- military period. No record of his youthful years, however,
- remains to us; if we believe that at the age of eighteen he was a
- student of Cambridge, it is only on the strength of a reference in
- his "Court of Love", where the narrator is made to say that his
- name is Philogenet, "of Cambridge clerk;" while he had already
- told us that when he was stirred to seek the Court of Cupid he
- was "at eighteen year of age." According to Leland, however,
- he was educated at Oxford, proceeding thence to France and
- the Netherlands, to finish his studies; but there remains no
- certain evidence of his having belonged to either University. At
- the same time, it is not doubted that his family was of good
- condition; and, whether or not we accept the assertion that his
- father held the rank of knighthood -- rejecting the hypotheses
- that make him a merchant, or a vintner "at the corner of Kirton
- Lane" -- it is plain, from Chaucer's whole career, that he had
- introductions to public life, and recommendations to courtly
- favour, wholly independent of his genius. We have the clearest
- testimony that his mental training was of wide range and
- thorough excellence, altogether rare for a mere courtier in those
- days: his poems attest his intimate acquaintance with the
- divinity, the philosophy, and the scholarship of his time, and
- show him to have had the sciences, as then developed and
- taught, "at his fingers' ends." Another proof of Chaucer's good
- birth and fortune would he found in the statement that, after his
- University career was completed, he entered the Inner Temple -
- - the expenses of which could be borne only by men of noble
- and opulent families; but although there is a story that he was
- once fined two shillings for thrashing a Franciscan friar in Fleet
- Street, we have no direct authority for believing that the poet
- devoted himself to the uncongenial study of the law. No special
- display of knowledge on that subject appears in his works; yet
- in the sketch of the Manciple, in the Prologue to the Canterbury
- Tales, may be found indications of his familiarity with the
- internal economy of the Inns of Court; while numerous legal
- phrases and references hint that his comprehensive information
- was not at fault on legal matters. Leland says that he quitted the
- University "a ready logician, a smooth rhetorician, a pleasant
- poet, a grave philosopher, an ingenious mathematician, and a
- holy divine;" and by all accounts, when Geoffrey Chaucer
- comes before us authentically for the first time, at the age of
- thirty-one, he was possessed of knowledge and
- accomplishments far beyond the common standard of his day.
- Chaucer at this period possessed also other qualities fitted to
- recommend him to favour in a Court like that of Edward III.
- Urry describes him, on the authority of a portrait, as being then
- "of a fair beautiful complexion, his lips red and full, his size of a
- just medium, and his port and air graceful and majestic. So,"
- continues the ardent biographer, -- "so that every ornament that
- could claim the approbation of the great and fair, his abilities to
- record the valour of the one, and celebrate the beauty of the
- other, and his wit and gentle behaviour to converse with both,
- conspired to make him a complete courtier." If we believe that
- his "Court of Love" had received such publicity as the literary
- media of the time allowed in the somewhat narrow and select
- literary world -- not to speak of "Troilus and Cressida," which,
- as Lydgate mentions it first among Chaucer's works, some have
- supposed to be a youthful production -- we find a third and not
- less powerful recommendation to the favour of the great co-
- operating with his learning and his gallant bearing. Elsewhere
- <2> reasons have been shown for doubt whether "Troilus and
- Cressida" should not be assigned to a later period of Chaucer's
- life; but very little is positively known about the dates and
- sequence of his various works. In the year 1386, being called as
- witness with regard to a contest on a point of heraldry between
- Lord Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor, Chaucer deposed that
- he entered on his military career in 1359. In that year Edward
- III invaded France, for the third time, in pursuit of his claim to
- the French crown; and we may fancy that, in describing the
- embarkation of the knights in "Chaucer's Dream", the poet
- gained some of the vividness and stir of his picture from his
- recollections of the embarkation of the splendid and well-
- appointed royal host at Sandwich, on board the eleven hundred
- transports provided for the enterprise. In this expedition the
- laurels of Poitiers were flung on the ground; after vainly
- attempting Rheims and Paris, Edward was constrained, by cruel
- weather and lack of provisions, to retreat toward his ships; the
- fury of the elements made the retreat more disastrous than an
- overthrow in pitched battle; horses and men perished by
- thousands, or fell into the hands of the pursuing French.
- Chaucer, who had been made prisoner at the siege of Retters,
- was among the captives in the possession of France when the
- treaty of Bretigny -- the "great peace" -- was concluded, in
- May, 1360. Returning to England, as we may suppose, at the
- peace, the poet, ere long, fell into another and a pleasanter
- captivity; for his marriage is generally believed to have taken
- place shortly after his release from foreign durance. He had
- already gained the personal friendship and favour of John of
- Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the King's son; the Duke, while Earl
- of Richmond, had courted, and won to wife after a certain
- delay, Blanche, daughter and co-heiress of Henry Duke of
- Lancaster; and Chaucer is by some believed to have written
- "The Assembly of Fowls" to celebrate the wooing, as he wrote
- "Chaucer's Dream" to celebrate the wedding, of his patron. The
- marriage took place in 1359, the year of Chaucer's expedition to
- France; and as, in "The Assembly of Fowls," the formel or
- female eagle, who is supposed to represent the Lady Blanche,
- begs that her choice of a mate may be deferred for a year, 1358
- and 1359 have been assigned as the respective dates of the two
- poems already mentioned. In the "Dream," Chaucer
- prominently introduces his own lady-love, to whom, after the
- happy union of his patron with the Lady Blanche, he is wedded
- amid great rejoicing; and various expressions in the same poem
- show that not only was the poet high in favour with the
- illustrious pair, but that his future wife had also peculiar claims
- on their regard. She was the younger daughter of Sir Payne
- Roet, a native of Hainault, who had, like many of his
- countrymen, been attracted to England by the example and
- patronage of Queen Philippa. The favourite attendant on the
- Lady Blanche was her elder sister Katherine: subsequently
- married to Sir Hugh Swynford, a gentleman of Lincolnshire;
- and destined, after the death of Blanche, to be in succession
- governess of her children, mistress of John of Gaunt, and
- lawfully-wedded Duchess of Lancaster. It is quite sufficient
- proof that Chaucer's position at Court was of no mean
- consequence, to find that his wife, the sister of the future
- Duchess of Lancaster, was one of the royal maids of honour,
- and even, as Sir Harris Nicolas conjectures, a god-daughter of
- the Queen -- for her name also was Philippa.
- Between 1359, when the poet himself testifies that he was made
- prisoner while bearing arms in France, and September 1366,
- when Queen Philippa granted to her former maid of honour, by
- the name of Philippa Chaucer, a yearly pension of ten marks, or
- L6, 13s. 4d., we have no authentic mention of Chaucer, express
- or indirect. It is plain from this grant that the poet's marriage
- with Sir Payne Roet's daughter was not celebrated later than
- 1366; the probability is, that it closely followed his return from
- the wars. In 1367, Edward III. settled upon Chaucer a life-
- pension of twenty marks, "for the good service which our
- beloved Valet -- 'dilectus Valettus noster' -- Geoffrey Chaucer
- has rendered, and will render in time to come." Camden
- explains 'Valettus hospitii' to signify a Gentleman of the Privy
- Chamber; Selden says that the designation was bestowed "upon
- young heirs designed to he knighted, or young gentlemen of
- great descent and quality." Whatever the strict meaning of the
- word, it is plain that the poet's position was honourable and
- near to the King's person, and also that his worldly
- circumstances were easy, if not affluent -- for it need not be said
- that twenty marks in those days represented twelve or twenty
- times the sum in these. It is believed that he found powerful
- patronage, not merely from the Duke of Lancaster and his wife,
- but from Margaret Countess of Pembroke, the King's daughter.
- To her Chaucer is supposed to have addressed the "Goodly
- Ballad", in which the lady is celebrated under the image of the
- daisy; her he is by some understood to have represented under
- the title of Queen Alcestis, in the "Court of Love" and the
- Prologue to "The Legend of Good Women;" and in her praise
- we may read his charming descriptions and eulogies of the daisy
- -- French, "Marguerite," the name of his Royal patroness. To
- this period of Chaucer's career we may probably attribute the
- elegant and courtly, if somewhat conventional, poems of "The
- Flower and the Leaf," "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale," &c.
- "The Lady Margaret," says Urry, ". . . would frequently
- compliment him upon his poems. But this is not to be meant of
- his Canterbury Tales, they being written in the latter part of his
- life, when the courtier and the fine gentleman gave way to solid
- sense and plain descriptions. In his love-pieces he was obliged
- to have the strictest regard to modesty and decency; the ladies
- at that time insisting so much upon the nicest punctilios of
- honour, that it was highly criminal to depreciate their sex, or do
- anything that might offend virtue." Chaucer, in their estimation,
- had sinned against the dignity and honour of womankind by his
- translation of the French "Roman de la Rose," and by his
- "Troilus and Cressida" -- assuming it to have been among his
- less mature works; and to atone for those offences the Lady
- Margaret (though other and older accounts say that it was the
- first Queen of Richard II., Anne of Bohemia), prescribed to him
- the task of writing "The Legend of Good Women" (see
- introductory note to that poem). About this period, too, we
- may place the composition of Chaucer's A. B. C., or The Prayer
- of Our Lady, made at the request of the Duchess Blanche, a
- lady of great devoutness in her private life. She died in 1369;
- and Chaucer, as he had allegorised her wooing, celebrated her
- marriage, and aided her devotions, now lamented her death, in a
- poem entitled "The Book of the Duchess; or, the Death of
- Blanche.<3>
- In 1370, Chaucer was employed on the King's service abroad;
- and in November 1372, by the title of "Scutifer noster" -- our
- Esquire or Shield-bearer -- he was associated with "Jacobus
- Pronan," and "Johannes de Mari civis Januensis," in a royal
- commission, bestowing full powers to treat with the Duke of
- Genoa, his Council, and State. The object of the embassy was
- to negotiate upon the choice of an English port at which the
- Genoese might form a commercial establishment; and Chaucer,
- having quitted England in December, visited Genoa and
- Florence, and returned to England before the end of November
- 1373 -- for on that day he drew his pension from the Exchequer
- in person. The most interesting point connected with this Italian
- mission is the question, whether Chaucer visited Petrarch at
- Padua. That he did, is unhesitatingly affirmed by the old
- biographers; but the authentic notices of Chaucer during the
- years 1372-1373, as shown by the researches of Sir Harris
- Nicolas, are confined to the facts already stated; and we are left
- to answer the question by the probabilities of the case, and by
- the aid of what faint light the poet himself affords. We can
- scarcely fancy that Chaucer, visiting Italy for the first time, in a
- capacity which opened for him easy access to the great and the
- famous, did not embrace the chance of meeting a poet whose
- works he evidently knew in their native tongue, and highly
- esteemed. With Mr Wright, we are strongly disinclined to
- believe "that Chaucer did not profit by the opportunity . . . of
- improving his acquaintance with the poetry, if not the poets, of
- the country he thus visited, whose influence was now being felt
- on the literature of most countries of Western Europe." That
- Chaucer was familiar with the Italian language appears not
- merely from his repeated selection as Envoy to Italian States,
- but by many passages in his poetry, from "The Assembly of
- Fowls" to "The Canterbury Tales." In the opening of the first
- poem there is a striking parallel to Dante's inscription on the
- gate of Hell. The first Song of Troilus, in "Troilus and
- Cressida", is a nearly literal translation of Petrarch's 88th
- Sonnet. In the Prologue to "The Legend of Good Women",
- there is a reference to Dante which can hardly have reached the
- poet at second- hand. And in Chaucer's great work -- as in The
- Wife of Bath's Tale, and The Monk's Tale -- direct reference by
- name is made to Dante, "the wise poet of Florence," "the great
- poet of Italy," as the source whence the author has quoted.
- When we consider the poet's high place in literature and at
- Court, which could not fail to make him free of the hospitalities
- of the brilliant little Lombard States; his familiarity with the
- tongue and the works of Italy's greatest bards, dead and living;
- the reverential regard which he paid to the memory of great
- poets, of which we have examples in "The House of Fame," and
- at the close of "Troilus and Cressida" <4>; along with his own
- testimony in the Prologue to The Clerk's Tale, we cannot fail to
- construe that testimony as a declaration that the Tale was
- actually told to Chaucer by the lips of Petrarch, in 1373, the
- very year in which Petrarch translated it into Latin, from
- Boccaccio's "Decameron."<5> Mr Bell notes the objection to
- this interpretation, that the words are put into the mouth, not of
- the poet, but of the Clerk; and meets it by the counter-
- objection, that the Clerk, being a purely imaginary personage,
- could not have learned the story at Padua from Petrarch -- and
- therefore that Chaucer must have departed from the dramatic
- assumption maintained in the rest of the dialogue. Instances
- could be adduced from Chaucer's writings to show that such a
- sudden "departure from the dramatic assumption" would not be
- unexampled: witness the "aside" in The Wife of Bath's
- Prologue, where, after the jolly Dame has asserted that "half so
- boldly there can no man swear and lie as a woman can", the
- poet hastens to interpose, in his own person, these two lines:
- "I say not this by wives that be wise,
- But if it be when they them misadvise."
- And again, in the Prologue to the "Legend of Good Women,"
- from a description of the daisy --
- "She is the clearness and the very light,
- That in this darke world me guides and leads,"
- the poet, in the very next lines, slides into an address to his lady:
- "The heart within my sorrowful heart you dreads
- And loves so sore, that ye be, verily,
- The mistress of my wit, and nothing I," &c.
- When, therefore, the Clerk of Oxford is made to say that he will
- tell a tale --
- "The which that I
- Learn'd at Padova of a worthy clerk,
- As proved by his wordes and his werk.
- He is now dead, and nailed in his chest,
- I pray to God to give his soul good rest.
- Francis Petrarc', the laureate poete,
- Highte this clerk, whose rhetoric so sweet
- Illumin'd all Itaile of poetry. . . .
- But forth to tellen of this worthy man,
- That taughte me this tale, as I began." . . .
- we may without violent effort believe that Chaucer speaks in his
- own person, though dramatically the words are on the Clerk's
- lips. And the belief is not impaired by the sorrowful way in
- which the Clerk lingers on Petrarch's death -- which would be
- less intelligible if the fictitious narrator had only read the story
- in the Latin translation, than if we suppose the news of
- Petrarch's death at Arqua in July 1374 to have closely followed
- Chaucer to England, and to have cruelly and irresistibly mingled
- itself with our poet's personal recollections of his great Italian
- contemporary. Nor must we regard as without significance the
- manner in which the Clerk is made to distinguish between the
- "body" of Petrarch's tale, and the fashion in which it was set
- forth in writing, with a proem that seemed "a thing
- impertinent", save that the poet had chosen in that way to
- "convey his matter" -- told, or "taught," so much more directly
- and simply by word of mouth. It is impossible to pronounce
- positively on the subject; the question whether Chaucer saw
- Petrarch in 1373 must remain a moot-point, so long as we have
- only our present information; but fancy loves to dwell on the
- thought of the two poets conversing under the vines at Arqua;
- and we find in the history and the writings of Chaucer nothing
- to contradict, a good deal to countenance, the belief that such a
- meeting occurred.
- Though we have no express record, we have indirect testimony,
- that Chaucer's Genoese mission was discharged satisfactorily;
- for on the 23d of April 1374, Edward III grants at Windsor to
- the poet, by the title of "our beloved squire" -- dilecto Armigero
- nostro -- unum pycher. vini, "one pitcher of wine" daily, to be
- "perceived" in the port of London; a grant which, on the
- analogy of more modern usage, might he held equivalent to
- Chaucer's appointment as Poet Laureate. When we find that
- soon afterwards the grant was commuted for a money payment
- of twenty marks per annum, we need not conclude that
- Chaucer's circumstances were poor; for it may be easily
- supposed that the daily "perception" of such an article of
- income was attended with considerable prosaic inconvenience.
- A permanent provision for Chaucer was made on the 8th of
- June 1374, when he was appointed Controller of the Customs in
- the Port of London, for the lucrative imports of wools, skins or
- "wool-fells," and tanned hides -- on condition that he should
- fulfil the duties of that office in person and not by deputy, and
- should write out the accounts with his own hand. We have
- what seems evidence of Chaucer's compliance with these terms
- in "The House of Fame", where, in the mouth of the eagle, the
- poet describes himself, when he has finished his labour and
- made his reckonings, as not seeking rest and news in social
- intercourse, but going home to his own house, and there, "all so
- dumb as any stone," sitting "at another book," until his look is
- dazed; and again, in the record that in 1376 he received a grant
- of L731, 4s. 6d., the amount of a fine levied on one John Kent,
- whom Chaucer's vigilance had frustrated in the attempt to ship a
- quantity of wool for Dordrecht without paying the duty. The
- seemingly derogatory condition, that the Controller should
- write out the accounts or rolls ("rotulos") of his office with his
- own hand, appears to have been designed, or treated, as merely
- formal; no records in Chaucer's handwriting are known to exist
- -- which could hardly be the case if, for the twelve years of his
- Controllership (1374-1386), he had duly complied with the
- condition; and during that period he was more than once
- employed abroad, so that the condition was evidently regarded
- as a formality even by those who had imposed it. Also in 1374,
- the Duke of Lancaster, whose ambitious views may well have
- made him anxious to retain the adhesion of a man so capable
- and accomplished as Chaucer, changed into a joint life-annuity
- remaining to the survivor, and charged on the revenues of the
- Savoy, a pension of L10 which two years before he settled on
- the poet's wife -- whose sister was then the governess of the
- Duke's two daughters, Philippa and Elizabeth, and the Duke's
- own mistress. Another proof of Chaucer's personal reputation
- and high Court favour at this time, is his selection (1375) as
- ward to the son of Sir Edmond Staplegate of Bilsynton, in Kent;
- a charge on the surrender of which the guardian received no
- less a sum than L104.
- We find Chaucer in 1376 again employed on a foreign mission.
- In 1377, the last year of Edward III., he was sent to Flanders
- with Sir Thomas Percy, afterwards Earl of Worcester, for the
- purpose of obtaining a prolongation of the truce; and in January
- 13738, he was associated with Sir Guichard d'Angle and other
- Commissioners, to pursue certain negotiations for a marriage
- between Princess Mary of France and the young King Richard
- II., which had been set on foot before the death of Edward III.
- The negotiation, however, proved fruitless; and in May 1378,
- Chaucer was selected to accompany Sir John Berkeley on a
- mission to the Court of Bernardo Visconti, Duke of Milan, with
- the view, it is supposed, of concerting military plans against the
- outbreak of war with France. The new King, meantime, had
- shown that he was not insensible to Chaucer's merit -- or to the
- influence of his tutor and the poet's patron, the Duke of
- Lancaster; for Richard II. confirmed to Chaucer his pension of
- twenty marks, along with an equal annual sum, for which the
- daily pitcher of wine granted in 1374 had been commuted.
- Before his departure for Lombardy, Chaucer -- still holding his
- post in the Customs -- selected two representatives or trustees,
- to protect his estate against legal proceedings in his absence, or
- to sue in his name defaulters and offenders against the imposts
- which he was charged to enforce. One of these trustees was
- called Richard Forrester; the other was John Gower, the poet,
- the most famous English contemporary of Chaucer, with whom
- he had for many years been on terms of admiring friendship --
- although, from the strictures passed on certain productions of
- Gower's in the Prologue to The Man of Law's Tale,<6> it has
- been supposed that in the later years of Chaucer's life the
- friendship suffered some diminution. To the "moral Gower" and
- "the philosophical Strode," Chaucer "directed" or dedicated his
- "Troilus and Cressida;" <7> while, in the "Confessio Amantis,"
- Gower introduces a handsome compliment to his greater
- contemporary, as the "disciple and the poet" of Venus, with
- whose glad songs and ditties, made in her praise during the
- flowers of his youth, the land was filled everywhere. Gower,
- however -- a monk and a Conservative -- held to the party of
- the Duke of Gloucester, the rival of the Wycliffite and
- innovating Duke of Lancaster, who was Chaucer's patron, and
- whose cause was not a little aided by Chaucer's strictures on the
- clergy; and thus it is not impossible that political differences
- may have weakened the old bonds of personal friendship and
- poetic esteem. Returning from Lombardy early in 1379,
- Chaucer seems to have been again sent abroad; for the records
- exhibit no trace of him between May and December of that
- year. Whether by proxy or in person, however, he received his
- pensions regularly until 1382, when his income was increased
- by his appointment to the post of Controller of Petty Customs
- in the port of London. In November 1384, he obtained a
- month's leave of absence on account of his private affairs, and a
- deputy was appointed to fill his place; and in February of the
- next year he was permitted to appoint a permanent deputy --
- thus at length gaining relief from that close attention to business
- which probably curtailed the poetic fruits of the poet's most
- powerful years. <8>
- Chaucer is next found occupying a post which has not often
- been held by men gifted with his peculiar genius -- that of a
- county member. The contest between the Dukes of Gloucester
- and Lancaster, and their adherents, for the control of the
- Government, was coming to a crisis; and when the recluse and
- studious Chaucer was induced to offer himself to the electors of
- Kent as one of the knights of their shire -- where presumably he
- held property -- we may suppose that it was with the view of
- supporting his patron's cause in the impending conflict. The
- Parliament in which the poet sat assembled at Westminster on
- the 1st of October, and was dissolved on the 1st of November,
- 1386. Lancaster was fighting and intriguing abroad, absorbed in
- the affairs of his Castilian succession; Gloucester and his friends
- at home had everything their own way; the Earl of Suffolk was
- dismissed from the woolsack, and impeached by the Commons;
- and although Richard at first stood out courageously for the
- friends of his uncle Lancaster, he was constrained, by the refusal
- of supplies, to consent to the proceedings of Gloucester. A
- commission was wrung from him, under protest, appointing
- Gloucester, Arundel, and twelve other Peers and prelates, a
- permanent council to inquire into the condition of all the public
- departments, the courts of law, and the royal household, with
- absolute powers of redress and dismissal. We need not ascribe
- to Chaucer's Parliamentary exertions in his patron's behalf, nor
- to any malpractices in his official conduct, the fact that he was
- among the earliest victims of the commission.<9> In December
- 1386, he was dismissed from both his offices in the port of
- London; but he retained his pensions, and drew them regularly
- twice a year at the Exchequer until 1388. In 1387, Chaucer's
- political reverses were aggravated by a severe domestic
- calamity: his wife died, and with her died the pension which had
- been settled on her by Queen Philippa in 1366, and confirmed to
- her at Richard's accession in 1377. The change made in
- Chaucer's pecuniary position, by the loss of his offices and his
- wife's pension, must have been very great. It would appear that
- during his prosperous times he had lived in a style quite equal to
- his income, and had no ample resources against a season of
- reverse; for, on the 1st of May 1388, less than a year and a half
- after being dismissed from the Customs, he was constrained to
- assign his pensions, by surrender in Chancery, to one John
- Scalby. In May 1389, Richard II., now of age, abruptly
- resumed the reins of government, which, for more than two
- years, had been ably but cruelly managed by Gloucester. The
- friends of Lancaster were once more supreme in the royal
- councils, and Chaucer speedily profited by the change. On the
- 12th of July he was appointed Clerk of the King's Works at the
- Palace of Westminster, the Tower, the royal manors of
- Kennington, Eltham, Clarendon, Sheen, Byfleet, Childern
- Langley, and Feckenham, the castle of Berkhamstead, the royal
- lodge of Hathenburgh in the New Forest, the lodges in the
- parks of Clarendon, Childern Langley, and Feckenham, and the
- mews for the King's falcons at Charing Cross; he received a
- salary of two shillings per day, and was allowed to perform the
- duties by deputy. For some reason unknown, Chaucer held this
- lucrative office <10> little more than two years, quitting it
- before the 16th of September 1391, at which date it had passed
- into the hands of one John Gedney. The next two years and a
- half are a blank, so far as authentic records are concerned;
- Chaucer is supposed to have passed them in retirement,
- probably devoting them principally to the composition of The
- Canterbury Tales. In February 1394, the King conferred upon
- him a grant of L20 a year for life; but he seems to have had no
- other source of income, and to have become embarrassed by
- debt, for frequent memoranda of small advances on his pension
- show that his circumstances were, in comparison, greatly
- reduced. Things appear to have grown worse and worse with
- the poet; for in May 1398 he was compelled to obtain from the
- King letters of protection against arrest, extending over a term
- of two years. Not for the first time, it is true -- for similar
- documents had been issued at the beginning of Richard's reign;
- but at that time Chaucer's missions abroad, and his responsible
- duties in the port of London, may have furnished reasons for
- securing him against annoyance or frivolous prosecution, which
- were wholly wanting at the later date. In 1398, fortune began
- again to smile upon him; he received a royal grant of a tun of
- wine annually, the value being about L4. Next year, Richard II
- having been deposed by the son of John of Gaunt <11> --
- Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster -- the new King, four
- days after hits accession, bestowed on Chaucer a grant of forty
- marks (L26, 13s. 4d.) per annum, in addition to the pension of
- L20 conferred by Richard II. in 1394. But the poet, now
- seventy-one years of age, and probably broken down by the
- reverses of the past few years, was not destined long to enjoy
- his renewed prosperity. On Christmas Eve of 1399, he entered
- on the possession of a house in the garden of the Chapel of the
- Blessed Mary of Westminster -- near to the present site of
- Henry VII.'s Chapel -- having obtained a lease from Robert
- Hermodesworth, a monk of the adjacent convent, for fifty-three
- years, at the annual rent of four marks (L2, 13s. 4d.) Until the
- 1st of March 1400, Chaucer drew his pensions in person; then
- they were received for him by another hand; and on the 25th of
- October, in the same year, he died, at the age of seventy-two.
- The only lights thrown by his poems on his closing days are
- furnished in the little ballad called "Good Counsel of Chaucer,"
- -- which, though said to have been written when "upon his
- death-bed lying in his great anguish, "breathes the very spirit of
- courage, resignation, and philosophic calm; and by the
- "Retractation" at the end of The Canterbury Tales, which, if it
- was not foisted in by monkish transcribers, may be supposed the
- effect of Chaucer's regrets and self-reproaches on that solemn
- review of his life-work which the close approach of death
- compelled. The poet was buried in Westminster Abbey; <12>
- and not many years after his death a slab was placed on a pillar
- near his grave, bearing the lines, taken from an epitaph or
- eulogy made by Stephanus Surigonus of Milan, at the request of
- Caxton:
- "Galfridus Chaucer, vates, et fama poesis
- Maternae, hoc sacra sum tumulatus humo." <13>
- About 1555, Mr Nicholas Brigham, a gentleman of Oxford who
- greatly admired the genius of Chaucer, erected the present
- tomb, as near to the spot where the poet lay, "before the chapel
- of St Benet," as was then possible by reason of the "cancelli,"
- <14> which the Duke of Buckingham subsequently obtained
- leave to remove, that room might be made for the tomb of
- Dryden. On the structure of Mr Brigham, besides a full-length
- representation of Chaucer, taken from a portrait drawn by his
- "scholar" Thomas Occleve, was -- or is, though now almost
- illegible -- the following inscription:--
- M. S.
- QUI FUIT ANGLORUM VATES TER MAXIMUS OLIM,
- GALFRIDUS CHAUCER CONDITUR HOC TUMULO;
- ANNUM SI QUAERAS DOMINI, SI TEMPORA VITAE,
- ECCE NOTAE SUBSUNT, QUE TIBI CUNCTA NOTANT.
- 25 OCTOBRIS 1400.
- AERUMNARUM REQUIES MORS.
- N. BRIGHAM HOS FECIT MUSARUM NOMINE SUMPTUS
- 1556. <15>
- Concerning his personal appearance and habits, Chaucer has not
- been reticent in his poetry. Urry sums up the traits of his aspect
- and character fairly thus: "He was of a middle stature, the latter
- part of his life inclinable to be fat and corpulent, as appears by
- the Host's bantering him in the journey to Canterbury, and
- comparing shapes with him.<16> His face was fleshy, his
- features just and regular, his complexion fair, and somewhat
- pale, his hair of a dusky yellow, short and thin; the hair of his
- beard in two forked tufts, of a wheat colour; his forehead broad
- and smooth; his eyes inclining usually to the ground, which is
- intimated by the Host's words; his whole face full of liveliness, a
- calm, easy sweetness, and a studious Venerable aspect. . . . As
- to his temper, he had a mixture of the gay, the modest, and the
- grave. The sprightliness of his humour was more distinguished
- by his writings than by his appearance; which gave occasion to
- Margaret Countess of Pembroke often to rally him upon his
- silent modesty in company, telling him, that his absence was
- more agreeable to her than his conversation, since the first was
- productive of agreeable pieces of wit in his writings, <17> but
- the latter was filled with a modest deference, and a too distant
- respect. We see nothing merry or jocose in his behaviour with
- his pilgrims, but a silent attention to their mirth, rather than any
- mixture of his own. . . When disengaged from public affairs, his
- time was entirely spent in study and reading; so agreeable to
- him was this exercise, that he says he preferred it to all other
- sports and diversions.<18> He lived within himself, neither
- desirous to hear nor busy to concern himself with the affairs of
- his neighbours. His course of living was temperate and regular;
- he went to rest with the sun, and rose before it; and by that
- means enjoyed the pleasures of the better part of the day, his
- morning walk and fresh contemplations. This gave him the
- advantage of describing the morning in so lively a manner as he
- does everywhere in his works. The springing sun glows warm in
- his lines, and the fragrant air blows cool in his descriptions; we
- smell the sweets of the bloomy haws, and hear the music of the
- feathered choir, whenever we take a forest walk with him. The
- hour of the day is not easier to be discovered from the reflection
- of the sun in Titian's paintings, than in Chaucer's morning
- landscapes. . . . His reading was deep and extensive, his
- judgement sound and discerning. . . In one word, he was a great
- scholar, a pleasant wit, a candid critic, a sociable companion, a
- steadfast friend, a grave philosopher, a temperate economist,
- and a pious Christian."
- Chaucer's most important poems are "Troilus and Cressida,"
- "The Romaunt of the Rose," and "The Canterbury Tales." Of
- the first, containing 8246 lines, an abridgement, with a prose
- connecting outline of the story, is given in this volume. With the
- second, consisting of 7699 octosyllabic verses, like those in
- which "The House of Fame" is written, it was found impossible
- to deal in the present edition. The poem is a curtailed translation
- from the French "Roman de la Rose" -- commenced by
- Guillaume de Lorris, who died in 1260, after contributing 4070
- verses, and completed, in the last quarter of the thirteenth
- century, by Jean de Meun, who added some 18,000 verses. It is
- a satirical allegory, in which the vices of courts, the corruptions
- of the clergy, the disorders and inequalities of society in general,
- are unsparingly attacked, and the most revolutionary doctrines
- are advanced; and though, in making his translation, Chaucer
- softened or eliminated much of the satire of the poem, still it
- remained, in his verse, a caustic exposure of the abuses of the
- time, especially those which discredited the Church.
- The Canterbury Tales are presented in this edition with as near
- an approach to completeness as regard for the popular character
- of the volume permitted. The 17,385 verses, of which the
- poetical Tales consist, have been given without abridgement or
- purgation -- save in a single couplet; but, the main purpose of
- the volume being to make the general reader acquainted with
- the "poems" of Chaucer and Spenser, the Editor has ventured to
- contract the two prose Tales -- Chaucer's Tale of Meliboeus,
- and the Parson's Sermon or Treatise on Penitence -- so as to
- save about thirty pages for the introduction of Chaucer's minor
- pieces. At the same time, by giving prose outlines of the omitted
- parts, it has been sought to guard the reader against the fear
- that he was losing anything essential, or even valuable. It is
- almost needless to describe the plot, or point out the literary
- place, of the Canterbury Tales. Perhaps in the entire range of
- ancient and modern literature there is no work that so clearly
- and freshly paints for future times the picture of the past;
- certainly no Englishman has ever approached Chaucer in the
- power of fixing for ever the fleeting traits of his own time. The
- plan of the poem had been adopted before Chaucer chose it;
- notably in the "Decameron" of Boccaccio -- although, there, the
- circumstances under which the tales were told, with the terror
- of the plague hanging over the merry company, lend a grim
- grotesqueness to the narrative, unless we can look at it
- abstracted from its setting. Chaucer, on the other hand, strikes
- a perpetual key-note of gaiety whenever he mentions the word
- "pilgrimage;" and at every stage of the connecting story we
- bless the happy thought which gives us incessant incident,
- movement, variety, and unclouded but never monotonous
- joyousness.
- The poet, the evening before he starts on a pilgrimage to the
- shrine of St Thomas at Canterbury, lies at the Tabard Inn, in
- Southwark, curious to know in what companionship he is
- destined to fare forward on the morrow. Chance sends him
- "nine and twenty in a company," representing all orders of
- English society, lay and clerical, from the Knight and the Abbot
- down to the Ploughman and the Sompnour. The jolly Host of
- the Tabard, after supper, when tongues are loosened and hearts
- are opened, declares that "not this year" has he seen such a
- company at once under his roof-tree, and proposes that, when
- they set out next morning, he should ride with them and make
- them sport. All agree, and Harry Bailly unfolds his scheme: each
- pilgrim, including the poet, shall tell two tales on the road to
- Canterbury, and two on the way back to London; and he whom
- the general voice pronounces to have told the best tale, shall be
- treated to a supper at the common cost -- and, of course, to
- mine Host's profit -- when the cavalcade returns from the saint's
- shrine to the Southwark hostelry. All joyously assent; and early
- on the morrow, in the gay spring sunshine, they ride forth,
- listening to the heroic tale of the brave and gentle Knight, who
- has been gracefully chosen by the Host to lead the spirited
- competition of story-telling.
- To describe thus the nature of the plan, and to say that when
- Chaucer conceived, or at least began to execute it, he was
- between sixty and seventy years of age, is to proclaim that The
- Canterbury Tales could never be more than a fragment. Thirty
- pilgrims, each telling two tales on the way out, and two more
- on the way back -- that makes 120 tales; to say nothing of the
- prologue, the description of the journey, the occurrences at
- Canterbury, "and all the remnant of their pilgrimage," which
- Chaucer also undertook. No more than twenty-three of the 120
- stories are told in the work as it comes down to us; that is, only
- twenty-three of the thirty pilgrims tell the first of the two stories
- on the road to Canterbury; while of the stories on the return
- journey we have not one, and nothing is said about the doings
- of the pilgrims at Canterbury -- which would, if treated like the
- scene at the Tabard, have given us a still livelier "picture of the
- period." But the plan was too large; and although the poet had
- some reserves, in stories which he had already composed in an
- independent form, death cut short his labour ere he could even
- complete the arrangement and connection of more than a very
- few of the Tales. Incomplete as it is, however, the magnum
- opus of Chaucer was in his own time received with immense
- favour; manuscript copies are numerous even now -- no slight
- proof of its popularity; and when the invention of printing was
- introduced into England by William Caxton, The Canterbury
- Tales issued from his press in the year after the first English-
- printed book, "The Game of the Chesse," had been struck off.
- Innumerable editions have since been published; and it may
- fairly be affirmed, that few books have been so much in favour
- with the reading public of every generation as this book, which
- the lapse of every generation has been rendering more
- unreadable.
- Apart from "The Romaunt of the Rose," no really important
- poetical work of Chaucer's is omitted from or unrepresented in
- the present edition. Of "The Legend of Good Women," the
- Prologue only is given -- but it is the most genuinely Chaucerian
- part of the poem. Of "The Court of Love," three-fourths are
- here presented; of "The Assembly of Fowls," "The Cuckoo and
- the Nightingale," "The Flower and the Leaf," all; of "Chaucer's
- Dream," one-fourth; of "The House of Fame," two-thirds; and
- of the minor poems such a selection as may give an idea of
- Chaucer's power in the "occasional" department of verse.
- Necessarily, no space whatever could be given to Chaucer's
- prose works -- his translation of Boethius' Treatise on the
- Consolation of Philosophy; his Treatise on the Astrolabe,
- written for the use of his son Lewis; and his "Testament of
- Love," composed in his later years, and reflecting the troubles
- that then beset the poet. If, after studying in a simplified form
- the salient works of England's first great bard, the reader is
- tempted to regret that he was not introduced to a wider
- acquaintance with the author, the purpose of the Editor will
- have been more than attained.
- The plan of the volume does not demand an elaborate
- examination into the state of our language when Chaucer wrote,
- or the nice questions of grammatical and metrical structure
- which conspire with the obsolete orthography to make his
- poems a sealed book for the masses. The most important
- element in the proper reading of Chaucer's verses -- whether
- written in the decasyllabic or heroic metre, which he introduced
- into our literature, or in the octosyllabic measure used with such
- animated effect in "The House of Fame," "Chaucer's Dream,"
- &c. -- is the sounding of the terminal "e" where it is now silent.
- That letter is still valid in French poetry; and Chaucer's lines can
- be scanned only by reading them as we would read Racine's or
- Moliere's. The terminal "e" played an important part in
- grammar; in many cases it was the sign of the infinitive -- the
- "n" being dropped from the end; at other times it pointed the
- distinction between singular and plural, between adjective and
- adverb. The pages that follow, however, being prepared from
- the modern English point of view, necessarily no account is
- taken of those distinctions; and the now silent "e" has been
- retained in the text of Chaucer only when required by the
- modern spelling, or by the exigencies of metre.
- Before a word beginning with a vowel, or with the letter "h,"
- the final "e" was almost without exception mute; and in such
- cases, in the plural forms and infinitives of verbs, the terminal
- "n" is generally retained for the sake of euphony. No reader
- who is acquainted with the French language will find it hard to
- fall into Chaucer's accentuation; while, for such as are not, a
- simple perusal of the text according to the rules of modern
- verse, should remove every difficulty.
- Notes to Life of Geoffrey Chaucer
- 1. "Edmund Spenser, a native of London, was born with a Muse
- of such power, that he was superior to all English poets of
- preceding ages, not excepting his fellow-citizen Chaucer."
- 2. See introduction to "The Legend of Good Women".
- 3. Called in the editions before 1597 "The Dream of Chaucer".
- The poem, which is not included in the present edition, does
- indeed, like many of Chaucer's smaller works, tell the story of a
- dream, in which a knight, representing John of Gaunt, is found
- by the poet mourning the loss of his lady; but the true "Dream
- of Chaucer," in which he celebrates the marriage of his patron,
- was published for the first time by Speght in 1597. John of
- Gaunt, in the end of 1371, married his second wife, Constance,
- daughter to Pedro the Cruel of Spain; so that "The Book of the
- Duchess" must have been written between 1369 and 1371.
- 4. Where he bids his "little book"
- "Subject be unto all poesy,
- And kiss the steps, where as thou seest space,
- Of Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan, Stace."
- 5. See note 1 to The Tale in The Clerk's Tale.
- 6. See note 1 to The Man of Law's Tale.
- 7. "Written," says Mr Wright, "in the sixteenth year of the reign
- of Richard II. (1392-1393);" a powerful confirmation of the
- opinion that this poem was really produced in Chaucer's mature
- age. See the introductory notes to it and to the Legend of Good
- Women.
- 8. The old biographers of Chaucer, founding on what they took
- to be autobiographic allusions in "The Testament of Love,"
- assign to him between 1354 and 1389 a very different history
- from that here given on the strength of authentic records
- explored and quoted by Sir H. Nicolas. Chaucer is made to
- espouse the cause of John of Northampton, the Wycliffite Lord
- Mayor of London, whose re-election in 1384 was so
- vehemently opposed by the clergy, and who was imprisoned in
- the sequel of the grave disorders that arose. The poet, it is said,
- fled to the Continent, taking with him a large sum of money,
- which he spent in supporting companions in exile; then,
- returning by stealth to England in quest of funds, he was
- detected and sent to the Tower, where he languished for three
- years, being released only on the humiliating condition of
- informing against his associates in the plot. The public records
- show, however, that, all the time of his alleged exile and
- captivity, he was quietly living in London, regularly drawing his
- pensions in person, sitting in Parliament, and discharging his
- duties in the Customs until his dismissal in 1386. It need not be
- said, further, that although Chaucer freely handled the errors,
- the ignorance, and vices of the clergy, he did so rather as a man
- of sense and of conscience, than as a Wycliffite -- and there is
- no evidence that he espoused the opinions of the zealous
- Reformer, far less played the part of an extreme and self-
- regardless partisan of his old friend and college-companion.
- 9. "The Commissioners appear to have commenced their
- labours with examining the accounts of the officers employed in
- the collection of the revenue; and the sequel affords a strong
- presumption that the royal administration [under Lancaster and
- his friends] had been foully calumniated. We hear not of any
- frauds discovered, or of defaulters punished, or of grievances
- redressed." Such is the testimony of Lingard (chap. iv., 1386),
- all the more valuable for his aversion from the Wycliffite
- leanings of John of Gaunt. Chaucer's department in the London
- Customs was in those days one of the most important and
- lucrative in the kingdom; and if mercenary abuse of his post
- could have been proved, we may be sure that his and his
- patron's enemies would not have been content with simple
- dismissal, but would have heavily amerced or imprisoned him.
- 10. The salary was L36, 10s. per annum; the salary of the Chief
- Judges was L40, of the Puisne Judges about L27. Probably the
- Judges -- certainly the Clerk of the Works -- had fees or
- perquisites besides the stated payment.
- 11. Chaucer's patron had died earlier in 1399, during the exile
- of his son (then Duke of Hereford) in France. The Duchess
- Constance had died in 1394; and the Duke had made reparation
- to Katherine Swynford -- who had already borne him four
- children -- by marrying her in 1396, with the approval of
- Richard II., who legitimated the children, and made the eldest
- son of the poet's sister-in-law Earl of Somerset. From this long-
- illicit union sprang the house of Beaufort -- that being the
- surname of the Duke's children by Katherine, after the name of
- the castle in Anjou (Belfort, or Beaufort) where they were born.
- 12. Of Chaucer's two sons by Philippa Roet, his only wife, the
- younger, Lewis, for whom he wrote the Treatise on the
- Astrolabe, died young. The elder, Thomas, married Maud, the
- second daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Burghersh, brother
- of the Bishop of Lincoln, the Chancellor and Treasurer of
- England. By this marriage Thomas Chaucer acquired great
- estates in Oxfordshire and elsewhere; and he figured
- prominently in the second rank of courtiers for many years. He
- was Chief Butler to Richard II.; under Henry IV. he was
- Constable of Wallingford Castle, Steward of the Honours of
- Wallingford and St Valery, and of the Chiltern Hundreds; and
- the queen of Henry IV. granted him the farm of several of her
- manors, a grant subsequently confirmed to him for life by the
- King, after the Queen's death. He sat in Parliament repeatedly
- for Oxfordshire, was Speaker in 1414, and in the same year
- went to France as commissioner to negotiate the marriage of
- Henry V. with the Princess Katherine. He held, before he died
- in 1434, various other posts of trust and distinction; but he left
- no heirs-male. His only child, Alice Chaucer, married twice;
- first Sir John Philip; and afterwards the Duke of Suffolk --
- attainted and beheaded in 1450. She had three children by the
- Duke; and her eldest son married the Princess Elizabeth, sister
- of Edward IV. The eldest son of this marriage, created Earl of
- Lincoln, was declared by Richard III heir-apparent to the
- throne, in case the Prince of Wales should die without issue; but
- the death of Lincoln himself, at the battle of Stoke in 1487,
- destroyed all prospect that the poet's descendants might
- succeed to the crown of England; and his family is now believed
- to be extinct.
- 13. "Geoffrey Chaucer, bard, and famous mother of poetry, is
- buried in this sacred ground."
- 14. Railings.
- 15 Translation of the epitaph: This tomb was built for Geoffrey
- Chaucer, who in his time was the greatest poet of the English. If
- you ask the year of his death, behold the words beneath, which
- tell you all. Death gave him rest from his toil, 25th of October
- 1400. N Brigham bore the cost of these words in the name of
- the Muses. 1556.
- 16. See the Prologue to Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas.
- 17. See the "Goodly Ballad of Chaucer," seventh stanza.
- 18. See the opening of the Prologue to "The Legend of Good
- Women," and the poet's account of his habits in "The House of
- Fame".
- THE CANTERBURY TALES.
- THE PROLOGUE.
- WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot*, *sweet
- The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
- And bathed every vein in such licour,
- Of which virtue engender'd is the flower;
- When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath
- Inspired hath in every holt* and heath *grove, forest
- The tender croppes* and the younge sun *twigs, boughs
- Hath in the Ram <1> his halfe course y-run,
- And smalle fowles make melody,
- That sleepen all the night with open eye,
- (So pricketh them nature in their corages*); *hearts, inclinations
- Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages,
- And palmers <2> for to seeke strange strands,
- To *ferne hallows couth* in sundry lands; *distant saints known*<3>
- And specially, from every shire's end
- Of Engleland, to Canterbury they wend,
- The holy blissful Martyr for to seek,
- That them hath holpen*, when that they were sick. *helped
- Befell that, in that season on a day,
- In Southwark at the Tabard <4> as I lay,
- Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage
- To Canterbury with devout corage,
- At night was come into that hostelry
- Well nine and twenty in a company
- Of sundry folk, *by aventure y-fall *who had by chance fallen
- In fellowship*, and pilgrims were they all, into company.* <5>
- That toward Canterbury woulde ride.
- The chamber, and the stables were wide,
- And *well we weren eased at the best.* *we were well provided
- And shortly, when the sunne was to rest, with the best*
- So had I spoken with them every one,
- That I was of their fellowship anon,
- And made forword* early for to rise, *promise
- To take our way there as I you devise*. *describe, relate
- But natheless, while I have time and space,
- Ere that I farther in this tale pace,
- Me thinketh it accordant to reason,
- To tell you alle the condition
- Of each of them, so as it seemed me,
- And which they weren, and of what degree;
- And eke in what array that they were in:
- And at a Knight then will I first begin.
- A KNIGHT there was, and that a worthy man,
- That from the time that he first began
- To riden out, he loved chivalry,
- Truth and honour, freedom and courtesy.
- Full worthy was he in his Lorde's war,
- And thereto had he ridden, no man farre*, *farther
- As well in Christendom as in Heatheness,
- And ever honour'd for his worthiness
- At Alisandre <6> he was when it was won.
- Full often time he had the board begun
- Above alle nations in Prusse.<7>
- In Lettowe had he reysed,* and in Russe, *journeyed
- No Christian man so oft of his degree.
- In Grenade at the siege eke had he be
- Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie. <8>
- At Leyes was he, and at Satalie,
- When they were won; and in the Greate Sea
- At many a noble army had he be.
- At mortal battles had he been fifteen,
- And foughten for our faith at Tramissene.
- In listes thries, and aye slain his foe.
- This ilke* worthy knight had been also *same <9>
- Some time with the lord of Palatie,
- Against another heathen in Turkie:
- And evermore *he had a sovereign price*. *He was held in very
- And though that he was worthy he was wise, high esteem.*
- And of his port as meek as is a maid.
- He never yet no villainy ne said
- In all his life, unto no manner wight.
- He was a very perfect gentle knight.
- But for to telle you of his array,
- His horse was good, but yet he was not gay.
- Of fustian he weared a gipon*, *short doublet
- Alle *besmotter'd with his habergeon,* *soiled by his coat of mail.*
- For he was late y-come from his voyage,
- And wente for to do his pilgrimage.
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