66 conditions of our language, and that it is not in any true sense a composite" language. The following are, perhaps, the most useful divisions:— 1. H CHAPTER III. CHAUCER. 'IS AGE.-Chaucer's life fills the reigns of Edward III., Richard II., and one year of Henry IV. It was in the fourteenth century that the two elements of the nation, the Norman and the Saxon, became firmly welded into one English people. The chief agent in this union was the war in France, waged by Edward III. In this war the English (Saxons) and the Normans learned to respect each other. The Saxon footmen and bowmen learned to appreciate the skill and the chivalrous courage of their Norman leaders; the Normans learned to appreciate the stubborn courage and unyielding steadiness of their Saxon soldiers. The Norman element of the nation was rapidly becoming English in feeling and in language. The English language had gained a lasting triumph over Norman-French; and, in 1362, an Act was passed which substituted English for French in courts of law, in schools, and in other public places. In 1380, the Bible was translated into English by Wiclif. The translation before used in churches was in Latin. The "Saxon" race was rising from its depression: Edward III. was the king of England; he had gained the victories of Crecy and Poitiers; he was engaged in building Windsor Castle, by the help of men from all parts of his kingdom; Londoners had seen David Bruce King of Scotland and John King of France, prisoners in the capital; Edward had defied the pope and refused the old tribute; and new powers and new ideas were everywhere stirring throughout the country. The age and the language were fitted for the appearance of a great poet. 2. GEOFFREY CHAUCER was born in London in 1340, six years before the battle of Crecy. His father was probably one Richard Chaucer, a vintner, of London. The name is Norman, and is found on the roll of Battle Abbey. He probably studied at Cambridge, and perhaps at Oxford also; and there is some evidence for believing that he was intended for the bar, and that he was a member of the Middle Temple. He seems to have joined Edward III.'s army in 1359, at the age of nineteen; and, during this campaign, he was made prisoner at the siege of Rhétiers. He was set free at the "Great Peace," which was made by Edward at Brétigny, near Chartres (1360). 3. In 1367, at the age of twenty-seven, he was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber, or "valet," as it was then called, with a pension of twenty marks for life. Nominally, a mark was only 13s. 4d. of our present money. But, as a good horse at that time was sold for 18s. 4d., as a fat sheep cost 2s., and the wages of a master carpenter amounted to only 3d. a day, it is probable that twenty marks, in the fourteenth century, could buy as much as £130 in the latter half of the nineteenth. In 1374, he married a lady of the Queen's chamber, Philippa de Roet, the daughter of Sir Paon de Roet, a knight of Hainault, in Belgium. A sister of this lady, Katherine, married a Sir Hugh Swynford; and she also became the third wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, next to the king himself, the most powerful man in England. Thus Chaucer was brother-inlaw to John of Gaunt, who helped him in every way he could throughout his life. 4. In 1370, at the age of thirty, he was employed in diplomatic service; and from 1370 to 1380, he is mentioned as having been engaged in no less than seven missions. In one of these, in 1372, he was sent to Italy; and on this occasion he visited Florence, Genoa, and Padua. At Arqua, a little village two miles from Padua, he is reported to have met Petrarch, who is said to have told him the story of the Patient Grizell, or Griselda. But it is more probable that Chaucer got the story either from Boccaccio or from Petrarch's Latin translation of Boccaccio. In 1374, he was appointed Comptroller of the Customs on Wool, Hides, Leather, and Wine, in the port of London; and the entries in the books were made by his own hand. In 1377, he was sent to France with Sir Guichard d'Angle, afterwards Earl of Huntingdon, to negotiate a secret treaty for the marriage of Richard, Prince of Wales, with Mary, the daughter of the king of France. In 1377, Edward III. died; Richard II. succeeded to the throne; and Chaucer was appointed one of the king's esquires. 5. In the year 1382, he was made Comptroller of the Petty Customs, but he also retained his office of Comptroller of the Customs of Wool and Wine, He was allowed to employ a deputy, so that he had plenty of leisure for drawing up the rough sketch of his Canterbury Tales. In 1386, he was member of parliament for Kent, or, as it is still called in law, knight of the shire. The term is still retained in this century; and the member for a county is still girt with a sword by the sheriff on his nomination as member. This year marks the height of Chaucer's worldly prosperity. With his salary and his pensions (which included one of £10 a year for life from John of Gaunt), his allowances from the Court (among others a pitcher of wine a day), he was now a rich man. In 1387, he is said to have retired to Woodstock, and to have there begun his Canterbury Tales. 6. But a terrible blow was soon to fall upon him. Richard II. was in his minority; John of Gaunt, Chaucer's friend and patron, was abroad; and the government fell into the hands of the regent, the Duke of Gloucester, an enemy of Chaucer. On the 1st of December, he was dismissed from all the offices he held. This misfortune reduced him from wealth to comparative poverty; and in the same year his wife died. He was in debt too, and had to assign his two pensions to one John Scalby. But, soon after, Richard II. dismissed his council and broke up the regency; the Lancastrian party returned to power, and Chaucer was appointed Clerk of the King s Works at Westminster and at Windsor. But he did not keep this office for more than a year; and his only income seems to have been his £10 a year from John of Gaunt. 7. In 1394, Richard II. bestowed on him a pension of £20 a year for life. In 1399, Henry IV. supplanted Richard, and Chaucer's pension was doubled. On Christmas Eve of 1399, Chaucer signed an agreement for the lease for fifty-three years of a house in the garden of the Chapel of St Mary, Westminster. He was now nearly sixty years of age; and it is probable he signed this lease in the interests of his second son, Thomas. His eldest son, Lewis, had died young; and he does not seem to have had more than two children. Thomas lived to be one of the richest men in England; and his greatgrandson through the female line, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was named by Richard III. heir apparent to the English crown. Chaucer died in the house he had leased in Westminster on the 25th of October, 1400. 8. Chaucer was a large, stout man; face small, fair, and bright with intelligence; soft and meditative eyes, somewhat dazed by read |