GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

I. LIFE OF CHAUCER.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER1 was the son of John Chaucer,2 a London vintner. He was born probably a little before 1340, and if his father had the same wife and the same

1 An attempt has recently been made to derive the name Chaucer from Chauffe-cire, i.e. Chaff-wax, the name of an official charged with making impressions from the large seals then in use. But Mr. R. E. G. Kirk writes: 'After considering all that has been written on the subject I think preference must be given to the view that it originally meant "shoemaker." It was the French form of the Latin "calcearius," a term used in early French records for a follower of St. Crispin. As this Latin form was not used in England, so far as we know, we may infer that the Chaucers came over from France, perhaps in the reign of Henry III., when the name is first met with; and they probably came with wines, for they traded here as vintners, having apparently abandoned their primitive occupation; yet some of these vintners, including Chaucer's immediate ancestors, took up their abode in Cordwainer Street, London, the settlement of the English shoemakers, or "cordubanarii (Life Records of Chaucer, IV., by R. E. G. Kirk, 1900, p. vii). Thames Street, where the poet was probably born, was in the vintners' ward.

2 John Chaucer was himself the son of a Robert le Chaucer, who in 1310 was one of the collectors of Customs in the Port of London. In 1324 John Chaucer (his father being then dead, and his mother

xi

house then as some years later, the poet's mother was a certain Agnes, niece of Hamo de Compton, and his birthplace was in Thames Street. John Chaucer at one period acted as deputy to the King's Butler in the port of Southampton, and he may have had some slight influence at court. In any case our first certain information about the poet is a record of some clothes supplied to him while in the household of Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Ulster, in her own right, and wife of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. Fragments of her Household Accounts, accidentally preserved, show that in April, 1357, when the Countess was in London, a short cloak, a pair of red and black breeches, and shoes, were then provided for Geoffrey Chaucer at a cost of seven shillings.1 In December of the same year, when the Countess was at her house at Hatfield, in Yorkshire, two shillings and sixpence were paid to Geoffrey Chaucer "for necessaries for Christmas." These sums are small compared to other similar payments recorded, and probably show that having married a Richard le Chaucer) was carried away by some kinsfolk who wished to marry him to a wife of their own choosing, apparently in order to secure the wardship of a small property near Ipswich to which he was entitled. For this they were fined heavily and from a petition which they subsequently presented to Parliament for the fine to be reduced, we learn that in 1328 John Chaucer was still unmarried. Geoffrey Chaucer, therefore, cannot have been born in that year as used formerly to be stated. The reasons for fixing his birth at a little before 1340 are (1) his own statement in the Scrope suit that he was "forty years old and more" in 1386, and (2) the probability that he was only a lad while in the service of the Countess of Ulster.

1The purchasing power of money in Chaucer's day is variously estimated as between ten and fifteen times what it is now.

Chaucer did not hold any very high position in the Countess's household.

In 1386 the poet was a witness in a suit between Richard, Lord Scrope, and Sir Robert de Grosvenor, as to the right to a certain coat of arms. In his evidence he said that he had himself borne arms for twenty-seven years, i.e. since 1359, and that he had then, when before the town of "Retters" (Rethel, near Rheims), seen Henry le Scrope using the coat in question, until he himself was taken prisoner. From another document we learn that on 1st March, 1360, Edward III. contributed the then considerable sum of £16 to Chaucer's ransom, and it is probable that either before he went to the war, or soon after his release, the poet was taken into the King's Household, for in 1367 the King, in consideration of his past and future services, granted him a pension of twenty marks 1 as one of the Yeomen of his Chamber. Two years later we hear of Chaucer as one of the King's Esquires "of less degree."

1

In 1369 Chaucer received an advance of £10 from the Keeper of the King's Wardrobe 'at the beginning of the war' with France, but this need not imply that he took any part in the campaign. The following year he was abroad on the King's service, though we do not know where or on what employment. In November, 1372, he was joined in a commission with two citizens of Genoa, to treat with the Duke, citizens, and merchants of that place for the choice of some port in England where Genoese merchants might settle and trade. For his expenses he was allowed an advance of 100 marks, and

1£13 6s. 8d., or upwards of £200 present value. equal to 13s. 4d.

One mark is