CHAUCER, GEOFFREY, the father of English poetry-, was b. most probably about 1340, though the traditional date is 1328. Recent researches have made it clear that C. was the son of John Chaucer, a London vintner. It has been said that he studied at Cambridge, and afterwards removed to Oxford. While at the university, he wrote The Court of ,,oce, and The Book of Troilus and Cresseide. At one period he seems to have turned his attention to law, and to have become a member of the Inner Temple. About these matters his biographers, knowing little, have conjectured much. The only partic ular of C.'s youth of which an anxious posterity can be certified is, that he one day thrashed a Franciscan friar in Fleet street, and was fined two shillings for the exploit on the next. History has preserved this for us, but has forgotten all the rest of his early life, and the chronology of all his poems.
In 1359, C. assures us, on his own authority, that he served under Edward III. in his French campaign, and was therein made prisoner. The date of his return from captivity, and of his subsequent marriage, cannot now be ascertained. He espoused Philippa, youngest daughter of sir Payne Roet, whose estates lay in Hainault. His wife's sister, Katherine, ultimately became the wife of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancas ter; and it may be presumed that the high connection thus established aided, in no incon siderable degree, the poet's advancement in life. After his marriage, he began to mix in public affairs. He was sent on an embassy to Genoa in 1372, and, on that occasion, has been supposed by some to have had an interview with Petrarch, then residing at Padua, and to have heard from his lips the story of Griselda. On his return, he was appointed controller of the customs for wools, and in the same year the king granted him a pitcher of wine daily for life. In 1377, C. proceeded to Flanders in the retinue of sir Thomas Percy, afterwards earl of Worcester; and for several years thereafter he was employed assiduously in embassies and other business connected with the public service. In 1380, a commission was issued to hiquire into alleged abuses in the department of the customs, and C. was dismissed from his controllership in the Dec. of that year. On meeting this fact, one cannot help remembering that Edward made the writing out of the accounts in C.'s own hand the condition of his holding office. Had the great poet neglected his duties? It has been conjectured by some, that after his disgrace C. became embarrassed in circumstances, and apparently with reason, for about this time he canceled both his pensions, and consigned them to one John Scalby, "to whom they ,were probably sold under pressure of distress," says his latest biographer. In 1387, C.
Jost his wife. Where he spent his closing years, cannot now be ascertained. Godwin surmises that in his distress he retired to Woodstock, and composed there The Canter bury Tales. It seems, however, to be tolerably certain that during the last years of his life lie was resident in London. There he died on the 25th Oct., 1400, aged 74, and was buried in Westminster abbey, the first of the long line of poets whose ashes make that pile so venerable.
C. was a worthy representative of the splendid 14th century. lie was a master of the science, the theology, and the literature of his time. He had seen many men and cities, and had formed no inconsiderable unit in imposing ceremonies of state. His poems are numerous, and exhibit every variety of poetical excellence. His earlier per formances, such as The Flower and the Leaf, The Romaunt of the Rose, are, after the French fashion then prevalent, gorgeous allegories full of queens and kings, bowers, bevies of beautiful ladies, brave knights, and pious nightingales that sing the praises of God. They appeal potently the eye, but they do not in the slightest degree touch the heart, or relate themselves to human concerns. Quite different The Canterbury Tales, so full of humor, pathos, and shrewd observation. In these tales, English life, as it then existed, is wonderfully reflected—when the king tilted in tournament, when the knight and the lady rode over the down with falcon on wrist, when pilgrimages. bound for the tomb of St. Thomas passed on from village to village, when friars sitting in tavern over wine sang songs that formed a remarkable contrast with the services they so piously and sweetly intoned. All that stirring and gayly appareled time—so different from our own—is seen in C.'s work, as in some magic mirror; and in his case, as in every other, when the superficial tumults and noises that so stun the contemporary ear have faded away, leaving behind that which is elemental and eternal, the poet is found to be the truest historian. Among C.'s other writings may be mentioned, The Book of the Duchess; The House of Fame; and The Legend of Good Women. The genuineness of The Court of Lore and of The Flower and the Leaf is denied by Mr. Furnivall, and by Mr. Skeat in his new edition of C. (4 vols., 1878).