Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, writer and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since become Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his ten-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in public service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat and member of the Parliament of England, having been elected as a shire knight for Kent.
Amongst his other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde, and Parlement of Foules. A prolific writer, Chaucer has been seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. His contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage". Almost two thousand English words are first attested in Chaucerian manuscripts.
Life
Origin
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London, most likely in the early 1340s, though the precise date and location remain unknown. His great-grandfather Andrew de Chaucer was a tavern keeper, his grandfather Robert Malyn le Chaucer worked as a purveyor of wines, and his father, John Chaucer, rose to become an important wine merchant with a royal appointment. Several previous generations of Geoffrey Chaucer's family had been vintners and merchants in Ipswich. His surname is derived from the French chaucier, once thought to mean 'shoemaker', but now known to refer to a maker of chausses.In 1324 his future father, John Chaucer, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve-year-old to her daughter in an attempt to keep the Ipswich property in the family. The aunt was imprisoned and fined £250, now equivalent to about £, suggesting the family was financially secure.
John Chaucer married Agnes Copton, who inherited properties in 1349, including 24 shops in London, from her uncle Hamo de Copton, who is described in a will dated 3 April 1354 and listed in the City Hustings Roll as 'moneyer', apparently employed at the Tower of London. In the City Hustings Roll 110, 5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Chaucer refers to himself as me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie, Latin for: "I, Geoffrey Chaucer, son of the vintner John Chaucer, London".
Career
Although records of the lives of Chaucer's contemporaries William Langland and the Gawain Poet are practically non-existent, Chaucer was a public servant whose official life was very well documented. Nearly 500 written items testify to his career. The first of the 'Chaucer Life Records' appears in 1357 in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh, the Countess of Ulster, when he became the noblewoman's page through his father's connections, a common medieval form of apprenticeship for boys into knighthood or prestige appointments. De Burgh was married to Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, the second surviving son of Edward III; this position brought the teenage Chaucer into the close court circle, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He was also employed as a courtier, a diplomat and a civil servant, as well as working for the king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the King's Works.In 1359, in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War, Edward invaded France. Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the English army. In 1360 he was captured during the siege of Reims. The king paid £16 for his ransom,, and Chaucer was released.
File:ChaucerCrest EwelmeChurch Oxfordshire.png|thumb|The Chaucer crest: A unicorn's head with canting arms of Roet below: Gules, three Catherine Wheels or. Ewelme Church, Oxfordshire; possible funeral helm of his son Thomas Chaucer.
Chaucer's life is uncertain following this period. However he seems to have travelled in France, Spain and Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps undertaking the Way of Saint James pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
Around 1366 Chaucer married Philippa Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later became the third wife of John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer, had an illustrious career as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker of the House of Commons. Thomas's daughter Alice married the Duke of Suffolk. Thomas's great-grandson, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was heir to the throne as designated by Richard III before his deposition. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV's coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" was written for the latter.
According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple at this time. He became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de chambre, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment. He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan. Jean Froissart and Petrarch, also notable literary figures, were also in attendance. Around this time, Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess, his first major work, in honour of Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt who died from the plague in 1369.
The next year, Chaucer travelled to Picardy as part of a military expedition; in 1373 he visited Genoa and Florence. Scholars such as Walter William Skeat, Piero Boitani and Beryl Rowland have suggested that it was during the latter excursions that he came into contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio. They acquainted him with mediæval Italian poetry, whose forms and stories he would later employ. The purposes of a trip in 1377 are unclear, as it was known as a time of conflict. Later documents suggest it was a mission to arrange marriage between the future King Richard II and a French princess, thereby ending the Hundred Years' War. Were this the purpose of their trip, they seem to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred.
In 1378 Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy to the Visconti and Sir John Hawkwood, English condottiere in Milan. It has been speculated that it was Hawkwood on whom Chaucer based his character, the Knight, in the Canterbury Tales, for a description matches that of a 14th-century condottiere.
A possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his life" for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but given on a day of celebration, Saint George's Day, 1374, when artistic endeavours were traditionally rewarded, it is assumed to have been for another early poetic work. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the reward, but the suggestion of him as a poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets laureate. Chaucer continued to collect the liquid stipend until Richard II came to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on 18 April 1378.
On 8 June 1374 Chaucer obtained the pivotal appointment as Comptroller of the Customs for the port of London. He was presumably well-received in the occupation: he held the position for twelve years, a lengthy titularship by then. The medievalist David Carlson has described Chaucer's job as "policing the collector... The operating presumption was that the collector would try to cheat, and the comptroller would try to catch him at it; but at the same time, while the comptroller watched the collector, the Exchequer was watching the comptroller, who was evidently expected to try to cheat too". Chaucer appears to have been close to the Court party in politics; of the 11 men prosecuted for treason by the Lords Appellant in 1388, he was an associate of eight.
His life goes undocumented for much of the next ten years, but it is believed that he wrote most of his famous works during this period.
On 16 October 1379 Thomas Staundon filed legal action against his former servant Cecily Chaumpaigne and Chaucer, accusing the latter of unlawfully employing Chaumpaigne before her term of service was completed, in violation of the Statute of Labourers. Though eight court documents dated between October 1379 and July 1380 survive the action, the case was never prosecuted. No details survive about Chaumpaigne's service or how she came to leave Staundon's employ for Chaucer's.
File:Blue plaque, Tabard Inn.jpg|thumb|right|Blue plaque at the site of the Tabard inn in Southwark, London, where in 1386 the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales set off to visit Canterbury Cathedral
While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent, being appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent at a time when French invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He also became a member of parliament for Kent in 1386 and attended the 'Wonderful Parliament' that year. He appears to have been present at most of the 71 days it sat, for which he was paid 24 pounds and nine shillings. On 15 October that year he gave a deposition in the case of Scrope v. Grosvenor. There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife. She is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants, despite the fact that Chaucer knew some of the men executed over the affair quite well.
On 12 July 1389 Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works, a sort of foreman organising most of the king's building projects. No major works were begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St George's Chapel, Windsor, continued building the wharf at the Tower of London and built the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job, but it paid two shillings a day, more than three times his salary as a comptroller. Chaucer was also appointed keeper of the lodge at the King's Park in Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire, which was a largely honorary appointment.