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Geoffrey Chaucer
Poet, Writer
d. 25 October 1400
England in Chaucer's time was a
nation in a social ferment. Medievalism still was a dominant influence in the lives
of Englishmen, but the Renaissance had assumed definite form, and the country stood on
the threshold of the modern world. These were the forces which stood face to face:
the medievalist believed in the spiritual and the abstract, that the community, not
the individual, was the great ideal. Man, the medievalist asserted, had no right to
think for himself or to make judgements, for man was a member of the great spiritual
community, the church catholic and universal. The early Renaissance man believed
in developing his own social groups, and national interests, as opposed to a united
Christendom. In Chaucer's time there were many manifestations of rebellion against
the old order of things. Wycliffe and his
followers were sowing the seeds of the Reformation which placed the emphasis on
the individual. Chaucer's countrymen began thinking of themselves as Englishmen. Yet
the great century of social, political, literary, and religious ferment was nearly
half over when Chaucer was born in 1340.
His father, John Chaucer, was a vintner and deputy to the king's butler. His family's financial success came from work in the wine and leather businesses. Little information exists about his education, but his writings demonstrate a close familiarity with a number of important books of his contemporaries and of earlier times. Chaucer was likely fluent in several languages, including French, Italian and Latin.
In 1348-9 Chaucer and his parents were fortunate to escape infection during the Black Death. The history of this pandemic begins with the arrival from the Middle East of a boat full of dying sailors in Sicily in October 1347. The plague, spread mainly by the fleas carried by infected rats, arrived in coastal towns of England in June 1348, and reached London early in 1349. Within eight months, some two million of England's five million inhabitants were dead. Some villages lost all their inhabitants, in many places more than half died, yet remarkably enough the normal functioning of society was not seriously interrupted. After this, there were regular outbreaks of the plague during Chaucer's lifetime and for centuries after, until the last Great Plague ravaged London in 1665.
Chaucer first appears in public records in 1357 as a member of the house of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster. This was a conventional arrangement in which sons of middle-class households were placed in royal service so that they may obtain a courtly education. Two years later he served in the army under Edward II and was captured during an unsuccessful offensive at Reims, although he was later ransomed. Chaucer served under a number of diplomatic missions. By 1366 he had married Philippa Pan, who had been in service with the Countess of Ulster. He married well for his position, for Philippa Chaucer received an annuity from the queen consort of Edward II. Chaucer himself secured an annuity as yeoman of the king and was listed as one of the king's esquires.
He served under three kings (Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV) and had the trust of all three. Under the first two, he was head of diplomatic missions sent to France, Flanders, Genoa, and Milan to negotiate confidential agreements with those powers. He also held other positions, such as Member of Parliament, Chief of Customs for most items at the Port of London, Keeper of the King's Works (a post which made him responsible for maintenance and upkeep on such buildings as Westminster Palace and the Tower of London), and Subforester of North Pemberton (an office given him in his later years, probably as a sinecure). He died 25 October 1400, the model of a successful administrator, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, in those days an unusual honour for a commoner.
But what everyone remembers about him is his writing. Its worth was recognized while he lived; he was accustomed to read his poems aloud to the Royal Couple and their court. Before William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer was the preeminent English poet, and still retains the position as the most significant poet to write in Middle English.
The two works of his chiefly read today are Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales, the second of these a series of tales told by pilgrims on their way to worship at the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Both have been translated by Nevill Coghill into modern English. Professor Coghill used to appear on request before various groups to read from his Chaucer translations, and, on one occasion which he cherished long after, a lady came up afterwards and said, "That was wonderful. Thank you so much. We are so sorry that Mrs. Chaucer was unable to come with you."
As a Christian, Chaucer was subject to the harbingers of the Renaissance in the form of new ideas entering the late medieval world. He was said by some to be a follower of Wycliffe. Like Wycliffe, Chaucer loved the priestly ideal; and he draws it incomparably in his "Poor Parson of Town". He paints that Plantagenet world as it was, not interfering to make it better, nor to wish it better. While observing the world around him –especially the clergy - with a degree of realism and, some would say, cynicism, Chaucer portrays 14th century England through an essentially Christian lens. His Canterbury Tales have left for future generations a sharply drawn picture of a cross section of typically sinful believers seeking God’s blessing at the shrine of the martyr Thomas à Becket.
Acknowledgements:
Text adapted from James Kiefer's Christian Biographies,
Classic
Notes, Sogang
University,
University of Missouri-Rolla, Catholic Encyclopaedia,
Classic
Notes, Sogang
University
Image from University
of Wisconsin Milwaukee