I.

Do you like hearing stories? I am going to tell you of some one who lived a very long time ago, and who was a very wise and good man, and who told more wonderful stories than I shall be able to tell you in this little book. But you shall hear some of them, if you will try and understand them, though they are written in a sort of English different from what you are accustomed to speak.

But, in order that you really may understand the stories, I must first tell you something about the man who made them; and also why his language was not the same as yours, although it was English. His name was Chaucer—Geoffrey Chaucer. You must remember his name, for he was so great a man that he has been called the ‘Father of English Poetry’—that is, the beginner or inventor of all the poetry that belongs to our England; and when you are grown up, you will often hear of Chaucer and his works.

II.

Chaucer lived in England 500 years ago—a longer time than such a little boy as you can even think of. It is now the year 1876, you know. Well, Chaucer was born about 1340, in the reign of King Edward III. We should quite have forgotten all Chaucer’s stories in such a great space of time if he had not written them down in a book. But, happily, he did write them down; and so we can read them just as if he had only told them yesterday.

If you could suddenly spring back into the time when Chaucer lived, what a funny world you would find! Everybody was dressed differently then from what people are now, and lived in quite a different way; and you might think they were very uncomfortable, but they were very happy, because they were accustomed to it all.

People had no carpets in those days in their rooms. Very few people were rich enough to have glass windows. There was no paper on the walls, and very seldom any pictures; and as for spring sofas and arm-chairs, they were unknown. The seats were only benches placed against the wall: sometimes a chair was brought on grand occasions to do honour to a visitor; but it was a rare luxury.

The rooms of most people in those days had blank walls of stone or brick and plaster, painted white or coloured, and here and there—behind the place of honour, perhaps—hung a sort of curtain, like a large picture, made of needlework, called tapestry. You may have seen tapestry hanging in rooms, with men and women and animals worked upon it. That was almost the only covering for walls in Chaucer’s time. Now we have a great many other ornaments on them, besides tapestry.

The rooms Chaucer lived in were probably like every one’s else. They had bare walls, with a piece of tapestry hung here and there on them—a bare floor, strewn with rushes, which must have looked more like a stable than a sitting-room. But the rushes were better than nothing. They kept the feet warm, as our carpets do, though they were very untidy, and not always very clean.

When Chaucer wanted his dinner or breakfast, he did not go to a big table like that you are used to: the table came to him. A couple of trestles or stands were brought to him, and a board laid across them, and over the board a cloth, and on the cloth were placed all the curious dishes they ate then. There was no such thing as coffee or tea. People had meat, and beer, and wine for breakfast, and dinner, and supper, all alike. They helped themselves from the common dish, and ate with their fingers, as dinner-knives and forks were not invented, and it was thought a sign of special good breeding to have clean hands and nails. Plates there were none. But large flat cakes of bread were used instead; and when the meat was eaten off them, they were given to the poor—for, being full of the gravy that had soaked into them, they were too valuable to throw away. When they had finished eating, the servants came and lifted up the board, and carried it off.

III.

And now for Chaucer himself! How funny you would think he looked, if you could see him sitting in his house! He wore a hood, of a dark colour, with a long tail to it, which in-doors hung down his back, and out of doors was twisted round his head to keep the hood on firm. This tail was called a liripipe.

He did not wear a coat and trousers like your father’s, but a sort of gown, called a tunic, or dalmatic, which in one picture of him is grey and loose, with large sleeves, and bright red stockings and black boots; but on great occasions he wore a close-fitting tunic, with a splendid belt and buckle, a dagger, and jewelled garters, and, perhaps, a gold circlet round his hair. How much prettier to wear such bright colours instead of black! men and women dressed in green, and red, and yellow then; and when they walked in the streets, they looked as people look in pictures.

DINNER IN THE OLDEN TIME.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

You may see how good and clever Chaucer was by his face; such a wise, thoughtful, pleasant face! He looks very kind, I think, as if he would never say anything harsh or bitter; but sometimes he made fun of people in a merry way. Words of his own, late in life, show that he was rather fat, his face small and fair. In manner he seemed ‘elvish,’ or shy, with a habit of staring on the ground, ‘as if he would find a hair.’

All day he worked hard, and his spare time was given to ‘studying and reading alway,’ till his head ached and his look became dazed. (House of Fame.)

Chaucer lived, like you, in London. Whether he was born there is not known;[5] but as his father, John Chaucer, was a vintner in Thames Street, London, it is probable that he was. Not much is known about his parents or family, except that his grandfather, Richard Chaucer, was also a vintner; and his mother had an uncle who was a moneyer; so that he came of respectable and well-to-do people, though not noble.[6] Whether he was educated at Oxford or Cambridge, whether he studied for the bar or for the Church, there is no record to show; but there is no doubt that his education was a good one, and that he worked very hard at his books and tasks, otherwise he could not have grown to be the learned and cultivated man he was. We know that he possessed considerable knowledge of the classics, divinity, philosophy, astronomy, as much as was then known of chemistry, and, indeed, most of the sciences. French and Latin he knew as a matter of course, for the better classes used these tongues more than English—Latin for writing, and French for writing and speaking; for, by his translations from the French, he earned, early in life, a ‘balade’ of compliment from Eustache Deschamps, with the refrain, ‘Grant translateur, noble Geoffroi Chaucier.’ It is probable, too, that he knew Italian, for, in his later life, we can see how he has been inspired by the great Italian writers, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.

It has recently been discovered that for a time (certainly in 1357) Geoffrey Chaucer, being then seventeen, was a page[7] in the household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Lionel, second son of King Edward III.; a position which he could not have held if he had not been a well-born, or at least well-educated, person. A page in those days was very different from what we call a page now—therefore we infer that the Chaucer family had interest at Court; for without that, Geoffrey could never have entered the royal service.

Most gentlemen’s sons were educated by becoming pages. They entered the service of noble ladies, who paid them, or sometimes were even paid for receiving them. Thus young men learned courtesy of manners, and all the accomplishments of indoor and outdoor life—riding, the use of arms, &c.—and were very much what an aide-de-camp in the army now is. Chaucer, you see, held a post which many a nobly-born lad must have coveted.

There is a doubtful tradition that Chaucer was intended for a lawyer, and was a member of the Middle Temple (a large building in London, where a great many lawyers live still), and here, as they say, he was once fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street.

If this be true, it must have been rather a severe beating; for two shillings was a far larger sum than it is now—equal to about sixteen shillings of our money. Chaucer was sometimes angry with the friars at later times in life, and deals them some hard hits in his writings with a relish possibly founded on personal experience of some disagreeable friar.

At any rate, Chaucer never got fond of the friars, and thought they were often bad and mischievous men, who did not always act up to what they said. This is called hypocrisy, and is so evil a thing that Chaucer was quite right to be angry with people who were hypocrites.

IV.

Fleet Street still exists, though it was much less crowded with people in Chaucer’s day than now. Indeed, the whole of London was very different from our London; and, oh, so much prettier! The streets within the London wall were probably thickly populated, and not over-healthy; but outside the wall, streets such as Fleet Street were more like the streets of some of our suburbs, or rather some foreign towns—the houses irregular, with curious pointed roofs, here and there divided by little gardens, and even green fields. I dare say, when Chaucer walked in the streets, the birds sang over his head, and the hawthorn and primrose bloomed where now the black smoke and dust would soon kill most green things. Thames Street was where Chaucer long lived in London, but, at one time in his life at least, it is certain that he occupied a tenement at Aldgate, which formed part of an old prison; and it is probable that at another he lived in the beautiful Savoy Palace with John of Gaunt, whilst his wife was maid of honour. In 1393, Chaucer was living at Greenwich, near which he had work in 1390—poor and asking his friend Scogan to intercede for him “where it would fructify;” and at the end of his life he had a house in Westminster, said to be nearly on the same spot on which Henry VII.’s Chapel now stands, and close to the Abbey where he is buried.

In those days it was the fashion, when the month of May[8] arrived, for everybody, rich and poor, to get up very early in the morning, to gather boughs of hawthorn and laurel, to deck all the doorways in the street, as a joyful welcoming of the sweet spring time. Chaucer alludes more than once to this beautiful custom. The streets must have been full of fragrance then. He also tells us how he loved to rise up at dawn in the morning, and go into the fresh green fields, to see the daisies open. You have often seen the daisies shut up at night, but I don’t suppose you ever saw them opening in the morning; and I am afraid, however early you got up in London, you could not reach the fields quick enough to see that. But you may guess from this how much nearer the country was to the town 500 years ago. There were so many fewer houses built then, that within a walk you could get right into the meadows. You may see that by comparing the two maps I have made for you.

London was also much quieter. There were no railways—such things had never been heard of. There were not even any cabs or carriages. Sometimes a market cart might roll by, but not very often, and then everybody would run out to see what the unaccustomed clatter was all about. People had to walk everywhere, unless they were rich enough to ride on horseback, or lived near the river. In that case, they used to go in barges or boats on the Thames, as far as they could; for, strange as it may seem, even the King had no coach then.

London in the 15^th Century.

London in the 19^th Century.

I am afraid Geoffrey Chaucer would not recognize that ‘dere and swete citye of London’ in the great, smoky, noisy, bustling metropolis we are accustomed to, and I am quite sure he would not recognize the language; and presently I will explain what I meant by saving that though Chaucer spoke and wrote English, it was quite different from what we speak now. You will see, as you go on, how queerly all the words are spelt, so much so that I have had to put a second version side by side with Chaucer’s lines, which you will understand more readily; and when I read them to you, you will see how different is the sound. These words were all pronounced slowly, almost with a drawl, while we nowadays have got to talk so fast, that no one who lived then would follow what we say without great difficulty.

V.

Chaucer’s connection with the Court makes it probable that he lived during the greater part of his life in London; and it is pleasant to think that this great poet was valued and beloved in his day by the highest powers in the land. He held, at various times, posts in the King’s household, which brought him more or less money, such as valet of the King’s chamber, the King’s esquire, &c.; and he found a fast friend in John of Gaunt, one of the sons of King Edward III.

In 1359 Chaucer became a soldier, and served in the army under this King, in an attack upon France, and was taken prisoner. It is supposed he was detained there about a year; and, being ransomed by Edward, when he came back to England, he married a lady named Philippa. She was probably the younger daughter of Sir Paon de Roet, of Hainault,[9] who came over to England in the retinue of Queen Philippa, who was also of Hainault. These two Philippas, coming from the same place, remained friends during all the Queen’s life; for when Chaucer married Philippa de Roet, she was one of the Queen’s maids of honour; and, after her marriage, the Queen gave her an annual pension of ten marks[10] (£50), which was continued to her by the King after Queen Philippa died. Some people say Chaucer’s wife was also the Queen’s god-daughter.[11]

If you would like to know what Chaucer’s wife looked like, I will tell you. I do not know what she was like in the face, but I can tell you the fashion of the garb she wore. I like to believe she had long yellow hair, which Chaucer describes so often and so prettily. Chaucer’s wife wore one of those funny head-dresses like crowns, or rather like boxes, over a gold net, with her hair braided in a tress, hanging down her back. She had a close green[12] dress, with tight sleeves, reaching right down over the hand, to protect it from the sun and wind; and a very long skirt, falling in folds about her feet, sometimes edged with beautiful white fur, ermine, or a rich grey fur, called vair. The colour of this grey fur was much liked, and when people had light grey eyes, of somewhat the same colour, it was thought very beautiful. Many songs describe pretty ladies with ‘eyes of vair.’

When noble persons went to Court, they wore dresses far more splendid than any to be seen now—dresses of all colours, worked in with flowers and branches of gold, sometimes with heraldic devices and strange figures, and perfectly smothered in jewels. No one has pearls, and emeralds, and diamonds sewn on their gowns now; but in the fourteenth century, rich people had the seams of their clothes often covered with gems. The ladies wore close-fitting dresses, with splendid belts, or seints, round their hips, all jewelled; and strings of glittering jewels hung round their necks, and down from the belt, and on the head-dress. People did not wear short sleeves then, but long ones, made sometimes very curiously with streamers hanging from the elbow; a long thin gauze veil, shining with silver and gold; and narrow pointed shoes, much longer than their feet, which, they thought, made the foot look slender. If ladies had not had such long shoes, they would never have showed beneath their long embroidered skirts, and they would always have been stumbling when they walked. It was a very graceful and elegant costume that Chaucer’s wife wore; but the laws of England probably forbade her to wear silk, which was reserved for nobles. When she walked out of doors, she had tall clogs to save her pretty shoes from the mud of the rough streets; and when she rode on horseback with the Queen, or her husband Chaucer, she sat on a pillion, and placed her feet on a narrow board called a planchette. Many women rode astride, like the “Wife of Bath” whom Chaucer speaks of.

Now, perhaps, you would like to know whether Chaucer had any little children. We do not know much about Chaucer’s children. We know he had a little son called Lewis, because Chaucer wrote a treatise for him when he was ten years old, to teach him how to use an instrument he had given him, called an astrolabe.[13] Chaucer must have been very fond of Lewis, since he took so much trouble for him, and he speaks to him very kindly and lovingly.

As Chaucer was married before 1366, it is likely that he had other children; and some people say he had an elder son, named Thomas, and a daughter Elizabeth.[14]

John of Gaunt, who was Chaucer’s patron as I told you, was very kind to Thomas Chaucer, and gave him several posts in the King’s household, as he grew up to be a man. And John of Gaunt heard that Elizabeth Chaucer wished to be a nun; and, in 1381, we find that he paid a large sum of money for her noviciate (that is, for her to learn to be a nun) in the Abbey of Barking.

A LADY CROSSING THE STREET IN THE OLDEN TIME.

A nun is a person who does not care for the amusements and pleasures which other people care for—playing, and dancing, and seeing sights and many people; but who prefers to go and live in a house called a nunnery, where she will see hardly any one, and think of nothing but being good, and helping the poor. And, if people think they can be good best in that way, they ought to become nuns. But I think people can be just as good living at home with their friends, without shutting themselves in a nunnery.

Now I must leave off telling you about Chaucer’s wife and children, and go on to Chaucer himself.

VI.

Chaucer was, as I told you, the friend of one of the sons of the King, Edward III. Not the eldest son, who was, as you know, Edward the Black Prince, the great warrior, nor Lionel, the third son, whom he had served when a boy, but the fourth son, John of Gaunt, who had a great deal of power with the King.

John of Gaunt.

John of Gaunt was the same age as Chaucer.

When John of Gaunt was only 19 (the year that Chaucer went with the army to France), he married a lady called Blanche of Lancaster, and there were famous joustings and great festivities of every kind. In this year, it has been supposed, Chaucer wrote a poem, ‘The Parliament of Birds,’ to celebrate the wedding. Another long poem, called ‘The Court of Love,’ is said to have been written by him about this time—at any rate, in very early life.

When Chaucer came back to England, and got married himself, he was still more constantly at Court, and there are many instances recorded of John’s attachment to both Chaucer and Philippa all his life. Among others we may notice his gifts to Philippa of certain ‘silver-gilt cups with covers,’ on the 1st of January in 1380, 1381, and 1382.

It is touching to see how faithful these two friends were to each other, and how long their friendship lasted. The first we hear of it was about 1359, the year when John married Blanche, and for forty years it remained unbroken. Nay, it grew closer and closer, for in 1394, when John of Gaunt and Chaucer were both middle-aged men, John married Philippa’s sister (Sir Paon Roet’s elder daughter), so that Chaucer became John of Gaunt’s brother.[15]

When John of Gaunt was in power he never forgot Chaucer. When he became unpopular it was Chaucer’s turn to be faithful to him; and faithful he was, whatever he suffered, and he did suffer for it severely, and became quite poor at times, as you will see. Directly John came into power again up went Chaucer too, and his circumstances improved. There are few friendships so long and so faithful on both sides as this was.[16]

VII.

Chaucer was employed by Edward III. for many years as envoy, which is a very important office. It can only be given to a very wise and shrewd man. This proves the great ability of Chaucer in other things besides making songs and telling stories. He had to go abroad, to France, Italy, and elsewhere, on the King’s private missions; and the King gave him money for his services, and promoted him to great honour.

On one occasion (1373) when he was sent to Florence, on an embassy, he is supposed to have seen Petrarch, a great Italian poet and patriot, whose name you must not forget. Petrarch was then living at Arqua, two miles from Padua, a beautiful town in Italy; and though Petrarch was a much older man than Chaucer—more than twenty years older—it seems only natural that these two great men should have tried to see each other; for they had much in common. Both were far-famed poets, and both, in a measure, representatives of the politics, poetry, and culture of their respective countries.

Still, some people think they could never have met, because the journey from Florence to Padua was a most difficult one. Travelling was hard work, and sometimes dangerous, guides being always necessary: you could not get a carriage at any price, for carriages were not invented. In some places there was no means of going direct from city to city at all—not even on horseback—there being actually no roads. So that people had to go on foot or not at all. If they went, there were rocks and rivers to cross, which often delayed travellers a long time.

Chaucer, as the King’s envoy, must have had attendants, even for safety’s sake, with him, and much luggage, and that would of course make travelling more difficult and expensive. He most likely went a great part of the way by sea, in a vessel coasting along the Mediterranean to Genoa and Leghorn, and so by Pisa to Florence: you may trace his route in a map. Doubtless, he had neither the means nor the will to go all the way to Padua on his own account. So you see people hold different opinions about this journey, and no one can be quite sure whether Chaucer did see Petrarch or not.

In 1373 Chaucer wrote his ‘Life of St. Cecile;’ and about that time, perhaps earlier, the ‘Complaint to Pity.’

VIII.

I am not going to tell you everything that the King and John of Gaunt did for Chaucer. You would get tired of hearing about it. I will only say that Chaucer was ‘holden in greate credyt,’ and probably had a real influence in England; for, connected as he was with John of Gaunt, I dare say he gave him advice and counsel, and John showed the King how shrewd and trustworthy Chaucer was, and persuaded him to give him benefits and money.

John’s wife, Blanche of Lancaster, died in 1369, and so did his mother, Queen Philippa. Chaucer wrote a poem called ‘The Death of Blanche the Duchess,’ in honour of this dead Blanche. John married another wife in the next year, and got still more powerful, and was called King of Castile, in Spain, because his new wife was the daughter of a King of Castile. But all this made no difference in his affection for Chaucer. He always did what he could for Chaucer.

I will give you some instances of this.

Soon after Chaucer’s return from his journey to Florence, he received a grant of ‘a pitcher of wine’ every day ‘from the hands of the King’s butler.’ This seems like a mark of personal friendship more than formal royal bounty; but it was worth a good deal of money a year. Less than two months afterwards he received, through John of Gaunt’s goodwill, a place under Government called ‘Comptrollership of the Customs’ of the Port of London. This was a very important post, and required much care, shrewdness, and vigilance; and the King made it a condition that all the accounts of his office were to be entered in Chaucer’s own handwriting—which means, of course, that Chaucer was to be always present, seeing everything done himself, and never leaving the work to be done by anybody else, except when sent abroad by the King’s own royal command. Only three days after this, John of Gaunt himself made Chaucer a grant of £10 a year for life, in reward for all the good service rendered by ‘nostre bien ame Geffray Chaucer,’ and ‘nostre bien ame Philippa sa femme,’ to himself, his duchess, and to his mother, Queen Philippa, who was dead. This sum of money does not sound much; but it was a great deal in those days, and was fully equal to £100 now.

The very next year the King gave Chaucer the ‘custody’ of a rich ward (a ward is a person protected or maintained by another while under age), named Edmond Staplegate, of Kent; and when this ward married, Chaucer received a large sum of money (£104 = £1,040).[17]

Then Chaucer’s care in the Customs’ office detected a dishonest man, who tried to ship wool abroad without paying the lawful duty; this man was fined for his dishonesty, and the money, £71 4s. 6d., was made a present to Chaucer—a sum equal to £700.

So you see it seemed as if John of Gaunt could never do enough for him; because all these things, if not done by John himself, were probably due to his influence with the King.

IX.

The Black Prince died about that time, and Edward III. did not long survive him. He died in 1377. Then the Black Prince’s little son, Richard, who was only eleven years old, became King of England; but as he was too young to reign over the country, his three uncles governed for him. These three uncles were John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; the Duke of York; and the Duke of Gloucester.

And all this time Chaucer was very well looked after, you may be sure, for John of Gaunt was then more powerful than the King. Chaucer was still Comptroller of the Customs; and, before long, John gave him a second post of a similar kind, called ‘Comptroller of the Petty Customs.’

But all this good luck was not to go on for ever. The people were not so fond of John of Gaunt as Chaucer was, because, in governing them, he was very ambitious and severe. They got angry with everything he did, and with everybody who remained his friend. So, of course, they did not like Chaucer.

This was a very troublous time. The Crown (represented by the King’s uncles) wanted one thing, and the great barons wanted another, and the people or lower classes wanted another! These were called the three great opposing parties, and each wanted to have all the power. At last some of the barons sided with the King’s party, and others sided with the people; so there were then two opposing parties quarrelling and hating each other. John of Gaunt would have liked to be King himself; but the people were unhappy, and very discontented with his government, and he began to have much less power in the kingdom.The people knew that John of Gaunt was obliged to go with an army into Portugal, and they began to make plans to get their own way when his back was turned. When he was gone, they said that John of Gaunt did not govern them well, and had given government posts to men who did not do their duty, and neglected their work, and Chaucer was one of them.

Then there was what was called a ‘Commission of Inquiry’ appointed, which means a body of men who were free to examine and reform everything they chose in the country. Their power was to last a whole year; and these men looked into all that Chaucer had done in the ‘Customs’ offices. They did not find anything wrong, as far as we know, but still they sent away Chaucer in disgrace, just as if they had. And this made him very poor. It was a harsh thing to do, and unjust, if they were not certain he had been neglecting his work; and John of Gaunt was out of the country, and could not help him now. This was in the year 1386.

A great deal has been said and written about this matter. Some people still believe that Chaucer really did neglect his duties, though the conditions that he should attend to everything himself had been so very strict;[18] that he had probably absented himself, and let things go wrong. But such people forget that these conditions were formally done away with in 1385, when Chaucer was finally released from personal drudgery at the Customs, and allowed to have a deputy, or person under him to do his work.

They forget, too, how Chaucer had plunged into political matters directly afterwards, at a time when party feeling was intensely strong, the people and John of Gaunt being violently opposed to each other; and how Chaucer took up the part of his friend warmly, and sat in the House of Commons as representative of Kent, one of the largest counties of England, on purpose to support the ministers who were on John of Gaunt’s side. This alone would be enough to make the opposing party hate Chaucer, and this doubtless was the reason of their dismissing him from both his offices in the Customs as soon as ever they were able, to punish him for his attachment to the Duke of Lancaster’s (John of Gaunt’s) cause.

Stylus.

But Chaucer never wavered or changed. And his faithfulness to his friend deserves better than the unjust suspicion that his disgrace was warranted by neglect of his duties. Chaucer was too good, and too pious, and too honourable a man to commit any such act. He submitted to his disgrace and his poverty unmoved; and after the death of his wife Philippa, which happened in the following summer, nothing is known of him for several years, except that he was in such distress that he was actually obliged to part with his two pensions for a sum of money in order to pay his debts.

During all the eventful years that followed Edward III.’s death, up to this time, Chaucer had been writing busily, in the midst of his weightier affairs. The ‘Complaint of Mars,’ ‘Boece,’ ‘Troilus and Cressida,’ the ‘House of Fame,’ and the ‘Legend of Good Women,’ all of which I hope you will read some day, were written in this period; also some reproachful words to his scrivener, who seems to have written out his poems for him very carelessly. Some persons think that Chaucer’s pathetic ‘Good Counsel,’ and his short ‘Balade sent to King Richard,’ reflect the disappointment and sadness at his changed lot, which he must have felt; and that, therefore, these poems were written at about the same time.

X.

In 1389 there was another great change in the government. The King, being of age, wished to govern the country without help, and he sent away one of his uncles, who was on the people’s side, and asked John of Gaunt to come back to England. John of Gaunt’s son was made one of the new ministers. Immediately Chaucer was thought of. He was at once appointed Clerk of the King’s Works—an office of some importance—which he was permitted to hold by deputy; and his salary was two shillings per day—that is £36 10s. 0d. a-year, equal to about £370 of our money.

It seems that Chaucer kept this appointment only for two years. Why, we cannot tell.[19] While he held this office (viz., Sept. 1390)a misfortune befell him. Some notorious thieves attacked him, near the ‘foule Ok’ (foul Oak), and robbed him of £20 (nearly £200 present currency) of the King’s money, his horse, and other movables. This was a mishap likely enough to overtake any traveller in those days of bad roads and lonely marshes, for there was no great protection by police or soldiery in ordinary cases. The King’s writ, in which he forgives Chaucer this sum of £20, is still extant.

What he did, or how he lived, for some time after his retirement from the King’s Works in 1391, is not known; but in 1394, King Richard granted him a pension of £20 (= £200 present currency) per annum for life. This was the year when John of Gaunt married Chaucer’s sister-in-law; but, in spite of this rich alliance, I fear Chaucer was still in great distress, for we hear of many small loans which he obtained on this new pension during the next four years, which betray too clearly his difficulties. In 1398, the King granted him letters to protect him against arrest—that is, he wrote letters forbidding the people to whom Chaucer owed money to put him in prison, which they would otherwise have done.

It is sad that during these latter years of his life, the great poet who had done so much, and lived so comfortably, should have grown so poor and harassed. He ought to have been beyond the reach of want. He had had large sums of money; his wife’s sister was Duchess of Lancaster; his son[20] was holding grants and offices under John of Gaunt. Perhaps he wasted his money.[21] But we cannot know exactly how it all came about at this distance of time. And one thing shows clearly how much courage and patience Chaucer had; for it was when he was in such want in 1388, two years after he had been turned out of the Customs, that he was busiest with the greatest work of his life, called the Canterbury Tales. Some men would have been too sad after so much disgrace and trouble, to be able to write stories and verses; but I think Chaucer must have felt at peace in his mind—he must have known that he did not deserve all the ill-treatment he got—and had faith that God would bring him through unstained.

XI.

The Canterbury Tales are full of cheerfulness and fun; full of love for the beautiful world, and full of sympathy for all who are in trouble or misery. The beauty of Chaucer’s character, and his deep piety, come out very clearly in these tales, as I think you will see. No one could have sung the ‘ditties and songs glad’ about birds in the medlar trees, and the soft rain on the ‘small sweet grass,’ and the ‘lily on her stalk green,’ and the sweet winds that blow over the country, whose mind was clouded by sordid thoughts, and narrow, selfish aims. No one could have sung so blithely of ‘fresh Emily,’ and with such good-humoured lenity even of the vulgar, chattering ‘Wife of Bath,’ whose heart was full of angry feelings towards his fellow-creatures. And no one, who was not in his heart a religious man, could have breathed the words of patience with which Arcite tries to comfort his friend, in their gloomy prison—or the greater patience of poor persecuted Griselda—or the fervent love of truth and honourable dealing, and a good life, which fills so many of his poems—or a hundred other touching prayers and tender words of warning. There was a large-heartedness and liberality about Chaucer’s mind, as of one who had mixed cheerfully with all classes, and saw good in all. His tastes were with the noble ranks among whom he had lived; but he had deep sympathy with the poor and oppressed, and could feel kindly even to the coarse and the wicked. He hated none but hypocrites; and he was never tired of praising piety and virtue.

Chaucer wrote a great many short poems, which I have not told you of. Many have been lost or forgotten. Some may come back to us in the course of time and search. All we know of, you will read some day, with the rest of the Canterbury Tales not in this book: a few of these poems I have placed at the end of the volume; and among them one ‘To his empty Purse,’ written only the year before his death.[22]

There is only a little more I can tell you about Chaucer’s life before we begin the stories. We got as far as 1398, when the King gave Chaucer letters of protection from his creditors.

About this time another grant of wine was bestowed on him, equal to about £4 a year, or £40 of our money. In the next year, King Richard, who had not gained the love of his subjects, nor tried to be a good King, was deposed—that is, the people were so angry with him that they said, “You shall not be our King any more;” and they shut him up in a tower, and made his cousin, Henry, King of England. Now this Henry was the son of John of Gaunt, by his first wife, Blanche, and had been very badly treated by his cousin, the King. He was a much better man than Richard, and the people loved him. John of Gaunt did not live to see his son King, for he died while Henry was abroad; and it must have been a real grief to Chaucer, then an old man of sixty,[23] when this long and faithful friend was taken from him.

Still it is pleasant to find that Henry of Lancaster shared his father’s friendship for Chaucer. I dare say he had been rocked on Chaucer’s knee when a little child, and had played with Chaucer’s children. He came back from France, after John of Gaunt’s death, and the people made him King, and sent King Richard to the castle of Pomfret (where I am sorry to say he was afterwards murdered).

The new King had not been on the throne four days before he helped Chaucer. John of Gaunt himself could not have done it quicker. He granted him an annuity of £26 13s. 4d. a year, in addition to the other £20 granted by Richard.

The royal bounty was only just in time, for poor old Chaucer did not long survive his old friend, the Duke of Lancaster. He died about a year after him, when Henry had been King thirteen months.

John of Gaunt was buried in St. Paul’s, by the side of his first and best-loved wife, Blanche; Geoffrey Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey.

So ended the first, and almost the greatest, English writer, of whom no one has spoken an ill word, and who himself spoke no ill words.

Poet, soldier, statesman, and scholar, ‘truly his better ne his pere, in school of my rules could I never find.... In goodness of gentle, manly speech he passeth all other makers.’[24]

XII.

And now for Chaucer’s ‘speech.’ How shall I show you its ‘goodness,’ since it is so difficult to read this old English? Wait a bit. You will soon understand it all, if you take pains at the first beginning. Do not be afraid of the funny spelling, for you must remember that it is not so much that Chaucer spells differently from us, as that we have begun to spell differently from Chaucer. He would think our English quite as funny, and not half so pretty as his own; for the old English, when spoken, sounded very pretty and stately, and not so much like a ‘gabble’ as ours.

I told you a little while ago, you know, that our talking is much faster than talking was in Chaucer’s time; it seems very curious that a language can be so changed in a few hundred years, without people really meaning to change it. But it has changed gradually. Little by little new words have come into use, and others have got ‘old-fashioned.’ Even the English of one hundred years ago was very unlike our own. But the English of five hundred years ago was, of course, still more unlike.

XIII.

Now, I have put, as I told you, two versions of Chaucer’s poetry on the page, side by side. First, the lines as Chaucer made them, and then the same lines in English such as we speak. You can thus look at both, and compare them.

I will also read you the verses in the two ways of pronouncing them, Chaucer’s way and our way: but when you have grown a little used to the old-fashioned English, you will soon see how much prettier and more musical it sounds than our modern tongue, and I think you will like it very much. Besides, it is nice to be able to see the words as Chaucer put them, so as to know exactly how he talked.

In Chaucer’s time a great deal of French was spoken in England, and it was mixed up with English more than it is now. The sound of old French and old English were something the same, both spoken very slowly, with a kind of drawl, as much as to say—“I am in no hurry. I have all day before me, and if you want to hear what I have got to say, you must wait till I get my words out.”

So if you wish to hear Chaucer’s stories, you must let him tell them in his own way, and try and understand his funny, pretty language. And if you do not pronounce the words as he meant, you will find the verses will sound quite ugly—some lines being longer than others, and some not even rhyming, and altogether in a jumble.

XIV.

Chaucer himself was very anxious that people should read his words properly, and says in his verses, as if he were speaking to a human being—

To mis-metre is to read the metre wrong; and the metre is the length of the line. If you read the length all wrong, it sounds very ugly.

Now, suppose those lines were read in modern English, they would run thus:—

How broken and ragged it all sounds! like a gown that is all ragged and jagged, and doesn’t fit. It sounds much better to read it properly.

You will find that when Chaucer’s words are rightly pronounced, all his lines are of an even length and sound pretty. I don’t think he ever fails in this. This is called having a musical ear. Chaucer had a musical ear. Some people who write poetry have not, and their poetry is good for nothing. They might as well try to play the piano without a musical ear; and a pretty mess they would make of that![26]

XV.

When you find any very hard word in Chaucer’s verses which you cannot understand, look in the glossary and the modern version beside them; and you will see what is the word for it nowadays. A few words which cannot be translated within the metre you will find at the bottom of the page; but think for yourself before you look. There is nothing like thinking for one’s self. Many of the words are like French or German words: so if you have learnt these languages you will be able often to guess what the word means.

For instance, you know how, in French, when you wish to say, I will not go or I am not sure, two no’s are used, ne and pas: Je n’irai pas, or je ne suis pas sÛr. Well, in Chaucer’s time two no’s were used in English. He would have said, “I n’ill nat go,” and “I n’am nat sure.”There are many lines where you will see two no’s. “I n’am nat precious.” “I ne told no deintee.” “I wol not leve no tales.” “I ne owe hem not a word.” “There n’is no more to tell,” &c. Sometimes, however, ne is used by itself, without not or nat to follow. As “it n’is good,” “I n’ill say—or sain,” instead of “it is not good—I will not say.”

And, as in this last word sain (which only means say), you will find often an n at the end of words, which makes it difficult to understand them; but you will soon cease to think that a very alarming difficulty if you keep looking at the modern version. As, “I shall nat lien” (this means lie). “I wol nat gon” (go): “withouten doubt” (without). “Ther wold I don hem no pleasance” (do); “thou shalt ben quit” (be). “I shall you tellen” (tell).

And I think you will also be able to see how much better some old words are for expressing the meaning, than our words. For instance, how much nicer ‘flittermouse’ is than ‘bat.’ That is an old North-country word, and very German (Fledermaus). When you see a little bat flying about, you know it is a bat because you have been told: but ‘flitter-mouse’ is better than bat, because it means ‘floating mouse.’ Now, a bat is like a mouse floating in the air. The word expresses the movement and the form of the creature.

Again—the old word ‘herteles’ (heartless), instead of without courage, how well it expresses the want of courage or spirit: we often say people have no heart for work, or no heart for singing, when they are sad, or ill, or weak. Heartless does not always mean cowardly; it means that the person is dejected, or tired, or out of spirits. We have left off using the word heartless in that sense, however, and we have no word to express it. When we say heartless, we mean cruel or unkind, which is a perfectly different meaning.

Again, we have no word now for a meeting-time or appointment, as good as the old word ‘steven:’ we use the French word ‘rendezvous’ as a noun, which is not very wise. ‘Steven’ is a nice, short, and really English word which I should like to hear in use again.

One more instance. The word ‘fret’ was used for devouring. This just describes what we call ‘nibbling’ now. The moth fretting a garment—means the moth devouring or nibbling a garment.

This is a word we have lost sight of now in the sense of eating; we only use it for ‘complaining’ or ‘pining.’ But a fretted sky—and the frets on a guitar—are from the old Saxon verb frete, to eat or devour, and describe a wrinkly uneven surface, like the part of a garment fretted by the moth. So you must not be impatient with the old words, which are sometimes much better for their purpose than the words we use nowadays.

CANTERBURY TALES.