WESTMINSTER ABBEY, AS SEEN FROM THE WINDOWS OF CHAUCER’S HOUSE

(ON EXTREME RIGHT, PART OF HENRY VII’S CHAPEL, BUILT ON THE SITE OF ST. MARY’S CHAPEL)

The industry of Mr. Edward Scott has discovered that this same house in St. Mary’s Chapel garden was let, from at least 1423 until his death in 1434, to Thomas Chaucer, who was probably the poet’s son. This Thomas was a man of considerable wealth and position. He began as a protégé of John of Gaunt, and became Chief Butler to Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V. in succession; Constable of Wallingford Castle, and M.P. for Oxfordshire in nine parliaments between 1402 and 1429. He was many times Speaker, a commissioner for the marriage of Henry V., and an Ambassador to treat for peace with France; fought at Agincourt with a retinue of twelve men-at-arms and thirty-seven archers; became a member of the King’s Council, and died a very rich man. His only daughter made two very distinguished marriages; and her grandson was that Earl of Lincoln whom Richard III. declared his heir-apparent. For a while it seemed likely that Geoffrey Chaucer’s descendants would sit on the throne of England, but the Earl died in fight against Henry VII. at Stoke. Of the poet’s “little son Lewis” we hear no more after that brief glimpse of his boyhood; and Elizabeth Chaucy, the only other person whom we can with any probability claim as Chaucer’s child, was entered as a nun at Barking in 1381, John of Gaunt paying £51 8s. 2d. for her expenses. It is just possible, however, that this may be the same Elizabeth Chausier who was received as a nun in St. Helen’s priory four years earlier, at the King’s nomination; in this case the date would point more probably to the poet’s sister.

This is not the place for any literary dissertation on Chaucer’s poetry, which has already been admirably discussed by many modern critics, from Lowell onwards. He did more than any other man to fix the literary English tongue: he was the first real master of style in our language, and retained an undisputed supremacy until the Elizabethan age. This he owes (as has often been pointed out) not only to his natural genius, but also to the happy chances which gave him so wide an experience of society. Living in one of the most brilliant epochs of English history, he was by turns lover, courtier, soldier, man of business, student, ambassador, Justice of the Peace, Member of Parliament, Thames Conservator, and perhaps even something of an architect, if he took his Clerkship of the Works seriously. All these experiences were mirrored in eyes as observant, and treasured in as faithful a memory, as those of any other English poet but one; and to these natural gifts of the born portrait-painter he added the crowning quality of a perfect style. If his writings have been hailed as a “well of English undefiled,” it was because he spoke habitually, and therefore wrote naturally, the best English of his day, the English of the court and of the higher clergy. In this he was even more fortunate than Dante, as he surpassed Dante in variety (though not in intenseness) of experience, and as he knew one more language than he. When we note with astonishment the freshness of Chaucer’s characters across these five centuries, we must always remember that his exceptional experience and powers of observation were combined with an equally extraordinary mastery of expression. It is because Chaucer’s speech ranges with absolute ease from the best talk of the best society, down to the Miller’s broad buffoonery or the north-country jargon of the Cambridge students, that his characters seem to us so modern in spite of the social and political revolutions which separate their world from ours. It will be my aim to portray, in the remaining chapters, the England of that day in those features which throw most light on the peculiarities of Chaucer’s men and women.

CHAPTER VII

LONDON CUSTOM-HOUSE

“Forget six counties overhung with smoke,
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,
Forget the spreading of the hideous town;
Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,
And dream of London, small, and white, and clean,
The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green;
Think, that below bridge the green lapping waves
Smite some few keels that bear Levantine staves,
Cut from the yew wood on the burnt-up hill,
And pointed jars that Greek hands toiled to fill,
And treasured scanty spice from some far sea,
Florence gold cloth, and Ypres napery,
And cloth of Bruges, and hogsheads of Guienne;
While nigh the thronged wharf Geoffrey Chaucer’s pen
Moves over bills of lading——”
W. Morris

There are two episodes of Chaucer’s life which belong even more properly to Chaucer’s England; in which it may not only be said that our interest is concentrated less on the man than on his surroundings, but even that we can scarcely get a glimpse of the man except through his surroundings. These two episodes are his life in London, and his Canterbury Pilgrimage; and with these we may most fitly begin our survey of the world in which he lived.