Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/461

Rh  1em 1em 1em  CHAUCER, (c. 1340-1400). There are few fields of research in which antiquarians, from Speght to Furni- vall, have laboured so zealously and successfully as the life of Chaucer. The secret of their success has been that Chaucer was more actively engaged in public affairs than any poet of celebrity since his time, and has consequently left many traces in official records. The chief biographical fact known to Speght was that Chaucer gave evidence in a case tried at Westminster in 1386 touching the right of Lord Scrope to bear certain arms, and then deposed that he was &quot; forty years old and upward,&quot; and had borne arms for twenty-seven years. A casual fact of this sort offered no clue tu further investigation; but the fact that Chaucer received from Edward III. a pension of twenty marks was more suggestive. This clue was first energetically followed up by Godwin, the author of Caleb Williams and Political Justice, who searched diligently through several records, chiefly the Patent, Close, and French Rolls, for other notices of Chaucer s name, and succeeded in enriching his bio graphy of Chaucer, published in 1804, with various im portant particulars. He was followed by Sir Harris Nicolas, who made an exhaustive examination of the Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, and published the results in 1843. Another determined search through records which Godwin and Nicolas had shrunk from was made in 1873 by Mr Furnivall, and this also resulted in several important finds. It is to Mr Furnivall that we are indebted for finally settling the parentage of Chaucer. Speght in the course of his researches had hit upon the name of one Richard Chaucer, a vintner, who died in 1 348, and made a bequest to the church of St Mary Aldermary. Merely on the ground of the name, Speght supposed this to be the father of Chaucer; but Urry and Tyrwhitt, in the 18th century, disputed this, and wished to give the poet a higher lineage, because in the grant of a pension made to him in 41 Edward III. he was described as &quot; valettus noster.&quot; Mr Furnivall settled the question by bringing to light a deed dated 1380, in which Chaucer, relinquishing his right in a house belonging to his father, described himself as &quot; the son of John Chaucer, vintner.&quot; By other documents this John Chaucer is shown to be the son of Speght s Richard. It is thus established that both the poet s father and his grandfather were London vintners. The precise date of his birth has not been ascertained. The accepted date till lately was 1328 The difficulty with this date was his being described as. &quot; forty years and upwards&quot; in 1386, and of late opinion has inclined to 1340 as a more probable year. This is favoured by the discovery that the poet was Richard Chaucer s grandson and not his son, and fits in better with the facts than 1328. How Chaucer was educated, whether like &quot; Philogenet,&quot; the name which he assumes in the Court of Love, he was &quot; of Cambridge clerk,&quot; and how he was introduced to the notice of the court, is left to conjecture. His name occurs in the household book of the wife of Prince Lionel, second son of Edward III., in 1357, probably, Mr Furnivall con jectures, as a page. He bore arms in Edward II I. s invasion of France in 1359, John Chaucer being also in the expedition, probably in connection with the commis sariat. There was little fighting in that expedition, the ravages of the English for several years before having left little to fight for ; but in the course of a disastrous retreat, compelled rather by hunger than by martial force, Chaucer was taken prisoner. In 1360 the king paid 16 for his ransom. From 1360 to 1366 there is a gap in the record of his life ; but in the latter year his name occurs in a list of the members of the royal household as one of thirty- seven &quot; esquires &quot; of the king, who were to receive a gift of clothes at Christmas. By this time also he would seem to have been married, if the Philippa Chaucer, one of the demoiselles of Queen Philippa, who in 1366 was granted a yearly pension of ten marks, was, as is most probable, his wife (see the discussion of the question in Sir H. Nicolas s memoir). In 1367 Chaucer himself received a pension of twenty marks from the king, being described as &quot; dilectus valettus noster.&quot; To show that in being courtier and scholar he had not ceased to be soldier, he took part in another inglorious expedition against France in 1369, in 