Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/198

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. MAR. 5, '98.

grace and lands in Gloucestershire at the hands of William Rufus, Henry I., and later kings, and some of whom, in course of time, certainly anglicized their probably mispro- nounced name into Chawers, Chawurs,* and Chawurth (cf. "Kawertsch," for Cahursin and Chaursin, ' Gesch. Schweizerischer Eidgenos- senschaft,' i. v. ; Miiller, bk. ii. c. iv.).

Had ME. RYE happened to have included among the indices he gratuitously imagines to be at my command the index of ' N. & Q.,' he might have discovered that while I was writing in the hope of stirring up further energy on the subject of Chaucer's ancestry (to which, I am aware, he has been no mean East- Anglian contributor), I was likewise endeavouring to supply fuller information re Chaworth than has, I believe, hitherto been forthcoming. I can therefore treat this statement of his with charity. With, perhaps, one exception, that, namely, of " Chose." the variants quoted by me can be shown, I think, to refer to members of one and the same

family. To them I may add, with probability, one more, also from Somersetshire, viz., Henry de Chaussur, 1247 (Somerset Rec. Soc. vii. p. 53).

In employing the term " origin," again, I by no means desired to convey that I believed the poet or his immediate ancestors hailed from Gloucestershire, but that provided kinship could be proved between him and his patronesses, Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster (Duchess of Clarence), and her cousin Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster (the one by female and the other by male line royal granddaughters of Matilda, the heiress of the largest share of Chaurse wealth and estates) the exceptional patronage extended by them and their various descendants to one who was merely a squire of comparatively low degree, from his youth to his old age, might be more reasonably accounted for than it has been hitherto, and a common Gloucestershire origin shown. To render this sentence a little more explicit, I subjoin the following pedigree :

Sir Patricius de Chaurse=rlsabel, dau. of William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick.

irse=j=

Henry, Earl of Lancaster (1298?)=r : Matilda de Chaurse, or Chawort.

I

Isabel, dau, of Lord Beaumont=j=Henry, Duke of Lancaster. Matilda=pWill. de Burgh, Earl of Ulster.

John of Gaunt=r=Blanche (the Duchess), patroness of Chaucer,

Elizabeth (patroness of=pLionel, Duke of Chaucer), 1357-33. Clarence.

Henry IV. (patron of Chaucer).

Philippa=r Edmund, Earl of March.

Roger, fourth Earl of March (patron of Chaucer).

In any case, these same Chaurse, though starting in the west of England, did not confine their acquisitiveness to Gloucester- shire. Younger sons and nephews, and perhaps illegitimate scions of the family, became spread into several other counties, viz., Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Nottingham, and Leicester ; while in Berkshire, Newbury comprised a very important holding of theirs. Hence we find the name among the early mayors of Wallingford. I do not doubt that in London other members will be found to have settled, and there not improbably as traders. For trade, however plebeian it came to be regarded in later days, was assiduously cultivated, and without shame, by knightly families in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (cf. Richard Whittington). It may

cange, 'Glossary,' torn. ii. ; and L. Muratori, ' Antiquit, Ital, torn, i. dissertat, xvi.
 * Cf. Caworsini, caorsini, caturmni, kawertsh. Du-

well be that it was extravagant of me to suppose that the son of a man who has been denominated "Le Chaucer" in legal docu- ments could have had ancestors who had borne " De" instead of " Le" before their sur- name. At the same time it is admitted the name should correctly have been " Chaucier." But surnames in those times suffered every sort of abrasion, corruption, and mispro- nunciation, and therefore it is not to be wondered at that two so similar in form and sound, though remote in significance, as are Chaurse and Chaucer, should display to us common variants. Moreover, the family somehow received a grant of arms which do not appear to contain any charges relating to the trade their name is held to have reflected. How did such distinguished arms as those of Chaucer's father become granted to tradesmen of the plebeian sort ? And how are we to account for Geoffrey Chaucer, or