Chaucer: The Basics

Jacqueline Tasioulas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317212188
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Chaucer: The Basics is an accessible introduction to the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. It provides a clear critical analysis of the texts, while also providing some necessary background to key medieval ideas and the historical period in which he lived. Jacqueline Tasioulas gives a brief account of Chaucer's life in its historical and cultural context and also introduces the reader to some of the key religious and philosophical ideas of the period. The essentials of the language and pronunciation are introduced through close reading in a section dedicated to demystifying this often alien-seeming aspect of studying Chaucer.

Including a whole chapter devoted to poetry the book also discusses key works, such as:

• 
  
  

• The Book of the Duchess

• 
  
  

• The House of Fame

• 
  
  

• The Parliament of Fowls

• 
  
  

• Troilus and Criseyde

• 
  
  

• The Legend of Good Women

• 
  
  

• The Canterbury Tales

With glosses and translations of texts, a glossary of key terms and a timeline, this book is essential reading for anyone studying Chaucer and medieval literature.

1

Geoffrey Chaucer

A life in time

Bubonic plague, the ‘Black Death’, reached England in the autumn of 1348. It was a disease that had already claimed the lives of an estimated hundred million people, and it would go on to wipe out perhaps a third of the population of England. The ports of Weymouth, Southampton, and Bristol saw the first outbreaks of what the Middle Ages simply called ‘the Death’, carried by trading ships from mainland Europe and the East. London outbreaks quickly followed, and soon only the most isolated parts of the country remained untouched by the plague. Geoffrey Chaucer was only a boy, perhaps five years old, but he would live through several more outbreaks of the Black Death in his lifetime. The swift, all-encompassing nature of the disease is captured by him in one of the Canterbury Tales, as some young revellers hear a bell toll as a corpse is carried through the streets for burial. They are told it is the body of their friend, killed as he sat in the tavern by ‘a privee [sneaky] theef men clepeth [call] Deeth’ (CT VI 675), a silent criminal who has already claimed a thousand lives. Unlike some authors of the time, Chaucer does not dwell on the horrors of the plague, but what he conveys here is the speed with which it killed – the number so vast that it defies comprehension (in a time when most villages did not have a population of more than two hundred) – and the familiar sight of plague victims being carried through the streets.

The horror and terror are difficult to imagine, and for many it seemed that the plague was a judgement on sin and a prelude to the end of the world. For those who survived, however, fortunes were at least mixed. Chaucer’s Physician in the Canterbury Tales dresses himself in fine red and blue silk, the result of the profit he has made from the ‘pestilence’ (GP 442). As for Chaucer’s own family, in spite of living in Southampton, his immediate relations survived the plague. The London relatives, however, were not so fortunate, and several members of the family died during the 1348 outbreak, among them Chaucer’s great uncle, a wealthy ‘moneyer’ at the Mint in the Tower of London. It was to his uncle’s London house that the Chaucer family returned once the immediate threat of death had receded, Geoffrey’s mother having inherited the house together with an impressive legacy of 24 shops.

The Chaucer family was already relatively prosperous, its status having risen steadily throughout the fourteenth century. Early records show that they were previously named de Dynyngton, or le Taverner and, as the name suggests, had been tavern keepers and vintners. The medieval tavern is vividly conveyed in the description of Southwark’s Tabard Inn at the beginning of the Canterbury Tales, as the genial Host, Harry Bailley, a ‘right a myrie man’ (GP, 755–7), calls for a story-telling competition from the assembled pilgrims. A more riotous side of tavern life is seen in the tale of the drunken Miller, who can heave any door off its hinges, or ‘breke it at a rennyng [running] with his heed’ (GP 551). In fact, it was following a fatal brawl that the family changed its name. Geoffrey’s grandfather inherited property from a merchant who was killed in a brawl and they then took on the name of their dead benefactor: Chaucer.

Some of the considerable property owned by Chaucer’s parents was in the Vintry Ward, one of the wealthiest parts of medieval London, where even Queen Philippa owned a residence. Geoffrey’s father was a very successful wine merchant (a vintner), supplying wine to the king’s cellars. He was influential and heavily involved in not just the business affairs of the city, but also in its politics. That a merchant should have done so well and occupy a position in society that took him beyond the affairs of trade was not surprising at this point in the fourteenth century. The merchants formed a powerful group, organising themselves into societies known as guilds, with the craftsmen soon following and organising into similar bodies. Indeed, in 1381 one of the members of the craft guilds became Lord Mayor of London, removing the merchants temporarily from this position of power. There was, therefore, the opportunity for movement and advancement in fourteenth-century England. The old feudal order, in which a small number of nobles and members of the Church were supported by a vast population of land-tilling peasants, was becoming a thing of memory. Famine and population decline had started the process at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the ravages of the Black Death then shifted the balance forever. Old laws binding the remaining peasants to the land of ancestral lords could not be sustained. With labour in short supply, there was a shift in power, and with it came freedom of movement, throughout the country and into the emerging towns.

Of course, old orders tend to resist new orders, and this showed itself in a number of ways. Laws were introduced, for example, to attempt to regulate the kinds of clothes that various ranks of society could wear, and even the kind of food they could eat. Those who worked with animals, such as ploughmen and carters, were supposed only to wear coarse cloth, with belts of linen. Servants were not permitted to eat meat more than once a day. Craftsmen and their wives were forbidden to wear any precious metals and were limited to the fur of rabbits, foxes, or cat. Squirrel fur was reserved for those with higher incomes, the wives of less lowly knights being permitted this, together with silver and silk. This so-called ‘sumptuary’ legislation did not last long, but shows a society attempting to order itself in terms of wealth rather than nobility. In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer supplies us with a small subgroup of pilgrims who proudly wear their guild livery and display with a certain ostentation their elaborately carved silver daggers. Consisting of a haberdasher (who would have dealt in hats and similar goods), a carpenter, a weaver, a dyer, and a tapestry maker, they are part of a parish guild, keen to imagine themselves as ‘an important and great fraternity’, out enjoying their new-found status and the chance to wear their guild finery:

And they were clothed alle in o lyveree	one livery
Of a solempne and a greet fraternitee.	important; parish guild
Ful fressh and newe hir geere apiked was;	their; adorned
Hir knyves were chaped noght with bras	mounted
But al with silver, wroght ful clene and weel	made; splendidly
(GP 363–7)

Such rules, however, were nothing compared to the laws put in place to keep the peasants on the land and in the same positions they had been in before the plague led to a shortage of labour. Parliament attempted to enforce the old laws, while attempting to set wages at pre-plague levels, with fines and imprisonment for those who would not comply. It was an explosive situation, needing not much more to fan the flames. In the event, what was added was a lengthy war and a boy king.

Edward III and the Hundred Years War

At the time of Chaucer’s birth in the 1340s, Edward III had been king of England for more than a decade. He was crowned in 1327 and reigned for 50 years, almost all of them spent at war with France. Indeed, the series of conflicts with the French that began with Edward, has come to be known as the Hundred Years War. The earlier years of the conflict saw some considerable English successes in battle, English skill with the longbow being credited with bringing about several crucial victories. Chaucer’s portrait of the Yeoman (a free servant) in the Canterbury Tales is one of his most complimentary portraits. Such men would have been required by law to practice archery every Sunday, and to be ready to fight for their king when called upon. Chaucer depicts a shaven-headed, armed man in camouflage green, with arrows at the ready and a bow as tall as himself:

A sheef of pecok arwes, bright and kene,	sheaf; peacock; sharp
Under his belt he bar ful thriftily	carried very properly
(Wel koude he dresse his takel yemanly;	he knew how to care for his equipment as a good yeoman should
His arwes drouped noght with fetheres lowe)	did not fall short
And in his hand he baar a myghty bowe.	carried
	(GP 104–8)

With a claim to the French throne on his mother’s side, and with several decisive victories behind him, Edward led his army to Rheims, the site of French coronations since the tenth century. He even carried with him a crown, ready to have himself proclaimed King of France. However, events conspired against him, and he failed to take the city. In retreat, a number of the English forces were captured, among them a young Geoffrey Chaucer.

The wealth and connections of the Chaucer family had enabled them to enrol the child Geoffrey as a page in the royal household. By 1359, Chaucer was serving as a member of the household of Edward’s second son, the Duke of Clarence, which is how he came to be captured near Rheims. His period of captivity was not long. I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Geoffrey Chaucer: A life in time
• 2 Chaucer’s language of poetry
• 3 The Canterbury Tales
• 4 Troilus and Criseyde
• 5 The Book of the Duchess
• 6 The House of Fame
• 7 The Parliament of Fowls
• 8 The Legend of Good Women
• Bibliography
• Index