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Footnotes:
[1]See Jusserand, “Hist. Litt.,” L. III., ch. i., and the Preface to his “Vie Nomade”; also chap. xix. of Prof. Tout’s volume in the “Political Hist. of Engd.” It is nearly one hundred and fifty years since Tyrwhitt showed, by abundant quotations, the stages by which English fought its way to final recognition as the national language.
[2]Froissart, ed. Luce, i., 359, 402. There was in 1444 a similar attempt to keep up Latin and French among the Benedictine monks, since from ignorance of one or the other language “they frequently fall into shame.” Reynerus, “De Antiq. Benedict,” p. 129.
[3]“He chalenged in Englyssh tunge” (“Chronicles of London,” ed. Kingsford, p. 43, where the exact form of words used by Henry is recorded; cf. Dymock’s challenge, ibid., p. 49).
[4]It is difficult to go altogether with Prof. Skeat in his repudiation of the sense commonly attached to this phrase (note on Prologue, i., 126). Chaucer seems to say that the Prioress (a) knew French, but (b) only French of Stratford, just as he explains that the parish clerk (a) could dance, but (b) only after the School of Oxenford. For this Oxford dancing, see Dr. Rashdall’s “Universities of Europe,” ii., 672.
[5]For the most interesting account of this fusion, see Jusserand, “Hist. Litt.,” p. 236. (Bk. III., ch. i.)
[6]“English Garner,” 15th century, ed. A. W. Pollard, p. 240; J. R. Green’s “Short History,” p. 291. “And one of them named Sheffield, a mercer, came into a house and asked for meat, and especially he asked after eggs; and the goodwife answered that she could speak no French, and the merchant was angry, for he also could speak no French, but would have had eggs, and she understood him not. And then at last another said, that he would have ‘eyren’; then the goodwife said that she understood him well. Lo, what should a man in these days now write, eggs or eyren?”
[7]See the cases given in full by Thorold Rogers, “Oxford City Documents,” pp. 168, 170, 173, and H. Rashdall’s “Universities of Europe,” ii., 363, 369, 403.
[8]See the articles by Prof. Maitland and Mr. A. L. Smith in vol. ii. of “Social England.”
[9]Cf. Reynerus, “De Antiq. Benedict,” pp. 107, 136,425,468, 595. The pages in italics contain startling lists of defaulting abbeys and priories.
[10]See Gower’s “Vox Clamantis,” Bk. III., c. 28, for a description of the worldly aims of the 14th-century universities.
[11]It seems extremely probable, to say the least, that the poem of Piers Plowman was by more than one hand; but, in any case, the authors were contemporaries, and seem to have held very much the same views; so that it is still possible for most purposes of historical argument to quote the poem under the traditional name of Langland.
[12]Bartholomæus Anglicus (Steele, “Mediæval Lore,” 1905), p. 86.
[13]Besant quotes accounts recording (inter alia) a gift of wine to the “Chaucer” on the occasion of a mayoral procession, but apparently without realizing its significance. (“Mediæval London,” i., 303.)
[14]Mr. V. B. Redstone, inAthenæum, No. 4087, p. 233, andEast Anglian Daily Times, April 8, 1908, p. 5, col. 7. It is not my aim, in this chapter, to trouble the reader with discussions of doubtful points, but rather to present what is certainly known, or may safely be inferred about Chaucer’s life.
[15]At Wycombe, too, “every citizen from twelve years old could serve on juries for the town business.” Mrs. Green, “Town Life,” i., 184. I shall have occasion in the next chapter to note how early men began life in those days.
[16]Pauli, “Pictures of Old England,” chap. v.
[17]“Life Records,” iv., 232. The industry of Mr. Walter Rye has collected a large number of documentary notices which establish a probable connection of some kind between Chaucer and Norfolk; but the evidence seems insufficient as yet to prove Mr. Rye’s thesis that the poet was born at Lynn; and in default of such definite evidence, it is safer to presume that he was born in the Thames Street house. (Athenæum, March 7, 1908; cf. “Life Records,” iii., 131.)
[18]At Rouen, Caudebec, and Gisors, for instance, are very exact counterparts of the Walbrook, except that the overhanging houses are a century or two later, and proportionately larger.
[19]The illustration on page 177 represents a similar royal banquet—the celebrated Peacock Feast of Lynn. Robert Braunche, mayor, entertained Edward therecirca1350, and caused the event to be immortalized on his funeral monument. Henry Picard himself was King’s Butler at Lynn in 1350 (Rye,l. c.).
[20]Fitzstephen, in Stow, p. 119.
[21]See “The Hanseatic Steelyard,” in Pauli’s “Pictures,” chap. vi.
[22]“Œuvres,” ed. Buchon, vol. iii., pp. 479 ff.; cf. Lydgate’s account of his own schooldays, in “Babees Book,” E.E.T.S., p. xliii.
[23]Prof. Hales, in “Dict. Nat. Biog.”
[24]See the Queen’s vow before the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War, in Wright’s “Political Poems,” R.S., p. 23.
[25]“P. Plowman,” B., x., 157, and xi., 402.
[26]“Chronicles of London,” ed. Kingsford, p. 13.
[27]These sums should be multiplied by about fifteen to bring them into terms of modern currency.
[28]The poet’s grandmother was married at least thrice. Did he find hints for the “Wife of Bath” in his own family?
[29]Quoted by Dr. Furnivall on p. xv. of his introduction to “Manners and Meals” (E.E.T.S., 1868).
[30]This tunic would, no doubt, be a cote-hardie, or close-fitting bodice and flowing skirt in one line from neck to feet; it may be seen, buttons and all, on the statuette of Edward III.’s eldest daughter which adorns his tomb in Westminster Abbey.
[31]“La Chevalerie,” Nouvelle Edition, pp. 342, 345 ff.
[32]See the author’s “From St. Francis to Dante,” 2nd ed., pp. 350 ff.
[33]That tales like these were read before ladies appears even from Bédier’s judicial remarks in Petit de Juleville’s “Hist. Litt.,” vol. ii., p. 93; and I have shown elsewhere that these represent rather less than the facts. (“From St. Francis to Dante,” 2nd ed., pp. 358, 359.) For girls’ behaviour, see T. Wright’s “Womankind in Western Europe,” pp. 158, 159; “Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour,” chap. 124 ff.; or “La Tour Landry,” E.E.T.S., pp. 2, 175 ff.
[34]“House of Fame,” Bk. II., l. 108; “Troilus,” Bk. III., l. 41; Prof. Hales, in “Dict. Nat. Biog.”
[35]“Life Records,” IV., Doc. No. 286.
[36]“Dole,” “ration.”
[37]“Mess of great meat,”i.e.from one of the staple dishes, excluding such special dishes as would naturally be reserved for the King or his guests.
[38]The legal tariff in the City of London at this time for shoes of cordwain (Cordova morocco) was 6d., and for boots 3s.6d.Cowhide shoes were fixed at 5d., and boots at 3s.Riley, “Liber Albus,” p. xc.
[39]This was exactly the commons of a chaplain of the King’s chapel (“Life Records,” ii., 15). The Dean of the Chapel was dignified with “two darres of bread, one pitcher of wine, two messes de grosse from the kitchen, and one mess of roast.” Some of this, no doubt, would go to his servant. All the King’s household, from the High Steward downwards (who might be a knight banneret), were allowed these messes from the kitchen as well as their dinners in hall.
[40]“This same year [1359] the King held royally St. George Feast at Windsor, there being King John of France, the which King John said in scorn that he never saw so royal a feast, and so costly, made with tallies of tree, without paying of gold and silver” (“Chronicles of London,” ed. 1827, p. 63). Queen Philippa received for this tournament a dress allowance of £3000 modern money (Nicolas, “Order of the Garter,” p. 41).
[41]Froissart, ed. Luce, vol. v., p. 289, ff. Walsingham (“Hist. Ang.,” an. 1389) bears equally emphatic testimony to the good natural feeling existing between the English and French gentry.
[42]“Knight of La Tour-Landry,” E.E.T.S., p. 30 (written in 1371-2).
[43]Eustache Deschamps, whose life and writings often throw so much light on Chaucer’s, shows us the difficulties of married men at court, and says outright—
(Sarradin, “Eustache Deschamps,” pp. 92 ff., 104, 160.)
[44]Quoted by Nicolas from Rymer’s “Fœdera” new ed., iii., 964.
[45]E.E.T.S., “Stacions of Rome,” etc., p. 37. (The whole English poem describes a journey to Spain; but as yet the pilgrims are not out of the Channel.)
[46]Froissart (Globe ed.), pp. 83, 134; “Eulog. Hist.,” iii., 206, 213.
[47]Dante, “Purg.,” iii., 49.
[48]Sarradin, “Deschamps,” pp. 67, 69.
[49]“Hist. of Eng. Lit.,” vol. ii., p. 57, trans. W. C. Robinson.
[50]“Cant. Tales,” G., 57 ff. It will be noted how ill the phrase “son of Eve” suits the Nun’s mouth. In this, as in other cases, Chaucer simply worked one of his earlier poems into the framework of the “Canterbury Tales.”
[51]See a correspondence in theAthenæum, Sept. 17 to Nov. 26, 1898 (Mr. C. H. Bromby and Mr. St. Clair Baddeley), and Mr. F. J. Mather’s two articles in “Modern Language Notes” (Baltimore), vol. xi., p. 210, and vol. xii., p. 1.
[52]See Dr. Koch’s paper in “Chaucer Society Essays,” Pt. IV.
[53]Froissart’s great poem of Méliador thus became anonymous for nearly five centuries, and was only identified by the most romantic chance in our own generation.—Darmesteter, “Froissart,” chap. xiii.
[54]Athenæum, as above.
[55]Froissart, ed. Buchon, i. 546, 555; Darmesteter, p. 32.
[56]C. L. Kingsford, “Chronicles of London,” p. 63.
[57]Chaucer Soc., “Life Records,” iv., p. xxx.
[58]“Eulog. Hist.,” iii., 357: Statutes of Parliament, Ric. II., an. 6, c. 6. The preamble complains that such “malefactors and raptors of women grow more violent, and are in these days more rife than ever in almost every part of the kingdom,” and it implies that married women were sometimes so carried off. Cf. Jusserand, “Vie Nomade,” p. 85, and “Piers Plowman,” B. iv., 47—
[59]“Life Records,” iv., p. xxxv.
[60]Riley, “Memorials,” pp. 410, 445.
[61]Oman, “England, 1377-1485,” p. 100.
[62]“Eulog. Hist.,” iii. 359.
[63]Ibid., 360.
[64]That is, they contributed to maintain the Minster, and were admitted to a share of the spiritual benefits earned by “all prayers, fastings, pilgrimages, almsdeeds, and works of mercy” connected therewith. Edward III., and at least three of his sons, were already of the fraternity of Lincoln, and Richard II., with his queen, were admitted the year after Philippa Chaucer.
[65]Riley, “Memorials,” pp. 271, 285, 321. The Masons’ regulations given on p. 281 of the same book are interesting in connection with Chaucer’s work; but still more so are the documents in “York Fabric Rolls” (Surtees Soc.), pp. 172, 181.
[66]“Life Records,” iv. 282, 283.
[67]A well-to-do youth could be boarded at Oxford for 2s.a week, and it was reckoned that the whole expenses of a Doctor of Divinity could be defrayed for thrice that sum, or half Chaucer’s salary. (Riley, “Memorials,” p. 379; Reynerus, “de Antiq. Benedict,” pp. 200, 596.)
[68]A. 3907. “Lo Grenewych, ther many a shrewe is inne.”
[69]“Little Lowys my son, I aperceive well by certain evidences thine ability to learn sciences touching numbers and proportions; and as well consider I thy busy prayer in special to learn the treatise of the Astrelabie.” Excusing himself for having omitted some problems ordinarily found in such treatises, Chaucer says, “Some of them be too hard to thy tender age of X. year to conceive.”
[70]“Life Records,” iv., Nos. 250, 270, 277. The great significance of this fact is obscured even by such excellent authorities as Prof. Skeat, Prof. Hales, and Mr. Pollard, who all follow Sir Harris Nicolas in misinterpreting the last of these three documents. Chaucer had not lost, as they represent, Henry’s own letters patent of only five days before, but Richard’s patents for the yearly £20 and the tun of wine. It is quite possible that Chaucer may have been obliged to leave them in pledge somewhere, or that they were momentarily mislaid; but it is natural to suspect that the poet would not so lightly have reported them as lost unless it had been to his obvious interest to do so. We must remember the trouble and expense constantly taken by public bodies, for instance, to get their charters ratified by a new king.
[71]Globe ed., p. 464; Buchon, iii., 349.
[72]“Complaint to his Purse,” last stanza.
[73]“Life Records,” iv., p. xlv. In 1395 or 1396 Chaucer received £10 from the clerk of Henry’s great wardrobe, to be paid into Henry’s hands.
[74]Though the subject-matter of this poem is mainly taken from Boethius, yet it evidently has the translator’s hearty approval, and is in tune with many more of his later verses.
[75]Michelet, “Hist. de France,” Liv. VI.,ad fin.A cardinal explained the extreme violence of Urban VI.’s words and actions by the report “that he could not avoid one of two things, lunacy or total collapse; for he never ceased drinking, yet ate nothing.” Baluze, “Vit. Pap. Aven.,” vol. i., col. 1270. Compare Walsingham’s tone with regard to the Pope, “Hist. Angl.,” an. 1385.
[76]Chaucer’s religious belief will be more fully discussed in Chapter XXIV.
[77]W. R. Lethaby, “Westminster Abbey,” 1906, p. 2.
[78]Stow (Routledge, 1893, p. 414) seems to imply that the poet was first buried in the cloister, but this is an obvious error. Dr. Furnivall has pointed out a line of Hoccleve’s which certainly seems to imply that the younger poet was present at his master Chaucer’s death-bed. We may also gather from Hoccleve’s account of his own youth many glimpses which tend to throw interesting sidelights on that of Chaucer (Hoccleve’s Works, E.E.T.S., vol. i., pp. xii., xxxi.).
[79]This was occasionally the case even in Normandy until the English invasion. The great city of Caen, for instance, was still unwalled in 1346. (“Froissart,” ed. Buchon, p. 223.) A piece of London Wall may still be found near the Tower at the bottom of a small passage called Trinity Place, leading out of Trinity Square. It rises about twenty-five feet from the present ground-level.
[80]Riley, “Memorials,” p. 79. This was in 1310.
[81]See pp. 50, 59, 79, 95, 115, 127, 136, 377, 387, 388, 489. My frequent references to this book will be simply to the name of Riley.
[82]Ed. Morley, pp. 154-157.
[83]Riley, p. 270.
[84]From his first Italian journey Chaucer returned on May 23, 1373; but his second was during the summer and early autumn of 1378. (May 28 to Sept. 19.)
[85]“Cant. Tales,” Prol. i., 400.
[86]Walsingham, “Hist. Angl.,” an. 1406,ad fin.
[87]“P. Plowman,” B. Prol., 216. The French words in italics were the first line of a popular song. Gower has an equally picturesque description in his “Mirour de l’Omme,” 25,285 ff.
[88]“London was, in very truth, a city of Palaces. There were, in London itself, more palaces than in Venice and Florence and Verona and Genoa all together.” “Medieval London,” i., 244, where the context shows that the author refers not only to royal residences, but still more to noblemen’s houses.
[89]This was at least the theoretical provision of the regulation of 1189, known as Fitz Alwyne’s Assize, which is fully summarized and annotated in the “Liber Albus,” ed. Riley (R.S.), pp. xxx. ff. We know, however, that similar decrees against roofs of thatch or wooden shingles were not always obeyed.
[90]“Menagier de Paris,” i., 173; Addy, “Evolution of English House,” p. 108; cf. “Piers Plowman’s Creed,” i., 214.
[91]An earthen wall is mentioned in Riley, p. 30. The slight structure of the ordinary house appears from the fact that the rioters of 1381 tore so many down, and that the great storm of 1362 unroofed them wholesale. (Walsingham, an. 1381, and Riley, p. 308.) Compare the hook with wooden handle and two ropes which was kept in each ward for the pulling down of burning houses. (“Liber Albus,” p. xxxiv.)
[92]Cooper, “Annals of Cambridge,” an. 1445; Rashdall, “Universities of Europe,” ii., 413. Cf. the “common nightwalkers” and “roarers” in Riley, pp. 86 ff.
[93]Riley, p. 65. See the specifications for some three-storied houses of a century later quoted by Besant. “Medieval London,” i., 250. The furs here specified may well have come to £3 or £4 more (see Rogers, “Agriculture and Prices,” pp. 536 ff.). The fur for an Oxford warden’s gown varied from 26s.8d.to 83s.
[94]Besant,loc. cit., i., 257, mistakenly calls Hugh a “craftsman,” and gives from his imagination a quite untrustworthy description of the inquest, the house, and the shop. He had evidently not seen the supplementary notice in Sharpe’s “Letter Book,” F.
[95]Riley, p. 199; cf. Sharpe, “Letter Books,” F, pp. 19, 113. A list of furniture left by a richer citizen, apparently incomplete, is given in Riley, p. 123, and another on p. 283, but this is difficult to separate with certainty from his stock-in-trade. The inventory of a well-to-do Norman peasant-farmer is given by S. Luce, “Du Guesclin,” p. 51. Here the strictly domestic items are only “four frying-pans, two metal pots, four chests, three caskets, two feather-beds, three tables, a bedstead, an iron shovel, a gridiron, a [trough?], and a lantern.” This was in 1333.
[96]Addy, “Evolution of English House,” pp. 112 ff. “A chamber with a chimney” was the acme of medieval comfort. “P. Plowman,” B., x., p. 98, and “Crede,” 209.
[97]“Œuvres,” ed. Buchon, p. 646. A century later, Thomas Elwood’s Memoirs show that an English squire’s family needed their warm caps as much indoors as outside.
[98]Cf. the affair in the hall of Wolsingham Rectory in 1370. Raine, “Auckland Castle,” p. 38.
[99]A. F. Leach, “English Schools before the Reformation,” p. 10; “Dame Alice Kyteler” (Camden Soc.), introd., p. xxxix. The choir-boys, it may be noted in passing, had only half an hour of playtime daily.
[100]It is interesting to note that, when Chaucer was Clerk of the Works to Richard II., he superintended the erection of scaffolds for the King and Queen on the occasion of one of these Smithfield tournaments.
[101]“French Chron. of London” (Camden Soc.), p. 52; cf. Walsingham, an. 1326.
[102]“C. T.,” B., 645.
[103]“Chronicles of London,” ed. Kingsford, p. 15.
[104]Walsingham, an. 1381.
[105]“C. T.,” B., 4583.
[106]“Eulog. Hist.,” iii., 387.
[107]Walsingham, an. 1382; Riley, p. 464.
[108]“P. Plowman,” C., vii., 352 ff. For Clarice and Peronel, see Prof. Skeat’s notes,ad loc., and cf. Riley, pp. 484, 566, and note 3.
[109]Newgate, Ludgate, and Cripplegate were regular prisons at this time; but Besant is quite mistaken in saying that all gate-leases provide “that they may be taken over as prisons if they are wanted” (“Medieval London,” i., 163). A Cripplegate lease (Riley, p. 387) has naturally such a provision; the others are silent or (like Chaucer’s) definitely promise the contrary.
[110]P. 489; cf. “Life Records,” IV., xxxiv. Michaelmas Day fell in 1386 on a Saturday.
[111]Bk. II., lines 122 ff.
[112]Darmesteter, “Froissart,” p. 112.
[113]Riley, pp. 194, 285, 338; cf. Mr. W. Hudson’s “Parish of St. Peter Permountergate” (Norwich, 1889), pp. 21, 45, 60.
[114]Cf. the present writer’s “From St. Francis to Dante,” 2nd ed., pp. 6, 160, 167, 380, where proof is adduced from episcopal registers that even large and rich monasteries had often no scriptorium, and many monks could not write their own names.
[115]“Town Life,” ii., 84.
[116]Riley, p. 226. Cf. the similar complaint of a poet against blacksmiths in “Reliquiæ Antiquæ,” i., 240.
[117]Nominally, the great gate was shut at the hour of sunset, and only the wicket-gate left open till curfew; but regulations of this kind were generally interpreted with a good deal of laxity.
[118]Busch, “Lib. Ref.,” p. 408; Gilleberti Abbatis, “Tract. Ascet.,” VII., ii., § 3.
[119]See Oskar Dolch, “The Love of Nature in Early English Poetry;” Dresden, 1882.
[120]“Purg.,” xxvi., 4; viii., 1; iii., 25; cf. xvii., 8, 12.
[121]“Legend of Good Women,” Prol., 30 ff.
[122]“Survey,” ed. Morley, 1893, p. 163.
[123]“Monsieur le curé, ... ne dansons pas; mais permettons à ces pauvres gens de danser. Pourquoi les empêcher d’oublier un moment qu’ils sont malheureux?”
[124]Riley, 571. I have dealt fully with this subject in my “Medieval Studies,” Nos. 3 and 4.
[125]“Babees Book,” E.E.T.S., p. 40; “Ménagier de Paris,” i., 15; “C. T.,” C., 62.
[126]Sharpe’s “Letter Book” G., pp. 274, 303; Riley, pp. 269, 534, 561, 571, 669. In the country, “hocking” was often resorted to for raising church funds. See Sir John Phear’s “Molland Accounts” (Devonshire Assn., 1903), pp. 198 ff.
[127]Cf. “C. T.,” E., 2029; F., 908; “Parl. Foules,” 121. For his personal love of trees, etc., see “C. T.,” A., 2920; “Parl. Foules,” 175, 201, 442.
[128]Cf. Riley, pp. 7, 116, 228, 280, 382, 487, 498.
[129]“Herbarium,” green and shady spot.
[130]Riley, 388, andpassim.
[131]“Aetas Prima,” l. 23 ff.
[132]Loftie, p. 26.
[133]“Letter Book,” G., pp. iii. ff., where there is a very interesting case of a Florentine merchant.
[134]It is easy to understand how Jews themselves came back to England under the guise of Lombards. We know enough, from many other sources, of the evils which followed from the inconsistent efforts to outlaw all takers of interest, to appreciate the truth which underlay the obvious exaggerations of the Commons in their petition to the King in 1376. “There are in our land a very great multitude of Lombards, both brokers and merchants, who serve no purpose but that of ill-doing: moreover, several of those which pass for Lombards are Jews and Saracens and privy spies; and of late they have brought into our land a most grievous vice which it beseems us not to name” (“Rot. Parl.,” vol. ii., p. 352, § 58).
[135]Benvenuto da Imola, “Comentum,” vol. i., p. 579; Etienne de Bourbon, p. 254; Nicole Bozon, pp. 35, 226; “Piers Plowman,” B., iii., 38; cf. Gower, “Mirour,” 21409.
[136]“Mirour,” 25429 ff., 25237 ff., 25915. Mr. Macaulay remarks that Gower seems to deal more tenderly with his own merchant-class than with other classes of society; but his blame, even with this allowance, is severe.
[137]“Mirour,” 25813. The emphasis which he lays on carpets and curtains shows how great a luxury they were then considered.
[138]“In justice, however, to these centuries, it must be remarked, that they received the institutions of Frankpledge as an inheritance from Saxon times” (Riley).
[139]“To these writs return was made [in 1354] to the effect that the civic authorities had given orders for butchers to carry the entrails of slaughtered beasts to the Flete and there clean them in the tidal waters of the Thames, instead of throwing them on the pavement by the house of the Grey Friars.” Again: “Although this order [of 1369] was carried out and the bridge destroyed, butchers continued to carry offal from the shambles to the riverside; and this nuisance had to be suppressed in 1370.” But the whole passage should be read in full.
[140]Vol. I., cxxxviii. ff. and 365 ff.
[141]Mrs. Green, “Town Life,” ii., 55.
[142]Between 1347 and 1375, for instance, there are only 23 cases of pillory in all.
[143]It is pertinent to note in this connection the medieval custom of giving condemned meat to hospitals. Mr. Wheatley (“London,” p. 196) quotes from a Scottish Act of Parliament in 1386, “Gif ony man brings to the market corrupt swine or salmond to be sauld, they sall be taken by the bailie, and incontinent, without ony question, sall be sent to the leper folke; and, gif there be na lepper folke, they sall be destroyed all utterlie.” At Oxford in the 15th century, there was a similar regulation providing that putrid or unfit meat and fish should be sent to St. John’s Hospital. (“Munimenta Academica” (R.S.), pp. 51, 52). Here is a probable clue to the tradition that medieval apprentices struck against salmon more than twice a week. SeeAthenæum, August 27 and September 3, 1898.
[144]Besant insists very justly on the blood-kinship between the leading citizens and the country gentry. (“Medieval London,” i., 218 ff.) He shows that a very large majority of Mayors, Aldermen, etc., were country-born, and of good family.
[145]Michelet, “Hist. de France,” l. i., ch. i.
[146]John Philpot, it may be noted, was at this very time one of the Collectors of Customs under Chaucer’s Comptrollership.
[147]“C. T.,” E., 995.
[148]The violent scenes of the years 1381-1391 are summarized in Wheatley’s “London” (Medieval Towns), pp. 236-9. Among the victims of an unsuccessful cause were even Sir William Walworth and Sir John Philpot.
[149]Walsingham, an. 1392; “Eulog. Hist.,” iii., 368.
[150]Ed. Luce, vol. i., pp. 224, 243, 249.
[151]Cf. Mrs. Green,loc. cit., ii., 31. “In 1499 a glover from Leighton Buzzard travelled with his wares to Aylesbury for the market before Christmas Day. It happened that an Aylesbury miller, Richard Boose, finding that his mill needed repairs, sent a couple of servants to dig clay ‘called Ramming clay’ for him on the highway, and was in no way dismayed because the digging of this clay made a great pit in the middle of the road ten feet wide, eight feet broad, and eight feet deep, which was quickly filled with water by the winter rains. But the unhappy glover, making his way from the town in the dusk, with his horse laden with panniers full of gloves, straightway fell into the pit, and man and horse were drowned. The miller was charged with his death, but was acquitted by the court on the ground that he had had no malicious intent, and had only dug the pit to repair his mill, and because he really did not know of any other place to get the kind of clay he wanted save the highroad.”
[152]Etienne de Bourbon, p. 411.
[153]T. Wright, “Homes of other Days,” pp. 345 ff., whence I borrow the accompanying illustration from a MS. of the 15th century, representing the outside and inside of an inn. Incidentally, it illustrates also the common medieval phrase “naked in bed.” Mrs. Green (“Town Life,” ii., 33) quotes the grateful entry of a citizen in his public accounts “Paid for our bed there (and it was well worth it, witness, a featherbed) 1d.”
[154]There wereseventyplaces of pilgrimage in Norfolk alone (Cutts, “Middle Ages,” p. 162). For churches as trysting-places for lovers or gossips we have evidence on many sides,e.g.the lovers of the “Decameron” (Prologue and Epilogue), and the custom of “Paul’s Walk” which lasted long after the Reformation.
[155]Berthold v. Regensburg, “Predigten,” ed. Pfeiffer, i., 448, 459, 493; Et. de Bourbon, p. 167; “Piers Plowman,” B., v., 527, C., v., 123; Wharton, “Anglia Sacra,” i., 49, 50.
[156]“Wyclif’s Works,” ed. Arnold, i., 83; cf. other quotations in Lechler; “Wiclif,” Section x., notes 286, 288; Jusserand, “Vie Nomade,” p. 296; Foxe (Parker Soc.), vol. iii., p. 268.
[157]Chaucer himself tells us the day in the “Man of Lawe’s Prologue”; Prof. Skeat has accumulated highly probable evidence for the year 1387 (vol. iii., p. 373, and vol. v., p. 75).
[158]About 520 feet from the ground, according to Hollar, but more probably a little short of 500 feet. (H. B. Wheatley, “London,” p. 333.) It must be remembered also how high the cathedral site rises above the river.
[159]Bern. Ep. 25; cf. “Liber Guillelmi Majoris,” p. 478.
[160]Skeat, v., p. 129. “In the subsidy Rolls (1380-1) for Southwark, occurs the entry ‘Henri Bayliff, Ostyler ... 2s.’ In the Parliament held at Westminster (1376-7) Henry Bailly was one of the representatives for that borough, and again, in the Parliament at Gloucester, 2, Rich. II., the name occurs.”
[161]The too strict avoidance of oaths had long been authoritatively noted as suggesting a presumption of heresy; here (as in so many other places) Chaucer admirably illustrates formal and official documents.
[162]About £1000 in modern money.
[163]“Its unsuitableness to the Clerk has often been noticed,” writes Mr. Pollard; but surely those who find fault here have forgotten the obvious truth voiced by the Wife of Bath, “For trust ye well, it is impossible that any clerk will speakë good of wives.”
[164]This highly dramatic addition of the Canon and his Yeoman is probably an afterthought of Chaucer’s, who had very likely himself suffered at the hands of some such impostor.
[165]There is, as Prof. Skeat points out, an inconsistency here in the text. We can see from Group H., l. 16 that Chaucer had at one time meant the Manciple’s tale to be told in the morning; yet now when it is ended he tells us plainly that it is four in the afternoon (Group I., 5).
[166]An allusion to the alliterative verse popular among the common folk, like that of “Piers Plowman.”
[167]It was mostly destroyed by fire in 1865. Most writers on Canterbury, misled by the ancient spelling, call the inn “Chequers of the Hope.”Hope, as Prof. Skeat has long ago pointed out, is simplyHoop, a part of the inn sign. Cf. Riley, “Memorials of London,” pp. 497, 524; and “Hist. MSS. Commission,” Report v., pt. i., p. 448.
[168]Mrs. Green, “Town Life,” ii., 33.
[169]A. Murimuth, ed. Hog., p. 225.
[170]Walsingham, an. 1349; Hoccleve, E.E.T.S., vol. iii., p. 93.
[171]Ed. Buchon, i., 286; ed. Luce, iv., 327.
[172]Longman, “Edward III.,” i., 225, 413.
[173]Longman, “Edward III.,” vol. i., pp. 147, 157, 178.
[174]Ed. Buchon, i., 12, 34; ed. Luce, i., 284-287.
[175]Cf. Darmesteter, “Froissart,” p. 16, and Froissart, ed. Buchon, p. 512. “The good queen Philippa was in my youth my queen and sovereign. I was five years at the court of the King and Queen of England. In my youth I was her clerk, serving her with fair ditties and treatises of love; and, for the love of the noble and worthy lady my mistress, all other great lords—king, dukes, earls, barons and knights, of whatsoever country they might be—loved me and saw me gladly and gave me much profit.”
[176]I cannot refrain here from calling attention to the extraordinary historical value of the eight volumes of Exeter registers published by Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph, who in this department has done more for historical students, during the last twenty-five years, than all the learned societies of the kingdom put together.
[177]Ed. 1812, p. 317. The text of this book is frequently corrupt; but the evident sense of these ungrammatical lines 3-5 is that the envoys were allowed to watch the unsuspecting damsels from some hidden coign of vantage. It will be noted that Hardyng speaks offivedaughters; there had been five, but the eldest was now dead.
[178]Ed. 1841, p. 206. She was Katherine, daughter to Sir Adam Banastre. Miss Strickland asserts that the Queen, contrary to the custom of medieval ladies in high life, nursed the infant herself. She gives no reference, and her authority is possibly Joshua Barnes’s “Life of Edward III.” (1688), p. 44, where, however, references are again withheld. The Black Prince was born June 15, 1330, when the King would have been 19 and the Queen just on 16 years old according to Froissart; but Edward was in fact only 17, and Bishop Stapledon’s reckoning would make the Queen about the same age.
[179]Throughout this chapter I multiply the ancient money by fifteen, to bring it to modern value.
[180]Such acts of vandalism were far more common in the Middle Ages than is generally imagined; a good many instances are noted in the index of my “From St. Francis to Dante.”
[181]Devon, “Issues of the Exchequer,” pp. 144, 153, 155, 199; “York Fabric Rolls,” p. 125; cf. 154. It was one of the privileges of the Archbishops of York to crown the Queen. For the mortuary system, see my “Priests and People in Medieval England.” (Simpkins. 1s.)
[182]Clough, “Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich.”
[183]“Mon. Germ. Scriptt.,” xxxii., 444.
[184]“Mirour,” 23893 ff.
[185]Lénient, “Satire en France” (1859), p. 202.
[186]Sacchetti, “Novelle,” cliii.; Ste-Palaye, “Chevalerie,” ii., 80.
[187]Mr. Rye (l. c.) points out how frequent was the interchange between London and Lynn. Another colleague of John Chaucer’s, John de Stodey, Mayor and Sheriff of London, had been formerly a taverner at Lynn.
[188]“Mirour,” 7225: Cf. “Piers Plowman,” C., vii., 248. Readers of Chaucer’s “Prologue” will remember this mysterious word “chevisance” in connection with the Merchant. Its proper meaning was simplybargain: the slang sense will be best understood from a Royal ordinance of 1365 against those who lived by usury; “which kind of contract, the more subtly to deceive the people, they callexchange, orchevisance.”
[189]“Vie Nomade,” pp. 33, 46.
[190]These were, of course, fines for breaches of the assize of ale, as in the Norwich cases already mentioned.
[191]In 1347 his total income was £2460, out of which he saved £1150. In the two other years given by Smyth he saved £659 and £977. Some knights even made a living by pot-hunting at tournaments. See Ch.-V. Langlois, “La Vie en France au M. A.,” 1908, p. 163.
[192]Cf. a similar instance in Riley, p. 392.
[193]The Shillingford Letters show us the Bishop and Canons of Exeter selling wine in the same way at their own houses (p. 91).
[194]Oman, “Art of War in the Middle Ages,” 380 ff.
[195]Buchon, i., 349, 431; Globe, 349.
[196]“Mirour,” 24625. Cf. the corresponding passage in the “Vox Clamantis,” Bk. VI. According to Hoccleve, “Law is nye flemëd [= banished] out of this cuntre;” it is a web which catches the small flys and gnats, but lets the great flies go (Works, E.E.T.S., iii., 101 ff.).
[197]Walsingham, an. 1381. The evil repute of jurors is fully explained by Gower, “Mirour,” 25033. According to him, perjury had become almost a recognized profession.
[198]Gautier,loc. cit., p. 352.
[199]Lyndwood, “Provinciale,” ed. Oxon., p. 272.
[200]“Piers Plowman,” B., xv., 237, and xx., 137.
[201]Pollock and Maitland, “History of English Law,” vol. i., p. 387; Lyndwood, “Provinciale,” pp. 271 ff. It is the more necessary to insist on this, because of a serious error, based on a misreading of Bishop Quivil’s injunctions. The bishop does, indeed, proclaim his right and duty ofpunishingthe parties to a clandestine marriage; but, so far from flying in the face of Canon Law by threatening todissolvethe contract, he expressly admits, in the same breath, its binding force.—Wilkins, ii., 135.
[202]Wilkins, “Concilia,” i., 478.
[203]Froissart, Buchon, iii., 235, 258.
[204]“Piers Plowman,” C., xi., 256. Gower speaks still more strongly, if possible, “Mirour,” 17245 ff. Chaucer’s friend Hoccleve makes the same complaint (E.E.T.S., vol. iii., p. 60), and these practices outlasted the Reformation. The curious reader should consult Dr. Furnivall’s “Child Marriages and Divorces” (E.E.T.S., 1897).
[205]“Adam of Usk,” p. 3; cf. “Eulog. Hist.,” iii., 355 (where the price is given as 22,000 marks), and 237, where the negotiations for another Royal marriage are described with equally brutal frankness.
[206]Froissart, Buchon, ii., 758.
[207]“Paston Letters,” 1901, Introd., p. clxxvi.; cf. for example, Thorold Rogers’ “Hist. of Ag. and Prices,” ii., 608. “Megge, the daughter of John, son of Utting,” pays only 1s.for her marriage; but “Alice’s daughter” pays 6s.8d.; and so on to “Will, the son of John,” and “Roger, the Reeve,” who each pay 20s.That is, it was possible for the lord of the manor to squeeze £20 in modern money out of a single peasant marriage.
[208]Sarradin, “Deschamps,” p. 256.
[209]Riley, p. 379. It must, however, be remembered that the ordinary rate of interest then was twenty per cent. Thus Robert de Brynkeleye receives the wardship of Thomas atte Boure, who had a patrimony of £300 (14th-century standard). With this Robert trades, paying his twenty per cent. for the use of it, so that he has to account for £1080 at the heir’s majority. Of this he takes £120 for keep and out-of-pocket expenses, and £390 for his trouble, so that the ward receives £570. The Royal Household Ordinances of Edward II.’s reign provide for the maintenance of wards until “they have their lands, or the king have givenor soldthem.”—“Life Records,” ii., p. 19.
[210]Ste-Palaye,loc. cit., i., 64 ff.; ii., 90. This rule of age, like all others, had, however, been broken from the first. As early as 1060, Geoffrey of Anjou knighted his nephew Fulk at the age of 17; and such incidents are common in epics. Princes of the blood were knighted in their cradles.
[211]Walsingham, ann. 1307, 1381; “Eulog. Hist.,” iii., 189, 389. The woman avoided the battle only by withdrawing her accusation.
[212]Gower, “Mirour,” 17521.
[213]“Prediche Volgari,” ii., 115, and iii., 176.
[214]I quote from the 15th-century English translation published by the E.E.T.S. (pp. 25, 27, 81; cf. 23, 95; the square bracket is transferred from p. 23). Between 1484 and 1538 there were at least eight editions printed in French, English, and German.
[215]Rashdall, “Universities of Europe,” ii., 599.
[216]Pp. 8, 18, 33, 36, 156, 207, 217, 218, andpassim.
[217]“Most of the girls in our ‘Chansons de Geste’ are represented by our poets as horrible little monsters, ... shameless, worse than impudent, caring little whether the whole world watches them, and obeying at all hazards the mere brutality of their instincts. Their forwardness is not only beyond all conception, but contrary to all probability and all sincere observation of human nature.” Gautier,l. c., p. 378.
[218]There is a very interesting essay on “Chaucer’s Love Poetry” in theCornhill, vol. xxxv., p. 280. It is, however, a good deal spoiled by the author’s inclusion of many works once attributed to the poet, but now known to be spurious.
[219]Bk. IV., ll. 152, 158, 367, 519, 554, 564.
[220]“Paston Letters” (ed. Gairdner, 1900), ii., 364; iv., ccxc.
[221]Few tales illustrate more clearly the woman’s duty of accepting any knight who made himself sufficiently miserable about her, than that of Boccaccio, which Dryden has so finely versified under the name of Theodore and Honoria. Equally significant is one of the “Gesta Romanorum” (ed. Swan., No. XXVIII.).
[222]Quoted by S. Luce, “Bertrand du Guesclin,” 1882, p. 124.
[223]The essentially compulsory foundation of Edward III.’s armies, for at least a great part of his reign, seems to have been overlooked even by Prof. Oman in his valuable “Art of War in the Middle Ages.”
[224]Froissart, ed. Luce, i., 401. It was at this time that Edward also proclaimed the duty of teaching French for military purposes, as noted in Chap. I. of this book.
[225]“Norwich Militia in the 14th Century” (Norfolk and Norwich Arch. Soc.), vol. xiv., p. 263.
[226]Knighton (R.S.), ii., 42, 44, 109.
[227]The Scots themselves had found out long before this who were their most formidable enemies. Sir James Douglas had been accustomed to cut off the right hand or put out the right eye of any archer whom he could catch.
[228]Compare the interesting case in Gross, “Office of Coroner,” p. 74. Two conscripts, on their way to join the army, chanced to meet at Cold Ashby the constable who was responsible for their being selected; they ran him through with a lance and then took sanctuary. It is significant that they were not hanged, but carried off to the army; the King needed every stout arm he could muster.
[229]Tournaments not infrequently gave rise to treacherous murders and vendettas, as in the case of Sir Walter Mauny’s father (Froissart, Buchon., i., 199). Compare also the scandal caused by the women who used to attend them in men’s clothes (Knighton, ii., p. 57). Luce, however, very much overstates the Royal objections to jousts (pp. 113, 141). He evidently fails to realize what a large number of authorized tourneys were held by Edward III.
[230]Froissart, Globe, 94-97.
[231]Denifle, “La Désolation des Eglises,” etc., vol. i., pp. 497, 504, 514. Two pages from English chroniclers are almost as bad as any of the iniquities printed in Father Denifle’s book, viz. the sack of Winchelsea (Knighton, ii., 109) and Sir John Arundel’s shipload of nuns from Southampton (Walsingham, an. 1379; told briefly in “Social England,” illd. ed., vol. ii. p. 260).
[232]Cf. Knighton, ii., 102.
[233]Green, “Town Life,” i., 130. “At the close of the 14th century a certain knight, Baldwin of Radington, with the help of John of Stanley, raised eight hundred fighting men ‘to destroy and hurt the commons of Chester’; and these stalwart warriors broke into the abbey, seized the wine, and dashed the furniture in pieces, and when the mayor and sheriff came to the rescue nearly killed the sheriff. When in 1441 the Archbishop of York determined to fight for his privileges in Ripon Fair, he engaged two hundred men-at-arms from Scotland and the Marches at sixpence or a shilling a day, while a Yorkshire gentleman, Sir John Plumpton, gathered seven hundred men; and at the battle that ensued, more than a thousand arrows were discharged by them.”