THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
1. The opening of the fourteenth century saw the death of the great and
able king, Edward I., the “Hammer of the Scots,” the “Keeper of his
word.” The century itself-- a most eventful period-- witnessed the
feeble and disastrous reign of Edward II.; the long and prosperous
rule-- for fifty years-- of Edward III.; the troubled times of Richard
II., who exhibited almost a repetition of the faults of Edward II.; and
the appearance of a new and powerful dynasty-- the House of Lancaster--
in the person of the able and ambitious Henry IV. This century saw also
many striking events, and many still more striking changes. It beheld
the welding of the Saxon and the Norman elements into one-- chiefly
through the French wars; the final triumph of the English language over
French in 1362; the frequent coming of the Black Death; the victories of
Crecy and Poitiers; it learned the universal use of the mariner’s
compass; it witnessed two kings-- of France and of Scotland-- prisoners
in London; great changes in the condition of labourers; the invention of
gunpowder in 1340; the rise of English commerce under Edward III.; and
everywhere in England the rising up of new powers and new ideas.
2. The first prose-writer in this century is +Sir John Mandeville+ (who
has been called the “Father of English Prose”). King Alfred has also
been called by this name; but as the English written by Alfred was very
different from that written by Mandeville,-- the latter containing a
large admixture of French and of Latin words, both writers are deserving
of the epithet. The most influential prose-writer was +John Wyclif+, who
was, in fact, the first English Reformer of the Church. In poetry, two
writers stand opposite each other in striking contrast-- +Geoffrey
Chaucer+ and +William Langlande+, the first writing in courtly “King’s
English” in end-rhyme, and with the fullest inspirations from the
literatures of France and Italy, the latter writing in head-rhyme, and--
though using more French words than Chaucer-- with a style that was
always homely, plain, and pedestrian. +John Gower+, in Kent, and +John
Barbour+, in Scotland, are also noteworthy poets in this century. The
English language reached a high state of polish, power, and freedom in
this period; and the sweetness and music of Chaucer’s verse are still
unsurpassed by modern poets. The sentences of the prose-writers of this
century are long, clumsy, and somewhat helpless; but the sweet homely
English rhythm exists in many of them, and was continued, through
Wyclif’s version, down into our translation of the Bible in 1611.
3. SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, (+1300-1372+), “the first prose-writer in formed
English,” was born at St Albans, in Hertfordshire, in the year 1300. He
was a physician; but, in the year 1322, he set out on a journey to the
East; was away from home for more than thirty years, and died at Liège,
in Belgium, in 1372. He wrote his travels first in Latin, next in
French, and then turned them into English, “that every man of my nation
may understand it.” The book is a kind of guide-book to the Holy Land;
but the writer himself went much further east-- reached Cathay or China,
in fact. He introduced a large number of French words into our speech,
such as _cause_, _contrary_, _discover_, _quantity_, and many hundred
others. His works were much admired, read, and copied; indeed, hundreds
of manuscript copies of his book were made. There are nineteen still in
the British Museum. The book was not printed till the year 1499-- that
is, twenty-five years after printing was introduced into this country.
Many of the Old English inflexions still survive in his style. Thus he
says: “Machamete was born in Arabye, that was a pore knave (boy) that
kepte cameles that went_en_ with marchantes for marchandise.”
4. JOHN WYCLIF (his name is spelled in about forty different ways)--
+1324-1384+-- was born at Hipswell, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, in the
year 1324, and died at the vicarage of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire,
in 1384. His fame rests on two bases-- his efforts as a reformer of the
abuses of the Church, and his complete translation of the +Bible+. This
work was finished in 1383, just one year before his death. But the
translation was not done by himself alone; the larger part of the Old
Testament version seems to have been made by Nicholas de Hereford.
Though often copied in manuscript, it was not printed for several
centuries. Wyclif’s New Testament was printed in 1731, and the Old
Testament not until the year 1850. But the words and the style of his
translation, which was read and re-read by hundreds of thoughtful men,
were of real and permanent service in fixing the language in the form in
which we now find it.
5. JOHN GOWER (+1325-1408+) was a country gentleman of Kent. As
Mandeville wrote his travels in three languages, so did Gower his poems.
Almost all educated persons in the fourteenth century could read and
write with tolerable and with almost equal ease, English, French, and
Latin. His three poems are the +Speculum Meditantis+ (“The Mirror of the
Thoughtful Man”), in French; the +Vox Clamantis+ (“Voice of One
Crying”), in Latin; and +Confessio Amantis+ (“The Lover’s Confession”),
in English. No manuscript of the first work is known to exist. He was
buried in St Saviour’s, Southwark, where his effigy is still to be
seen-- his head resting on his three works. Chaucer called him “the
moral Gower”; and his books are very dull, heavy, and difficult to read.
6. WILLIAM LANGLANDE (+1332-1400+), a poet who used the old English
head-rhyme, as Chaucer used the foreign end-rhyme, was born at
Cleobury-Mortimer in Shropshire, in the year 1332. The date of his death
is doubtful. His poem is called the +Vision of Piers the Plowman+; and
it is the last long poem in our literature that was written in Old
English alliterative rhyme. From this period, if rhyme is employed at
all, it is the end-rhyme, which we borrowed from the French and
Italians. The poem has an appendix called +Do-well, Do-bet, Do-best+--
the three stages in the growth of a Christian. Langlande’s writings
remained in manuscript until the reign of Edward VI.; they were printed
then, and went through three editions in one year. The English used in
the +Vision+ is the Midland dialect-- much the same as that used by
Chaucer; only, oddly enough, Langlande admits into his English a larger
amount of French words than Chaucer. The poem is a distinct landmark in
the history of our speech. The following is a specimen of the lines.
There are three alliterative words in each line, with a pause near the
middle--
“A voice {l}oud in that {l}ight · to {L}ucifer criëd,
‘{P}rinces of this {p}alace · {p}rest[16] undo the gatës,
For here {c}ometh with {c}rown · the {k}ing of all glory!’”
[Footnote 16: Quickly.]
7. GEOFFREY CHAUCER (+1340-1400+), the “father of English poetry,” and
the greatest narrative poet of this country, was born in London in or
about the year 1340. He lived in the reigns of Edward III., Richard II.,
and one year in the reign of Henry IV. His father was a vintner. The
name _Chaucer_ is a Norman name, and is found on the roll of Battle
Abbey. He is said to have studied both at Oxford and Cambridge; served
as page in the household of Prince Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third
son of Edward III.; served also in the army, and was taken prisoner
in one of the French campaigns. In 1367, he was appointed
gentleman-in-waiting (_valettus_) to Edward III., who sent him on
several embassies. In 1374 he married a lady of the Queen’s chamber; and
by this marriage he became connected with John of Gaunt, who afterwards
married a sister of this lady. While on an embassy to Italy, he is
reported to have met the great poet Petrarch, who told him the story of
the Patient Griselda. In 1381, he was made Comptroller of Customs in the
great port of London-- an office which he held till the year 1386. In
that year he was elected knight of the shire-- that is, member of
Parliament for the county of Kent. In 1389, he was appointed Clerk of
the King’s Works at Westminster and Windsor. From 1381 to 1389 was
probably the best and most productive period of his life; for it was in
this period that he wrote the +House of Fame+, the +Legend of Good
Women+, and the best of the +Canterbury Tales+. From 1390 to 1400 was
spent in writing the other +Canterbury Tales+, ballads, and some moral
poems. He died at Westminster in the year 1400, and was the first writer
who was buried in the Poets’ Corner of the Abbey. We see from his life--
and it was fortunate for his poetry-- that Chaucer had the most varied
experience as student, courtier, soldier, ambassador, official, and
member of Parliament; and was able to mix freely and on equal terms with
all sorts and conditions of men, from the king to the poorest hind in
the fields. He was a stout man, with a small bright face, soft eyes,
dazed by long and hard reading, and with the English passion for
flowers, green fields, and all the sights and sounds of nature.
8. +Chaucer’s Works.+-- Chaucer’s greatest work is the +Canterbury
Tales+. It is a collection of stories written in heroic metre-- that is,
in the rhymed couplet of five iambic feet. The finest part of the
Canterbury Tales is the +Prologue+; the noblest story is probably the
+Knightes Tale+. It is worthy of note that, in 1362, when Chaucer was a
very young man, the session of the House of Commons was first opened
with a speech in English; and in the same year an Act of Parliament was
passed, substituting the use of English for French in courts of law, in
schools, and in public offices. English had thus triumphed over French
in all parts of the country, while it had at the same time become
saturated with French words. In the year 1383 the Bible was translated
into English by Wyclif. Thus Chaucer, whose writings were called by
Spenser “the well of English undefiled,” wrote at a time when our
English was freshest and newest. The grammar of his works shows English
with a large number of inflexions still remaining. The Canterbury Tales
are a series of stories supposed to be told by a number of pilgrims who
are on their way to the shrine of St Thomas (Becket) at Canterbury. The
pilgrims, thirty-two in number, are fully described-- their dress, look,
manners, and character in the Prologue. It had been agreed, when they
met at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, that each pilgrim should tell four
stories-- two going and two returning-- as they rode along the grassy
lanes, then the only roads, to the old cathedral city. But only
four-and-twenty stories exist.
9. +Chaucer’s Style.+-- Chaucer expresses, in the truest and liveliest
way, “the true and lively of everything which is set before him;” and he
first gave to English poetry that force, vigour, life, and colour which
raised it above the level of mere rhymed prose. All the best poems and
histories in Latin, French, and Italian were well known to Chaucer; and
he borrows from them with the greatest freedom. He handles, with
masterly power, all the characters and events in his Tales; and he is
hence, beyond doubt, the greatest narrative poet that England ever
produced. In the Prologue, his masterpiece, Dryden says, “we have our
forefathers and great-grand-dames all before us, as they were in
Chaucer’s days.” His dramatic power, too, is nearly as great as his
narrative power; and Mr Marsh affirms that he was “a dramatist before
that which is technically known as the existing drama had been
invented.” That is to say, he could set men and women talking as they
would and did talk in real life, but with more point, spirit, _verve_,
and picturesqueness. As regards the matter of his poems, it may be
sufficient to say that Dryden calls him “a perpetual fountain of good
sense;” and that Hazlitt makes this remark: “Chaucer was the most
practical of all the great poets,-- the most a man of business and of
the world. His poetry reads like history.” Tennyson speaks of him thus
in his “Dream of Fair Women”:--
“Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth,
With sounds that echo still.”
10. JOHN BARBOUR (+1316-1396+).-- The earliest Scottish poet of any
importance in the fourteenth century is John Barbour, who rose to be
Archdeacon of Aberdeen. Barbour was of Norman blood, and wrote Northern
English, or, as it is sometimes called, Scotch. He studied both at
Oxford and at the University of Paris. His chief work is a poem called
+The Bruce+. The English of this poem does not differ very greatly from
the English of Chaucer. Barbour has _fechtand_ for _fighting_; _pressit_
for _pressëd_; _theretill_ for _thereto_; but these differences do not
make the reading of his poem very difficult. As a Norman he was proud of
the doings of Robert de Bruce, another Norman; and Barbour must often
have heard stories of him in his boyhood, as he was only thirteen when
Bruce died.