THE KING'S SQUIRE
For I, that God of Love's servants serve,
Dare not to Love for mine unlikeliness
Prayen for speed, though I should therefore sterve,
So far am I from this help in darkness!
"Troilus and Criseyde," i., 15
In Chaucer's life, as in the "Seven Ages of Man," the soldier follows hard
upon the lover; he is scarcely out of his 'teens before we find him riding
to the Great War, "in hope to stonden in his lady grace." He fought in
that strange campaign of 1359-60, which began with such magnificent
preparations, but ended so ineffectually. Edward marched across France
from Calais to Reims with a splendid army and an unheard-of baggage train;
but the towns closed their gates, the French armies hovered out of his
reach, and the weather was such that horses and men died like flies. "The
xiii. day of Aprill [1360] King Edward with his Oost lay before the Citee
off Parys; the which was a ffoule Derke day of myste, and off haylle, and
so bytter colde, that syttyng on horse bak men dyed. Wherefore, unto this
day yt ys called blak Monday, and wolle be longe tyme here affter."[26]
Edward felt that the stars fought against him, and was glad to make a less
advantageous peace than he might have had before this wasteful raid.
Chaucer's friend and brother-poet, Eustache Deschamps, recalls how the
English took up their quarters in the villages and convents that crown the
heights round Reims, and watched forty days for a favourable opportunity
of attack. Froissart also tells us how Edward feared to assault so strong
a city, and only blockaded it for seven weeks, until "it began to irk him,
and his men found nought more to forage, and began to lose their horses,
and were at great disease for lack of victuals." It was probably on one of
these foraging parties that Chaucer was cut off with other stragglers by
the French skirmishers; and the King paid L16 towards his ransom.[27] The
items in the same account range from L50 paid towards the ransom of
Richard Stury (a distinguished soldier who was afterwards a
fellow-ambassador of Chaucer's), to L6 13_s._ 4_d._ "in compensation for
the Lord Andrew Lutterell's dead horse," and L2 towards an archer's
ransom.
John Chaucer died in 1366, and his thrifty widow hastened to marry
Bartholomew Attechapel; "the funeral bakemeats did coldly furnish forth
the marriage tables."[28] Geoffrey appears to have inherited little
property from either of them; but it must be remembered that economies
were difficult in the Middle Ages, so that men lived far more nearly up to
their incomes than in modern times; and, again, that a considerable
proportion of a citizen's legacies often went to the Church. The healthy
English and American practice of giving a boy a good start and then
leaving him to shift for himself was therefore even more common in the
14th century than now. This is essentially the state of things which we
find described with amazement, and doubtless with a good deal of
exaggeration, in the "Italian Relation of England" of a century later. The
English tradesmen (says the author) show so little affection towards their
children that "after having kept them at home till they arrive at the age
of seven or nine years at the utmost, they put them out, both males and
females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them
generally for another seven or nine years." Thus the children look more to
their masters than to their natural parents, and, "having no hope of their
paternal inheritance," set up on their own account and marry away from
home.[29] From this source (proceeds the Italian) springs that greed of
gain and that omnipotence of money, even in the moral sphere, which are so
characteristic of England. John Chaucer may have left little property to
his son, but he had given him an excellent education, and put him in the
way of making his own fortune; for in 1367 we find him a yeoman of the
King's chamber, and endowed with a life-pension of twenty marks "of our
special grace, and for the good services which our beloved yeoman Geoffrey
Chaucer hath rendered us and shall render us for the future." The phrase
makes it probable that he had already been some little time in the King's
service--very likely as early as the unlucky campaign in which Edward had
helped towards his ransom--and other indications make it almost certain
that he was by this time a married man. Nine years before this, side by
side with Chaucer in the Countess of Ulster's household accounts, we find
among the ladies one Philippa _Pan'_, with a mark of abbreviation, which
probably stands for _panetaria_, or mistress of the pantry. Just as the
Countess bought Chaucer's red-and-black hosen, so she paid "for the making
of Philippa's trimmings," "for the fashioning of one tunic for
Philippa,"[30] "for the making of a corset for Philippa and for the
fur-work," "for XLVIII great buttons of ... [unfortunate gap in the MS.]
... bought in London by the aforesaid John Massingham for buttoning the
aforesaid Philippa's trimmings"; and in each case her steward records the
payment "for drink given to the aforesaid workmen according to the custom
of London." Eight years after this (1366) the Queen granted a life-pension
to her "damoiselle of the chamber," Philippa Chaucer. Six years later,
again, Philippa Chaucer is in attendance upon John of Gaunt's wife; and in
another two years we find her definitely spoken of as the wife of Geoffrey
Chaucer, through whose hands her pension is paid on this occasion, and
sometimes in later years. On the face of these documents the obvious
conclusion would seem to be that the lady, who was certainly _Philippa
Chaucer_ in 1366, and equally certainly _Philippa, wife of Geoffrey
Chaucer_, in 1374, was already in 1366 our poet's wife. The only argument
of apparent weight which has been urged against it is in fact of very
little account when we consider actual medieval conditions. It has been
pleaded that if Chaucer complained in 1366 of an unrequited love which had
tortured him for eight years and still overshadowed his life, he could not
already be a married man. To urge this is to neglect one of the most
characteristic features of good society in the Middle Ages. Even Leon
Gautier, the enthusiastic apologist of chivalry, admits sadly that the
feudal marriage was too often a loveless compact, except so far as the
pair might shake down together afterwards;[31] and conjugal love plays a
very secondary part in the great romances of chivalry. However apocryphal
may be the alleged solemn verdict of a Court of Love that husband and wife
had no right to be in love with each other, the sentence was at least
recognized as _ben trovato_; and nobody who has closely studied medieval
society, either in romance or in chronicle, would suppose that Chaucer
blushed to feel a hopeless passion for another, or to write openly of it
while he had a wife of his own. Dante's Beatrice, and probably Petrarch's
Laura, were married women; and, however strongly we may be inclined to
urge the exceptional and ethereal nature of these two cases, nothing of
the kind can be pleaded for Boccaccio's Fiammetta and Froissart's
anonymous lady-love. Chaucer, therefore, might well have followed the
examples of the four greatest writers of his century. Moreover, in this
case we have evidence that he and Philippa not only began, but continued
and ended with at least a homoeopathic dose of that "little aversion"
which Mrs. Malaprop so strongly recommended in matrimony. His allusions to
wedded life are predominantly disrespectful, or at best mockingly
ironical; and though his own marriage may well have steadied him in some
ways--Prof. Skeat points out that his least moral tales were all written
after Philippa's death in 1387--yet the evidence is against his having
found in it such companionship as might have chained his too errant fancy.
The lives of Burne-Jones and Morris throw unexpected sidelights on that of
the master whom they loved so well; and neither of them seems fully to
have realized how much his own development owed to modern things for which
seventeen generations of men have struggled and suffered since Chaucer's
time. No artist of the Middle Ages--or, indeed, of any but quite recent
times--could have earned by his genius a passport into society for wife
and family as well as himself; nor could anything but a miracle have
unbarred for Chaucer that paradise of splendid work, pure domestic
felicity, and social success which attracts us so much in the life of
Burne-Jones.[32] His wife was probably rather his social superior, and
both would have had in any case a certain status as attendants at Court;
but that was in itself an unhealthy life, and so far as Chaucer's poetry
raised him above his fellow yeomen or fellow squires, so far that special
favour would tend to separate him from his wife. A courtly poet's married
life could scarcely be happy in an age compounded of such social licence
and such galling restrictions: an age when a man might recite the Miller's
and Reve's tales in mixed company, yet a girl was expected not to speak
till she was addressed, to fold her hands when she sat down, to keep her
eyes fixed on the ground as she walked, to assume that all talk of love
meant illicit love, and to avoid even the most natural familiarities on
pain of scandal.[33] We may very easily exaggerate the want of harmony in
the Chaucer household; but everything tends to assure us that his was not
altogether an ideal marriage. When, therefore, he tells us he has long
been the servant of Love, and that he is the very clerk of Love, we need
not suppose any reference here to the lady who had been his wife certainly
for some years, and perhaps for nearly twenty. Prof. Hales, however, seems
to go a good deal too far in assuming that Philippa was in attendance on
Constance, Duchess of Lancaster, while her husband lived snugly in
bachelor apartments over Aldgate.[34]
But who, it may be asked, was this Philippa of the Pantry before she
became Philippa Chaucer? Here again the indications, though tantalizingly
slight, all point towards some connection with John of Gaunt, Chaucer's
great patron. She was probably either a Swynford or a Roet, _i.e._
sister-in-law or own sister to Katherine Roet, who married Sir Thomas
Swynford, and who became in after life first mistress and finally wife to
John of Gaunt. From this marriage were descended the great Beaufort
family, of which the most powerful member, the Cardinal Minister of Henry
VI., speaks in one of his letters of his _cousin_, Thomas Chaucer.[35]
This again is complicated by the doubt which has been thrown on a Thomas
Chaucer's sonship to Geoffrey, in spite of the definite assertion by the
former's contemporary, Gascoigne, Chancellor of Oxford University.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER HALL
(THE GREAT HALL OF THE KING'S PALACE AT WESTMINSTER)]
Meanwhile, however, we are certain that Chaucer was in 1367 a Yeoman of
Edward III.'s Chamber, and that he was promoted five years later to be a
squire in the Royal household. The still existing Household Ordinances of
Edward II. on one side, and Edward IV. on the other, agree so closely in
their description of the duties of these two offices, that we may infer
pretty exactly what they were in Chaucer's time. The earlier ordinances
prescribe that the yeomen "shall serve in the chamber, making beds,
holding and carrying torches, and divers other things which [the King] and
the chamberlain shall command them. These [yeomen] shall eat in the
chamber before the King. And each of them, be he well or ill, shall have
for livery one darre[36] of bread, one gallon of beer, a _messe de
gros_[37] from the kitchen, and yearly a robe in cloth or a mark in money;
and for shoes 4_s._ 8_d._, at two seasons in the year.[38] And if any of
them be sent out of the Court in the King's business, by his commandment,
he shall have 4_d._ a day for his expenses." The later ordinances add to
these duties "to attend the Chamber, to watch the King by course, to go
messages, etc." The yeomen were bedded two by two, apparently on the floor
of the great hall, so that visitors to Westminster Hall may well happen
to tread on the spot where Chaucer nightly lay down to sleep. When he
became a squire, he might either have found himself still on duty in the
King's chamber, or else an "Esquire for the King's mouth," to taste the
food for fear of poison, to carve for the King, and to serve his wine on
bended knee. He still shared a bed with some fellow squire; but they now
shared a servant also and a private room, to which each might bring at
night his gallon or half gallon of ale; "and for winter season, each of
them two Paris candles, one faggot, or else a half of tallwood." Besides
his mess of great meat, he might now take a mess of roast also;[39] his
wages were raised to 7-1/2_d._ per day, and he received yearly "two robes
of cloth, or 40_s._ in money." Moreover, as the Household Book of Edward
IV. adds, "these esquires of household of old be accustomed, winter and
summer, in afternoons and in evenings to draw to Lords Chambers within
Court, there to keep honest company after their cunning, in talking of
Chronicles of Kings, and of other policies, or in piping or harping,
singing, or other acts martial, to help to occupy the Court, and accompany
strangers till the time require of departing." The same compiler looks
back to Edward III.'s time as the crown and glory of English Court life;
and indeed that King lived on a higher scale (as things went in those
days) than any other medieval English King except his inglorious grandson,
Richard II. King John of France might indeed marvel to find himself among
a nation of shopkeepers, and laugh at the thrift and order which
underlay even his Royal cousin's extravagances.[40] But John's son,
Charles the Wise, was destined to earn that surname by nothing more than
by his imitation of English business methods in peace and war; and
meanwhile the longest laugh was with Edward, whose Court swarmed with
French prisoners and hostages. Among the enforced guests were King John
himself, four royal dukes, the flower of the nobility, and thirty-six
substantial citizens sent over by the great towns as pledges for the
enormous war indemnity, which was in fact never fully paid. All these were
probably still at Court when Chaucer first joined it, and few poets have
ever feasted their youthful eyes on more splendid sights than this.
Palaces and castles were filled to overflowing with the spoils of France;
and the prisoners themselves vied with their captors in knightly sports
and knightly magnificence. One of the royal princes had sixteen servants
with him in his captivity; all moved freely about the country on parole,
hawking and hunting, dancing and flouting, rather like guests than
prisoners. Indeed, as Mme. Darmesteter truly remarks, there was a natural
freemasonry between the French nobility and the French-speaking courtiers
of England; and Froissart draws a vivid contrast between our manners and
those of the Germans in this respect. "For English and Gascons are of such
condition that they put a knight or a squire courteously to ransom; but
the custom of the Germans, and their courtesy [to their prisoners] is of
no such sort hitherto--I know not how they will do henceforth--for
hitherto they have had neither pity nor mercy on Christian gentlemen who
fall into their hands as prisoners, but lay on them ransoms to the full
of their estate and even beyond, and put them in chains, in irons, and in
close prison like thieves and murderers; and all to extort the greater
ransom."[41] The French lords added rather to the gaiety of a Court which
was already perhaps the gayest in Europe; a society all the merrier
because it was spending money that had been so quickly won; and because,
in those days of shifting fortune, the shadow of change might already be
foreboded on the horizon. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we may be
captives in our turn. Few of the great leaders on either side escaped
without paying ransom at least once in their lives; and the devil-may-care
of the camp had its direct influence on Court manners. The extravagant and
comparatively inartistic fashions which, at the end of the 14th century,
displaced one of the simplest and most beautiful models of dress which
have ever reigned, were invented, as a contemporary assures us, by "the
unthrifty women that be evil of their body, and chamberers to Englishmen
and other men of war that dwellen with them as their lemans; for they were
the first that brought up this estate that ye use of great purfles and
slit coats.... And as to my wife, she shall not; but the princesses and
ladies of England have taken up the said state and guise, and they may
well hold it if them list."[42] Towards the end of Chaucer's life, when
Richard II. had increased his personal expenses in direct proportion to
his ill-success in war and politics, the English Court reached its highest
pitch of extravagance. The chronicler Hardyng writes--
"Truly I herd _Robert Ireliffe_ say,
_Clerke of the grene cloth_, that to the household
Came every daye, for moost partie alwaye,
Ten thousand folke, by his messes tould,
That followed the hous, aye, as thei would;
And in the kechin three hundred servitours,
And in eche office many occupiours.
"And ladies faire with their gentilwomen,
Chamberers also and lavenders,
Three hundred of them were occupied then:
Ther was greate pride among the officers,
And of al menne far passyng their compeers,
Of riche araye, and muche more costious
Than was before or sith, and more precious."
And he adds a description of Court morals which may well suggest further
reflections on Chaucer's married life.[43]
[Illustration: A TRAVELLING CARRIAGE
(FROM THE LOUTERELL PSALTER)]
But the Court was all that the poet could desire as a school of worldly
manners, of human passion and character, and of gorgeous pageantry. The
King travelled much with his household; a grievous burden indeed to the
poor country folk on whom his purveyors preyed, but to the world in
general a glorious sight. He took with him a multitude of officers already
suppressed as superfluous in the days of Edward IV., "as well Sergeants of
Arms and Messagers many, with the twenty-four Archers before the King,
shooting when he rode by the country, called _Gard Corpes le Roy_. And
therefore the King journied not passing ten or twelve miles a day." Ruskin
traces much of his store of observation to the leisurely journeys round
England with his father in Mr. Telford's chaise; and the young Chaucer
must have gathered from these Royal progresses a rich harvest of
impressions for future use.