CHAPTER XXIV_Chaucer and His England

CONCLUSION

"Although the style [of Chaucer] for the antiquity may distaste you,

yet as under a bitter and rough rind there lieth a delicate kernel of

conceit and sweet invention."--HENRY PEACHAM, "The Compleat

Gentleman," 1622

Into this state of things suddenly came the "Black Death" of 1348-9, the

most terrible plague that ever raged in Christendom. This was at once

hailed by moralists as God's long-delayed punishment upon a society rotten

to the core. At first the world was startled into seriousness. Many of the

clergy fought the plague with that self-sacrificing devotion which, in all

denominations, a large fraction of the Christian clergy has always shown

at similar moments. But there is no evidence to show that the priests died

in sensibly larger proportions than their flocks; and many contemporary

chroniclers expressly record that the sick were commonly deserted even by

their spiritual pastors. After the first shock was over, the multitude

relapsed into a licence proportionate to their first terror--a reaction

described most vividly by Boccaccio, but with equal emphasis by other

chroniclers. Many good men, in their bitter disappointment, complained

that the world was grown more careless and irreligious than before the

Plague; but this can hardly be the verdict of most modern students who

look carefully into the mass of surviving evidence.

To begin with, the Black Death dealt a fatal blow to that old vicious

system of boy-rectors. Half the population perished in the plague, half

the livings went suddenly begging; and in the Church, as on the farm,

labour was at a sudden premium. Such curates as survived dropped naturally

into the vacant rectories; and, side by side with Acts of Parliament

designed to keep the labourer down to his old wages, we find

archi-episcopal decrees against the "unbridled cupidity" of the clergy,

who by their pernicious example encouraged this demand of the lower

classes for higher wages. The incumbent, who ought to be only too thankful

that God has spared his life, takes advantage of the present stress to

desert his parish and run after Mass-money.[287] Chaplains, again, are

"not content with their competent and accustomed salaries," which, as a

matter of fact, were sometimes no higher than the wages of a common archer

or a farm bailiff. But the economic movement was irresistible; and the

Registers from this time forward show an extraordinary increase in the

number of priests instituted to livings. In the same lists where the

priests were formerly only thirty-seven per cent. of the whole, their

proportion rises during and after the Pestilence to seventy-four per cent.

The Black Death did in one year what the Ecumenical Council of Lyons had

conspicuously failed to do, though summoned by a great reforming Pope and

inspired by such zealous disciplinarians as St. Bonaventura and his

fellow-Franciscan, Eudes Rigaud of Rouen.

Again, the shock of the Pestilence, the complete desertion of so many poor

country benefices by the clergy, and the scandal generated by this quarrel

over wages between chaplains and their employers, naturally threw the

people back very much upon their own religious resources. The lay control

over parish finances in 15th-century England, which, limited as it was,

still excites the wonder of modern Catholicism, probably dated from this

period. Men no longer gave much to monks, or even (in comparison with past

times) to friars; but they now devoted their main religious energies to

beautifying and endowing their own parish churches, which became far

larger and more richly furnished in the 15th century than in the 13th.

Moreover, Abbot Gasquet is probably right in attributing to the Black

Death the rise of a new tone in orthodox religious feeling, which "was

characterized by a [more] devotional and more self-reflective cast than

previously." There was every probability of such a religious change; all

earnest men had seen in the plague the chastening hand of God; and in the

end it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which were

exercised thereby.

But this bracing process could not possibly, under the circumstances of

the time, work entirely on the lines of orthodox conservatism. When we

count up the forces that produced Wycliffism--the notorious corruption of

the papal court, its unpopular French leanings, the vast sums drawn from

England by foreign ecclesiastics, the unpopularity of the clergy at home,

the growth of the English language and national spirit--among all these

causes we must not forget to note that Wycliffe and his contemporaries, in

their early manhood, had struggled through a year of horrors almost beyond

modern conception. They had seen the multitude run wild, first with

religious fanaticism and then with blasphemous despair; had watched all

this volcanic matter cool rapidly down into dead lava; and were left to

count one more abortive reform, and re-echo the old despairing "How long,

O Lord!" "Sad to say, it seemeth to many that we are fallen into those

unhappy times wherein the lights of heaven seem to be turned to darkness,

and the stars of heaven are fallen upon the earth.... Our priests are now

become blind, dark, and beclouded ... they are now darker than the

laity.... Lo, in these days there is neither shaven crown on their head,

nor religious decency in their garments, nor modesty in their words, nor

temperance in their food, nor shamefastness in their gestures, nor even

chastity in their deeds."[288] Such is the cry of an orthodox contemporary

of Wycliffe's; and words like these explain why Wycliffe himself became

unorthodox against his will. If he had died at the age of fifty or

thereabouts, towards the beginning of Chaucer's business career, posterity

would have known him only as the most distinguished English philosopher of

his time. The part which he played in later life was to a great extent

forced upon him by the strong practical sense which underlay his

speculative genius. Others saw the faults of religion as clearly, and

exposed them as unmercifully, as he. But, while they were content to end

with a pious "Well, God mend all!" Wycliffe was one of those in whom such

thoughts lead to action: "Nay, by God, Donald, we must help Him to mend

it!" No doubt there were errors in his teaching, and much more that was

premature; otherwise the authorities could never have managed so nearly to

exterminate Lollardy. On the other hand, it is equally certain that

Wycliffe gave a voice to feelings widespread and deeply rooted in the

country. Orthodox chroniclers record their amazement at the rapid spread

of his doctrines. "In those days," says Knighton, with picturesque

exaggeration, "that sect was held in the greatest honour, and multiplied

so that you could scarce meet two men by the way whereof one was not a

disciple of Wycliffe." Walsingham speaks of the London citizens in general

as "unbelieving towards God and the traditions of their fathers,

supporters of the Lollards."[289] In 1395 the Wycliffite opinions were

openly pleaded before Parliament by two privy councillors, a powerful

Northamptonshire landlord, and the brother of the Earl of Salisbury; the

bishops had to recall Richard II. in hot haste from Ireland to deal with

this open propaganda of heresy. Ten years after Chaucer's death, again, a

Bill was presented by the Commons for the wholesale disendowment of

bishoprics and greater monasteries, "because of priests and clerks that

now have full nigh destroyed all the houses of alms within the realm." The

petitioners pleaded that, apart from the enormous gain to the finances of

the State, and to a proposed new system of almshouses, it would be a

positive advantage to disendow idle and luxurious prelates and monks, "the

which life and evil example of them hath been so long vicious that all the

common people, both lords and simple commons, be now so vicious and

infected through boldship of their sin, that scarce any man dreadeth God

nor the Devil." The King and the Prince of Wales, however, would not

listen either to this proposal or to those upon which the petitioners

afterwards fell back, that criminous clerks should be dealt with by the

King's courts, and that the recent Act for burning Lollards should be

repealed.[290]

The Lollard movement in the Parliament of 1395 was led by Chaucer's old

fellow-ambassador, Sir Richard Stury, the "valiant ancient knight" of

Froissart's chronicles; and Chaucer himself has often been hailed, however

falsely, as a Wycliffite. The mere fact that he speaks disparagingly of

the clergy simply places him side by side with St. Bernard, St.

Bonaventura, and St. Catherine of Siena, whose language on this subject is

sometimes far stronger than his. As a fellow-protege of John of Gaunt,

Chaucer must often have met Wycliffe in that princely household; he

sympathized, as so many educated Englishmen did, with many of the

reformer's opinions; but all the evidence is against his having belonged

in any sense to the Lollard sect. The testimony of the poet's own writings

has been excellently summed up in Chap. VI. of Professor Lounsbury's

"Studies in Chaucer." In early life our hero seems to have accepted as a

matter of course the popular religion of his time. His hymn to the Virgin

even outbids the fervour of its French original; and in the tales of

miracles which he versified he has taken no pains to soften down touches

which would now be received with scepticism alike by Protestants and by

the papal commissioners for the revision of the Breviary. (Tales of the

"Second Nun," "Man of Law," and "Prioress.") Even then he was probably

among the many who disbelieved in tales of Jewish ritual murder, though

not sufficiently to deter the artist in him from welcoming the exquisite

pathos of the little scholar's death. But his mind was naturally critical;

and it was further widened by an acquaintance with many cities and many

men. The merchants and scholars of Italy were notorious for their

free-thinking; and we may see in the unpriestly priest Froissart the

sceptical habit of mind which was engendered in a 14th-century

"intellectual" by a life spent in courts and among men of the world. It is

quite natural, therefore, to find Chaucer scoffing openly at several small

superstitions, which in many less sceptical minds lived on for

centuries--the belief in Arthur and Lancelot, in fairies, in magic, in

Virgilian miracles, in pagan oracles and gods, in alchemy, and even in

judicial astrology. These last two points, indeed, supply a very close

analogy to his religious views. It is difficult to avoid concluding, from

his very intimate acquaintance with the details of the pursuit, that he

had himself once been bitten with the craze for the philosopher's stone.

Again, if we only looked at his frequent poetical allusions to judicial

astrology, we should be driven to conclude that he was a firm believer in

the superstition; but in the prose "Astrolabe," one of his latest and

most serious writings, he expressly repudiates any such belief.

The analogy from this to his expressions on religious subjects is very

close. At first sight we might judge him to have accepted to the last,

though with growing reserve and waning enthusiasm, the whole contemporary

system of doctrines and practices which Wycliffe in later life so

unreservedly condemned. But one or two passages offer startling proof to

the contrary. Take the Prologue to the "Legend of Good Women"--

A thousand times have I heard men tell

That there is joy in heaven and pain in hell,

And I accorde well that it is so.

But natheless yet wot I well also

That there is none dwelling in this countree

That either hath in heaven or hell y-be,

He may of it none other wayes witen [know

But as he hath heard said or found it written,

For by assay there may no man it prove.

And, again, the reflections which he adds upon the death of Arcite,

without the least authority from the original of Boccaccio--

His spirit changed house, and wente there,

As I came never, I can not tell where:

Therefore I stint, I am no divinister; [stop

Of soules find I not in this register,

Nor list me those opinions to tell

Of them, though that they writen where they dwell.

It is difficult to believe that the man who gratuitously recorded those

two personal impressions, without the least excuse of artistic necessity,

was a perfectly orthodox Catholic. It is more than possible that he would

not have accepted in cold blood all the consequences of his words; but we

may see plainly in him that sceptical, mocking spirit to which the

contemporary Sacchetti constantly addresses himself in his sermons. This

was indeed one of the most obvious results of the growing unpopularity of

the hierarchy, intensified by the shock of the Black Death. That great

crisis had specially stimulated the two religious extremes. Churches grew

rapidly in size and in splendour of furniture, while great lords built

themselves oratories from which they could hear Mass without getting out

of bed. The Pope decreed a new service for a new Saint's Day, "full of

mysteries, stuffed with indulgences," at a time when even reasonable men

began to complain that the world had too many. Richard II. presented his

Holiness with an elaborate "Book of the Miracles of Edward late King of

England"--that is, of the weak and vicious Edward II., whose attempted

canonization was as much a political job as those of Lancaster and

Arundel, Scrope and Henry VI.; and this popular canonization ran so wild

that men feared lest the crowd of new saintlings should throw Christ and

His Apostles into the shade. On the other side there was the "new

theology," which had grown up, with however little justification, from the

impulse given by orthodox and enthusiastic friars--pantheistic doctrines,

minimizing the reality of sin; denials of eternal punishment; attempts to

find a heaven for good pagans and Jews.[291] Even in the 13th century,

willingly or unwillingly, the friars had raised similar questions; a

Minister-General had been scandalized to hear them debating in their

schools "whether God existed"; and Berthold of Ratisbon had felt bound to

warn his hearers against the subtle sophism that souls, when once they

have been thoroughly calcined, must reach a point at which anything short

of hell-fire would feel uncomfortably chilly. This is the state of mind

into which Chaucer, like so many of his contemporaries, seems to have

drifted. He had no reasoned antagonism to the Church dogmas as a whole; on

the contrary, he was keenly sensible to the beauty of much that was

taught. But the humourist in him was no less tickled by many popular

absurdities; and he had enough philosophy to enjoy the eternal dispute

between free-will and predestination. As a boy, he had knelt unthinkingly;

as a broken old man, he was equally ready to bow again before Eternal

Omnipotence, and to weep bitterly for his sins. But, in his years of ripe

experience and prosperity and conscious intellectual power, we must think

of him neither among the devout haunters of shrines and sanctuaries nor

among those who sat more austerely at the feet of Wycliffe's Poor Priests;

rather among the rich and powerful folk who scandalized both Catholics and

Lollards by taking God's name in vain among their cups, and whetting their

worldly wit on sacred mysteries. We get glimpses of this in many

quarters--in the "Roman de la Rose," for instance, but still more in

Sacchetti's sermons and the poem of "Piers Plowman." Here the poet

complains, after speaking of the "gluttony and great oaths" that were then

fashionable--

"But if they carpen of Christ, these clerks and these layfolk [discuss

At the meat in their mirth, when minstrels be still,

Then tell they of the Trinity a tale or twain

And bringen forth a bald reason, and take Bernard to witness,

And put forth a presumption to prove the sooth.

Thus they drivel at their dais the Deity to know,

And gnawen God with the gorge when the gut is full ...

I have heard high men eating at the table

Carpen, as they clerkes were, of Christ and His might

And laid faults upon the Father that formed us all,

And carpen against clerkes crabbed words:--

'Why would our Saviour suffer such a worm in His bliss

That beguiled the Woman and the Man after,

Through which wiles and words they wenten to hell,

And all their seed for their sin the same death suffered?

Here lieth your lore,' these lords 'gin dispute.

'Of that ye clerks us kenneth of Christ by the Gospel ... [teach

Why should we, that now be, for the works of Adam

Rot and be rent? reason would it never ...'

Such motives they move, these masters in their glory,

And maken men to misbelieve that muse much on their words."[292]

[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY

VIEW FROM NEAR CHAUCER'S TOMB]

More unorthodox still were those whom Walsingham would have made partly

responsible for the horrors of the Peasants' Revolt. "Some traced the

cause of these evils to the sins of the great folk, whose faith in God was

feigned; for some of them (it is said) believed that there was no God, no

sacrament of the altar, no resurrection from the dead, but that as a beast

dies so also there is an end of man."

There is, of course, no such dogmatic infidelity in Chaucer. Even if he

had felt it, he was too wise to put it in writing; as Professor Lounsbury

justly says of the two passages quoted above, "the wonder is not that they

are found so infrequently, but that they are found at all." Yet there was

also in Chaucer a true vein of religious seriousness. "Troilus and

Criseyde" was written not long before the "Legend of Good Women"; and as

at the outset of the later poem he goes out of his way to scoff, so at the

end of the "Troilus" he is at equal pains to make a profession of faith.

The last stanza of all, with its invocation to the Trinity and to the

Virgin Mary, might be merely conventional; medieval literature can show

similar sentiments in very strange contexts, and part of this very stanza

is translated from Dante. But however Chaucer may have loved to let his

wit play about sacred subjects "at meat in his mirth when minstrels were

still," we can scarcely fail to recognize another side to his mind when we

come to the end of those "Troilus" stanzas which are due merely to

Boccaccio, and begin upon the translator's own epilogue--

O younge freshe folkes, he or she

In which ay love up-groweth with your age,

Repair ye home from worldly vanitee ...

"Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for the play is

played out." But, though we have nothing of the reformer in our

composition; though we are for the most part only too frankly content to

take the world as we find it; though, even in their faith, our

fellow-Christians make us murmur, "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

though we most love to write of Vanity Fair, yet at the bottom of our

heart we do desire a better country, and confess sometimes with our mouth

that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Indeed, if our poet had not been keenly sensible of the beauty of

holiness, then the less Chaucer he! As it is, he stands the most

Shakespearian figure in English literature, after Shakespeare himself. Age

cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety. We venerate him

for his years, and he daily startles us with the eternal freshness of his

youth. All springtide is here, with its green leaves and singing-birds;

aptly we read him stretched at length in the summer shade, yet almost more

delightfully in winter, with our feet on the fender; for he smacks of all

familiar comforts--old friends, old books, old wine, and even, by a

proleptic miracle, old cigars. "Here," said Dryden, "is God's plenty;" and

Lowell inscribed the first leaf of his Chaucer with that promise which the

poet himself set upon the enchanted gate of his "Parliament of Fowls"--

Through me men go into the blissful place

Of the heart's heal and deadly woundes' cure;

Through me men go unto the well of Grace,

Where green and lusty May doth ever endure;

This is the way to all good aventure;

Be glad, thou Reader, and thy sorrow off-cast,

All open am I, pass in, and speed thee fast!

INDEX

Abjuration of the Realm, 285

Aldersgate, 117

Aldgate, 30, 56, 76, 77, 93 ff., 116, 117;

tower, 78, 266

All Hallows Stonechurch, 77

Angle, Sir Guichard de, 51

Anne of Bohemia, Queen, 56, 208

Antwerp, 13, 14

Archery, 232, 235, 236, 240

Architecture, 119

Arundel, Archbishop, 142

" Earl, 311

Attechapel, Bartholomew, 26

Badlesmere, Lord, 297

Banastre, Katherine, 184

Becket, St. Thomas a, 142, 143, 169, 288

Bedfellows, 87, 140

Belknap, Chief Justice, 264

Berkeley, the family of, 52, 179, 195 ff., 239, 240

Bishopsgate, 15

Black Death, 304

Black Prince, 17, 176

Blanch Apleton, 78

Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, 37

Blountesham, Richard de, 96

Boccaccio, 47, 48

Books, cost of, 99

Boughton-under-Blee, 167

Brembre, Sir Nicholas, 60, 94, 135, 193

Brerelay, Richard, 63

Bribery, 200

Bristol, 239, 240

Buckholt, Isabella, 65

Bucklersbury, 16

Bukton, 68

Burley, Sir John, 51

Burley, Sir Simon, 54, 60

Burne-Jones, 29

Cadzand, 133

Caen, 77;

siege of, 248, 249

Calais, 10, 174, 183

Cambridge, 8, 77, 274, 302

Canterbury, 76, 140, 143, 145, 167, 169, 170, 271, 297

Chandos, Sir John, 175

Charing Cross Mews, 61

Charles V. of France, 33, 52, 122

" VI. of France, 70

" de Blois, 252

Chaucer, Geoffrey, and Aldgate, 56, 93 ff., 101;

his aloofness, 69, 95;

his birth, 3, 15;

and Boccaccio, 47;

and books, 95 ff.;

his childhood, 17;

clerk of Love, 222;

his Clerkship of Works, 60;

his Comptrollership, 54;

at Court, 173;

at the Custom House, 76, 79;

and Dante, 43, 74;

his death and tomb, 73;

in debt, 54, 59, 64, 65;

his debt to Dante, 45;

his family, 12;

his favour from Henry IV., 66;

his freshness, 114;

at Greenwich, 62;

his house at Westminster, 72;

his last poems, 68;

his literary development, 137;

in London, 53;

loses Clerkship, 63;

loses Comptrollership, 58;

in love, 22;

his love of Nature, 112;

and Lynn, 15;

his marriage, 27;

optimistic, 10;

origin of name, 12;

his originality, 39, 45;

as page, 21;

in Parliament, 56;

his pathos, 246;

and Petrarch, 46, 48;

his philosophy, 70;

and Piers Plowman, 71;

his raptus, 54;

and religion, 44, 149, 309 ff.;

his retractation, 72;

robbed, 63;

as royal yeoman, 27, 31;

as squire, 32;

his times, 1;

his travels, 35, 40 ff., 51;

in war, 25;

his wide experiences, 74;

his wife's death, 59;

and wine, 79;

and women, 119;

his writings, 36, 56, 64;

and Wycliffe, 308

Chaucer, Elizabeth, 74

" John, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 193

" Lowys, 55, 64, 73

" Philippa, 27, 28, 29, 30, 59, 96, 101, 103, 104, 178

" Richard, 13

" Robert Malyn le, 12, 13

" Simon, 283, 284

" Thomas, 31, 73

Chaumpaigne, Cecilia, 54, 55

Chausier, Elizabeth, 74

Cheapside, 16, 81, 88, 89, 90

Child-marriages, 198, 204, 206, 207

Children beaten, 215

Chiltern Hills, 117

Chimneys, 86

Chivalry, decay of, 190;

golden age of, 189;

and marriage, 202;

theory of, 188

Church, buildings decayed, 297;

corruption of, 296;

talking in, 140

Churchman, John, 79

Clarence, Lionel of, 13, 21, 22, 48, 49, 52

Clergy, and hunting, 280, 281;

in Parliament, 7;

unpopular, 306, 308;

youth of, 299

Clerical, criminals, 288 ff.;

education, 300 ff.;

immunity, 288 ff.;

influence, decay of, 8 ff.;

morality, 156, 157, 159, 197, 281, 291, 296, 297, 298, 303

Clerkenwell, 264

Comfort, ideal of, 191, 192, 257

Compostella, 140, 141, 142

Compurgation, 289

Conscription, 234 ff.;

and liberty, 251, 253, 263;

and peace, 250

Constance, Duchess of Lancaster, 30

Contrasts, 176

Cornhill, 81, 107, 112, 291

Crecy, 232, 233, 238, 239, 240, 242

Crime and punishment, 283

Cripplegate, 77, 93, 94

Crusades, decay of, 190

Dancing, 108

Dartford, 154

Dartmouth, 133, 134

David, King of Scots, 17

Dennington, 13

Despenser, Bishop, 237

" Edward, 49

Dilapidation, 297

Divorce, 205

Douglas, Sir James, 238

Dovecotes, manorial, 196

Du Guesclin, Bertrand, 241, 242, 244

Eavesdroppers, 83

Edward I., 6, 77, 122, 194, 213, 234, 235, 290

" II., 179, 254, 297, 311

" III., 4, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 25, 26, 27, 32, 33, 35, 38, 42,

53, 59, 70, 88, 122, 123, 126, 133, 172 ff., 191, 194, 197,

234, 235, 237, 238, 240 ff., 249, 263, 275, 292, 298;

bankrupt, 126;

his character, 173;

his court, 33;

his marriage, 178;

his Rhine journey, 13

England, growing wealth of, 126;

unsettled state, 67

English, commerce, 122 ff.;

democratic, 253;

fickleness of, 134;

language, 3 ff.;

language in Chaucer's poems, 74;

in war, 244, 254

Epping, 116

Exeter, 99, 182, 301

Fastolf, Sir John, 211, 212

Florence, 40, 42, 43, 48

Food of the poor, 268

Foreigners in England, 123

Forrester (Forster), Richard, 52, 94

Frederick II., Emperor, 190

Free-thought, 44, 125, 309 ff.

French and English nobles, 33;

language, decay of, 3 ff.

Friars, 294, 298;

and usury, 124

Games, 109, 272 ff., 275

Gascoigne, Chief Justice, 211, 212

Gaston, Count of Foix, 175, 209, 211

Gauger, William le, 15

Gaunt, John of, 13, 17, 22, 30, 37, 54, 59, 60, 73, 74, 96, 227, 264, 308

Genoa, 40, 42, 78, 122

Giffard, Bishop, 278, 299

Gisers, John, 16

Glass windows, 83

Gloucester, Thomas, Duke of, 60, 186, 187, 239

Gower, John, 52, 73, 117, 145

Gravesend, 80

Greenwich, 62, 64

Hampstead, 116

Harbledown, 169

Hatfield, William of, 184

Hawkwood, Sir John, 52, 242

Henry II., 235

" III., 72, 193

" IV., 4, 59, 66, 67, 68, 72, 73

" V., 73, 243, 278, 297

" VI., 311

Heriot, 260

Highgate, 116

Hoccleve, 73, 175

Holborn, 19, 115, 117

Holidays, 273

Holland, Sir Thomas, 248

Home life, 84, 96, 104, 218

Hornchurch, Prior of, 78

Hospitals, and bad meat, 132

Infidelity, 313

Inns, 139

Invasion of England threatened, 94

Ipswich, 12, 13

Irreverence, 140, 141, 157, 275, 276, 277 ff., 297, 298

Isabella, Queen, 21, 51, 178

Isle of Wight, 133

Jean de Saintre, 23, 223

John XXII., Pope, 206

John, King of France, 17, 32, 33, 41, 194, 197, 223

Justice, 282 ff.;

and money, 197, 200

Kent, John, 80

Knighthood, of boys, 212;

cheapening of, 193;

decay, 242;

imperfect, 252;

and trade, 194, 210, 211

Knightsbridge, 115

Knolles, Sir Robert, 265

La Rochelle, battle of, 133

Lancaster, Thomas of, 311

Langham, Bishop, 279

Laws and penalties, 129

Lisle, Lord, 198

Lollardy, popularity of, 306

London, its byelaws, 126;

citizens' furniture, 85;

city walls, 77;

its churches, 82;

and country, 114, 193;

its Custom House, 79;

gardens, 115;

gate dwellings, 93;

growth of, 121;

its houses, 82, 84;

and Lollardy, 307;

population of, 115;

power of, 135;

sanitation, 267;

sports, 275;

its streets, 81, 84, 88;

suburbs, 116;

view of, 145;

water, 128

London Bridge, 51, 145

Louis, St., 190, 191

Love, and chivalry, 217 ff.;

earthly and heavenly, 222;

in M. A., 22, 28 ff.

Ludgate, 93, 116

Lynn, 15, 17, 77, 80, 193, 238

Manslaughter, 292;

and punishment, 283

Marriage, ceremonies, 109;

of children, 198, 204, 206, 207;

and chivalry 202;

and the Church, 204;

and irreverence, 281;

laws lax, 206;

and love, 227;

and money, 195, 206, 209 ff., 227.

Massingham, John, 28

Mauny, Walter de, 175

May-day, 107

Mazelyner, John le, 15

Mercenary troops, 241

Mercer, 134

Merchants, tricks of, 125

Merchet, 260

Michael, St., Aldgate, 77

Mile End, 264

Militia, 240;

and liberty, 253

Money, power of, 99, 132, 191, 200, 258

Moorfields, 15, 18

Moorgate, 15

Morris, William, 29, 81

Mortuary, 260

Murder, 89

Nations at universities, 6

Nature in the Middle Ages, 104

Neville's Cross, 183, 238

Newcastle coal, 114

Newgate, 61, 93

Norfolk pilgrimages, 140

Northbrooke, Bishop, 184

Norwich, 48, 82, 129, 131, 236, 238, 265, 284

Oaths, 155, 163, 169

Ospringe, 167

Oxford, 6, 8, 84, 115, 274, 278, 300, 301

Paris, 83, 233, 300

Parliament, growth of, 7, 9, 132;

power of, 58

Paston, the family of, 229

Peasants' Revolt, 261 ff.

Peckham, Archbishop, 290

Percy, Sir Harry, 51

" Henry, 17

" Sir Thomas, 51

Perjury, 201

Perrers, Alice, 186

Petrarch, Francis, 48, 50, 166

Pevensey, 176

Philippa of Hainault, Queen, 13, 14, 33, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184,

185, 253;

description of, 181

Philippe de Valois, King of France, 174, 191, 235, 242, 243, 245

Philpot or Philipot, John, 134, 193

Picard, Sir Henry, 16, 17, 193

Piers, Bishop, 279

Pilgrimage, decay of, 138 ff., 171

Pillory, 131

Pisa, 43

Police, 251

Poor and rich, 257 ff.

Poore, Bishop, 277

Portsmouth, 133, 239

Priests and people, 260

Privacy, want of, 88

Processions, 88;

and bloodshed, 278

Punishment, corporal, 213 ff.;

public, 91

Purgation, 289

Ransoms, 198, 200, 233

Reims, 25

Rich and poor, 176, 254, 257 ff.

Richard II., 7, 17, 32, 34, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 60, 65, 66, 67, 73, 79,

88, 90, 135, 175, 187, 208, 209, 217, 255, 264, 266, 280, 308, 311

Rochester, 159

Roet, Katherine, 30

Rottingdean, 133

Rye, 133

Saint Mary Aldermary, 283

Sanctuary, 283 ff.

Scalby, John, 59

Scarborough, 134

Schools, 20

Scogan, Henry, 64, 68

Scrope, Archbishop, 311

" Stephen, 211, 212

Serfs, 259

Sluys, 10

Smithfield, 62, 88, 264

Somere, William, 73

Southampton, 249

Southwark, 19, 115

Stace, Thomas, 13

Stapledon, Bishop, 89, 299

Stepney, 116

Stodey, John de, 193

Stratford bread, 114

Strikers, clerical, 305

Strode, Ralph, 117, 118

Stury, Sir Richard, 26, 51, 62, 308

Sudbury, Archbishop, 90, 142

Swaffham, John de, 130

Swynford, Sir Thomas, 30

Tavern company, 92

Thoresby, Archbishop, 281

Thorpe, 142

Tottenham, 116

Tournaments, 88, 197;

forbidden, 243

Town and country, 115, 120

Trades' Unions, 270

Travel, dangers of, 41

Tyler, Wat, 19, 142, 145, 264, 265

Ulster, Countess of, 21, 27

University, 6, 8;

discipline, 300 ff.;

and sports, 274, 277, 280

Upton, John de, 283

" Robert de, 283

Urban VI., Pope, 70

Usury, 194

Vintry Ward, 15, 16

Violante Visconti, 48

Wager of Battle, 213, 282

Wages of workmen, 269

Walbrook, 15, 16

Walworth, 193

War, conscription and liberty, 133, 242, 246, 251, 253, 255;

the Hundred Years', 232;

losses in, 199;

private, 133;

ravage of, 246 ff.

Wardships, 195, 197, 211

Warham, Archbishop, 143

Wells, 87

Wenceslas, Emperor, 70

Westhale, Joan de, 13, 55

Westminster, 16, 32, 33, 57, 60, 63, 64, 88, 89, 115, 116, 184, 189

Winchelsea, 133, 239, 249

Windsor, 21, 53, 61, 62, 64, 96, 175, 176, 185

Women, beaten, 213;

emancipation of, 220;

life of, 107;

manners of, 109, 219 ff.

Woodstock. See _Gloucester_

Worcester, 289, 290

Wycliffe, 8, 10, 22, 306, 307, 308, 310;

and serfage, 262

Wykeham, William of, 274, 277

York, 179, 184

PRINTED BY

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BECCLES.

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] Bartholomaeus Anglicus (Steele, "Mediaeval 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. ("Mediaeval London," i., 303.)

[14] Mr. V. B. Redstone, in _Athenaeum_, No. 4087, p. 233, and _East

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. (_Athenaeum_, 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 there _circa_ 1350, 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] "Oeuvres," 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.

"Alors dit la reine: 'Je sais bien que piecha [il y a longtemps

Que suis grosse d'enfant, que mon corps sentit la,

Encore n'a t-il guere qu'en mon corps se tourna;

Et je voue et promets a Dieu qui me crea....

Que jamais fruit de moi de mon corps n'istera, [sortira

Si m'en aurez menee au pays par dela.'"

[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

Bedier'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 6_d._, and for boots 3_s._ 6_d._ Cowhide

shoes were fixed at 5_d._, and boots at 3_s._ 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 L3000 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--

"Dix et sept ans ai au Satan servi

Au monde aussi et a la chair pourrie,

Oublie Dieu, et mon corps asservi

A cette cour, de tout vice nourrie."

(Sarradin, "Eustache Deschamps," pp. 92 ff., 104, 160.)

[44] Quoted by Nicolas from Rymer's "Foedera" 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 the _Athenaeum_, 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 Meliador 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] _Athenaeum_, 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--

"Then came Peace into Parliament, and put forth a bill,

How wrong against his will had his wife taken,

And how he ravished Rose, Reginald's love," etc., etc.

[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 2_s._ 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 L20 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 L10

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 L3 or L4 more (see Rogers,

"Agriculture and Prices," pp. 536 ff.). The fur for an Oxford warden's

gown varied from 26_s._ 8_d._ to 83_s._

[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] "Oeuvres," 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 "Reliquiae Antiquae," 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., Sec. 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 cure, ... ne dansons pas; mais permettons a ces pauvres

gens de danser. Pourquoi les empecher 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; "Menagier 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, and _passim_.

[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, Sec. 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. See _Athenaeum_, 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) 1_d._"

[154] There were _seventy_ places 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 ... 2_s._' 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 L1000 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 speake 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 simply _Hoop_, 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 of _five_ daughters; 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. 1_s._)

[182] Clough, "Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich."

[183] "Mon. Germ. Scriptt.," xxxii., 444.

[184] "Mirour," 23893 ff.

[185] Lenient, "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 simply _bargain_: 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 call _exchange_, or _chevisance_."

[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 L2460, out of which he saved L1150. In

the two other years given by Smyth he saved L659 and L977. 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 flemed [= 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 of

_punishing_ the parties to a clandestine marriage; but, so far from flying

in the face of Canon Law by threatening to _dissolve_ the 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 1_s._ for her marriage; but "Alice's

daughter" pays 6_s._ 8_d._; and so on to "Will, the son of John," and

"Roger, the Reeve," who each pay 20_s._ That is, it was possible for the

lord of the manor to squeeze L20 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 L300

(14th-century standard). With this Robert trades, paying his twenty per

cent. for the use of it, so that he has to account for L1080 at the heir's

majority. Of this he takes L120 for keep and out-of-pocket expenses, and

L390 for his trouble, so that the ward receives L570. The Royal Household

Ordinances of Edward II.'s reign provide for the maintenance of wards

until "they have their lands, or the king have given _or sold_

them."--"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, and _passim_.

[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 the

_Cornhill_, 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 Desolation 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."

[234] Ed. Luce, i., 213, 214; cf. 312.

[235] Mrs. Green, _l. c._, i., 131.

[236] This point is treated more fully in the next chapter.

[237] Denifle, _l. c._, pp. 497, 504.

[238] "More than three thousand men, women, and children were beheaded

that day. God have mercy on their souls, for I trow they were martyrs."

Froissart (Globe), 201.

[239] Ed. Luce, pp. 214, 249, 337.

[240] Trevelyan, "England in the Age of Wycliffe," 1st Edn., p. 195.

[241] "Conseil" (in Appendix to Ducange's "Joinville"), chap. xxi., art.

8. The writer insists strongly, at the same time, on the lord's

responsibility to God for his treatment of a creature so helpless.

[242] C., iii., 177. For the Reeve's duties, see Smyth, "Berkeleys," vol.

ii., pp. 5, 22.

[243] "Those who demand such mortuaries are like worms preying on a

corpse" (Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, quoted in Lecoy de La Marche, "Chaire

Francaise," p. 388). Having already, in my "Medieval Studies" and my

"Priests and People," dealt more fully with this and several points

occurring in the succeeding chapters, I can often dispense with further

references here.

[244] This is admirably discussed by Mr. Corbett in chap. vii. of "Social

England."

[245] Froissart, Buchon, ii., 150. Leadam, "Star Chamber" (Selden Soc.),

p. cxxviii. Trevelyan, _l. c._, p. 185.

[246] Vitry, "Exempla," pp. 62, 64; "P. P.," A., iv., 34 (cf. Lecoy., _l.

c._, 387); Jusserand, "Epopee Mystique," 114; and "Vie Nomade," 81, 261,

269.

[247] Walsingham, an. 1381; cf. the record in Powell, "Rising in East

Anglia," p. 130. The rioters compelled the constable of the hundred of

Hoxne to contribute ten conscripted archers to their party.

[248] It must be remembered that the loyal soldiers also had shown in this

matter a pusillanimity which contrasted remarkably with their behaviour in

the French wars; Walsingham notes this with great astonishment. The

quotations are from the "Chronicle of St. Mary's, York," in Oman, Appendix

V., pp. 188-200.

[249] An. 1381; cf. "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 353. The original of both these

descriptions seems to be Gower, "Vox Clam." i., 853 ff.

[250] _L. c._, p. 255.

[251] The first general Sanitation Act for England was that of the

Parliament held at Cambridge in 1388, and is generally ascribed to the

filth of that ancient borough.

[252] "Chronicles of London" (4to., 1827), p. 65. "Eulog. Hist." iii.,

353.

[253] C., ix., 304; B., v., 549. It will be noted how nearly this diet

accords with that of the widow and her daughter in Chaucer's "Nuns'

Priest's Tale"; cf. Langlois, "La Vie en France au M-A.," p. 122.

[254] "Rot. Parl." ii., 340.

[255] _L. c._, C., ix., 331.

[256] _L. c._, C., x., 71 ff. "Papelots" = porridge; "ruel" = bedside;

"woneth" = dwell; "witterly" = surely; "and fele to fong," etc. = "and

many [children] to clutch at the few pence they earn; under those

circumstances, bread and small beer is held an unusual luxury." "Pittance"

is a monastic word, meaning extra food beyond the daily fare.

[257] An Act of 1495 provided that "from the middle of March to the middle

of September work was to go on from 5 a.m. till between 7 and 8 p.m., with

half an hour for breakfast, and an hour and a half for dinner and for the

midday sleep. In winter work was to be during daylight. These legal

ordinances were not perhaps always kept, but they at least show the

standard at which employers aimed" ("Social England," vol. ii., chap.

vii.).

[258] Bishop Grosseteste asserted that honest labour on holy days would be

far less sinful than the sports which often took their place. "Epp."

(R.S.), p. 74.

[259] "La France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans" (1890), 95 ff. The essay

describes a state of things very similar to what we may gather from

English records.

[260] "Universities of Europe," ii., 669 ff.

[261] Cooper, "Annals of Cambridge," an. 1410; "Munim. Acad." (R.S.), 602;

Riley, 571; Strutt (1898), p. 49.

[262] "Shillingford Letters," p. 101. _Queke_ was probably a kind of

hopscotch, and _penny-prick_ a tossing game; both enjoyed an evil repute,

according to Strutt.

[263] "Rot. Parl." ii., 64; Myrc., E.E.T.S., i., 334.

[264] "Northumberland Assize Rolls," p. 323. There is another fatal

wrestling-bout in the same roll (p. 348), another in the similar Norfolk

roll analysed by Mr. Walter Rye in the _Archaeological Review_ (1888), and

another exactly answering to John and Willie's case in Prof. Maitland's

"Crown Pleas for the County of Gloucester," No. 452.

[265] "C. T.," A., 3328. Etienne de Bourbon has no doubt that "the Devil

invented dancing, and is governor and procurator of dancers"; and he

explains the popular proverb, that God's thunderbolt falls oftener on the

church than on the tavern, by the notorious profanations to which churches

were subjected. ("Anecdotes," pp. 269, 397.)

[266] _L. c._ ii., 672.

[267] Wilkins, "Concilia," i., 600; iii., 61, 68, 365; "York Fabric

Rolls," 269 ff; Grosseteste, "Epp." (R.S.), pp. 75, 118, 161; Giffard's

"Register" (Worcester), p. 422; and Cutts, "Parish Priests," p. 122.

[268] Wilkins, i., 530, 719; iii., 61 and _passim_; _Archaeological

Journal_, vol. xl., pp. 1 ff; "Somerset Record Society," vol. iv.

[269] Eight men died in Northampton gaol between Aug. 1322 and Nov. 1323

(Gross, p. 79). The jury casually record: "He died of hunger, thirst, and

want."... "Want of food and drink, and cold."... "Natural death."...

"Hunger and thirst and natural death." One is really glad to think that so

small a proportion of criminals ever found their way into prison.

[270] Gross, "Office of Coroner," p. 69.

[271] "Eng. Hist. Rev.," vol. 50.

[272] This still allowed him to migrate to another part of the King's

dominions--_e.g._ Ireland, Scotland, Normandy.

[273] Worcestershire Record Society.

[274] Gower, "Mirour," 20125, 20653.

[275] Riley, 567; cf. Preface to "Liber Albus," p. cvii., and Walsingham,

an. 1382.

[276] Cf. Mr. Walter Rye's articles in "Norf. Antq. Misc.," vol ii., p.

194, and _Archaeological Review_ for 1888, p. 201.

[277] The complaints which meet us in Gower and "Piers Plowman" on this

score are more than borne out by the "Shillingford Letters" (Camden Soc.,

1871). The worthy Mayor of Exeter reports faithfully to his

fellow-citizens what bribes he gives, and to whom.

[278] Chaucer's pupil Hoccleve speaks almost equally strongly on the

mischief of such pardons ("Works," E.E.T.S., vol. iii., pp. 113 ff).

[279] _Clergy_ is of course here used in the common medieval sense of

_learning_; it does not refer to any body of men.

[280] _I.e._ the type of perfect religion, "the Christ that is to be."

[281] Be "found" or provided for, so that they need no longer to live by

begging and flattery.

[282] This was very commonly the case even in the greatest cathedrals:

typical reports may be found in the easily accessible "York Fabric Rolls"

(Surtees Soc.). With regard to Canterbury, a strange legend is current to

the effect that Lord Badlesmere was executed in 1322 for his irreverent

behaviour in that cathedral. Apart from the extraordinary inherent

improbability of any such story, the execution of Lord Badlesmere is one

of the best known events in the reign. He was hanged for joining the Earl

of Lancaster in open rebellion against Edward, against whom he had fought

at Boroughbridge.

[283] Wilkins, iii., 360 ff; "Rot. Parl." ii., 313. I have given fuller

details and references in the 8th of my "Medieval Studies," "Priests and

People" (Simpkins, 1_s._).

[284] Taking eight test-periods, which cover four dioceses and a space of

nearly forty-five years, I find that, before the Black Death, scarcely

more than one-third of the livings in lay gift were presented to men in

priest's orders--the exact proportion is 262 priests to 452 non-priests.

[285] Rashdall, "Universities of Europe," ii., 613, 701. Merely to reckon

the number of years theoretically required for the different degrees, and

to argue from this to the solid education of the medieval priest (as has

sometimes been done), is to ignore the mass of unimpeachable evidence

collected by Dr. Rashdall. Only an extremely small fraction of the

students took any theological degree whatever.

[286] The list of indictments for grave offences in "Munim. Acad." (R.S.),

vol. ii., contains a very large proportion of graduates, chaplains, and

masters of Halls; and Gerson frequently speaks with bitter indignation of

the number of Parisian scholars who were debauched by their masters.

[287] In Chaucer's words--

He set ... his benefice to hire

And left his sheep encumbred in the mire,

And ran to London, unto Sainte Paul's

To seeken him a chanterie for souls.

The Archbishop's decree may be found in the "Register of Bp. de Salopia,"

p. 639; cf. 694 (Somerset Record Society).

[288] Quoted from a MS. collection of 14th-century sermons by Ch.

Petit-Dutaillis in "Etudes Dediees a G. Monod.," p. 385.

[289] Knighton (R.S.), ii., 191; at still greater length on p. 183.

Walsingham, ann. 1387, 1392; cf. "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 351, 355.

[290] Kingsford, "Chronicles of London," p. 64; Walsingham, an. 1410.

[291] "P. Plowman," B., xv., 383: Jusserand, "Epop. Myst.," p. 217. See

especially the remarkable words of Chaucer's contemporary, the banker

Rulman Merswin of Strassburg, quoted by C. Schmidt, "Johannes Tauler," p.

218. After setting forth his conviction that Christendom is now (1351) in

a worse state than it has been for many hundred years past, and that evil

Christians stand less in God's love than good Jews or heathens who know

nothing better than the faith in which they were born, and would accept a

better creed if they could see it, Merswin then proceeds to reconcile this

with the Catholic doctrine that none can be saved without baptism. "I will

tell thee; this cometh to pass in manifold hidden ways unknown to the most

part of Christendom in these days; but I will tell thee of one way....

When one of these good heathens or Jews draweth near to his end, then

cometh God to his help and enlighteneth him so far in Christian faith,

that with all his heart he desireth baptism. Then, even though there be no

present baptism for him, yet from the bottom of his heart he yearneth for

it: so I tell thee how God doth: He goeth and baptiseth him in the baptism

of his good yearning will and his painful death. Know therefore that many

of these good heathens and Jews are in the life eternal, who all came

thither in this wise."

[292] "P. Plowman," B., x., p. 51; cf. Langlois, _l. c._, pp. 211, 264-5.

End of Project Gutenberg's Chaucer and His England, by G. G. Coulton