CHAUCER'S LONDON.
London Denizens in the Reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.--The
Knight--The Young Bachelor--The Yeoman--The Prioress--The Monk who
goes a Hunting--The Merchant--The Poor Clerk--The Franklin--The
Shipman--The Poor Parson.
The London of Chaucer's time (the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.)
was a scattered town, spotted as thick with gardens as a common meadow
is with daisies. Hovels stood cheek by jowl with stately monasteries,
and the fortified mansions in the narrow City lanes were surrounded by
citizens' stalls and shops. Westminster Palace, out in the suburbs among
fields and marshes, was joined to the City walls by that long straggling
street of bishops' and nobles' palaces, called the Strand. The Tower and
the Savoy were still royal residences. In all the West-end beyond
Charing Cross, and in all the north of London beyond Clerkenwell and
Holborn, cows and horses grazed, milkmaids sang, and ploughmen whistled.
There was danger in St. John's Wood and Tyburn Fields, and robbers on
Hampstead Heath. The heron could be found in Marylebone pastures, and
moor-hens in the brooks round Paddington. Priestly processions were to
be seen in Cheapside, where the great cumbrous signs, blazoned with all
known and many unknown animals, hung above the open stalls, where the
staid merchants and saucy 'prentices shouted the praises of their goods.
The countless church-bells rang ceaselessly, to summon the pious to
prayers. Among the street crowds the monks and men-at-arms were
numerous, and were conspicuous by their robes and by their armour.
With the manners and customs of those simple times our readers will now
be pretty well familiar, for we have already written of the knights and
priests of that age, and have described their good and evil doings. We
have set down their epitaphs, detailed the history of their City
companies, their mayors, aldermen, and turbulent citizens. We have shown
their buildings, and spoken of their revolts against injustice. Yet,
after all, Time has destroyed many pieces of that old puzzle, and who
can dive into oblivion and recover them? The long rows of gable ends,
the abbey archways, the old guild rooms, the knightly chambers, no magic
can restore to us in perfect combination. While certain spots can be
etched with exactitude by the pen, on vast tracts no image rises. A
dimmed and imperfect picture it remains, we must confess, even to the
most vivid imagination. How the small details of City life worked in
those days we shall never know. We may reproduce Edward III.'s London on
the stage, or in poems; but, after all, and at the best, it will be
conjecture.
But of many of those people who paced in Watling Street, or who rode up
Cornhill, we have imperishable pictures, true to the life, and
rich-coloured as Titian's, by Chaucer, in those "Canterbury Tales" he is
supposed to have written about 1385 (Richard II.), in advanced life, and
in his peaceful retirement at Woodstock. The pilgrims he paints in his
immortal bundle of tales are no ideal creatures, but such real flesh and
blood as Shakespeare drew and Hogarth engraved. He drew the people of
his age as genius most delights to do; and the fame he gained arose
chiefly from the fidelity of the figures with which he filled, his
wonderful portrait-gallery.
We, therefore, in Chaucer's knight, are introduced to just such old
warriors as might any day, in the reign of Edward III., be met in Bow
Lane or Friday Street, riding to pay his devoirs to some noble of Thames
Street, to solicit a regiment, or to claim redress for a wrong by force
of arms. The great bell of Bow may have struck the hour of noon as the
man who rode into Pagan Alexandria, under the banner of the Christian
King of Cyprus, and who had broken a spear against the Moors at the
siege of Granada, rides by on his strong but not showy charger. He
wears, you see, a fustian gipon, which is stained with the rust of his
armour. There is no plume in his helmet, no gold upon his belt, for he
is just come from Anatolia, where he has smitten off many a turbaned
head, and to-morrow will start to thank God for his safe return at the
shrine of St. Thomas in Kent. In sooth it needs only a glance at him to
see that he is "a very perfect gentle knight," meek as a maid, and
trusty as his own sword.
That trusty young bachelor who rides so gaily by the old knight's side,
and who regards him with love and reverence, is his son, a brave young
knight of twenty years of age, as we guess. He has borne him well in
Flanders, Artois, and Picardy, and has watered many a French vineyard
with French blood. See how smart he is in his short gown and long wide
sleeves. He can joust, and dance, and sing, and write love verses, with
any one between here and Paris. The citizens' daughters devour him with
their eyes as he rides under their casements.
There rides behind this worthy pair a stout yeoman, such as you can see
a dozen of every morning, in this reign, in ten minutes' walk down
Cheapside, for the nobles' houses in the City swarm with such
retainers--sturdy, brown-faced country fellows, quick of quarrel, and
not disposed to bear gibes. He wears a coat and hood of Lincoln green,
and has a sword, dagger, horn, and buckler by his side. The sheaf of
arrows at his girdle have peacock-feathers. Ten to one but that fellow
let fly many a shaft at Cressy and Poictiers, for he is fond of saying,
over his ale-bowl, that he carries "ten Frenchmen's lives under his
belt."
The prioress Chaucer sketches so daintily might have been seen any day
ambling through Bishopsgate from her country nunnery, on her way to
shrine or altar, or on a visit to some noble patroness to whom she is
akin. "By St. Eloy!" she cries to her mule, "if thou stumble again I
will chide thee!" and she says it in the French of Stratford at Bow. Her
wimple is trimly plaited, and how fashionable is her cloak! She wears
twisted round her arm a pair of coral beads, and from them hangs a gold
ornament with the unecclesiastical motto of "Amor vincit omnia." Behind
her rides a nun and three priests, and by the side of her mule run the
little greyhounds whom she feeds, and on whom she doats.
The rich monk that loved hunting was a character that any monastery of
Chaucer's London could furnish. Go early in the morning to Aldersgate or
Cripplegate, and you will be sure to find such a one riding out with his
greyhounds and falcon. His dress is rich, for he does not sneer at
worldly pleasures. His sleeves are trimmed with fur, and the pin that
fastens his hood is a gold love-knot. His brown palfrey is fat, like its
master, who does not despise a roast Thames swan for dinner, and whose
face shines with good humour and good living. It is such men as these
that Wycliffe's followers deride, and point the finger at; but they
forget that the Church uses strong arguments with perverse adversaries.
To find Chaucer's merchant you need not go further than a few yards from
Milk Street. There you will see him at any stall, grave, and with forked
beard; on his head a Flemish beaver hat, and his boots "full fetishly"
clasped. He talks much of profits and exchanges, and the necessity of
guarding the sea from the French between Middleburgh and the Essex
ports.
Chaucer's poor lean Oxford clerk you will find in Paul's, peering about
the tombs, as if looking for a benefice. All his riches, worthy man! are
some twenty books at his bed's head, and he is talking philosophy to a
fellow-student lean and thin as himself, to the profound contempt of
that stiff serjeant-at-law who is waiting for clients near the font, on
which his fees are paid.
Any procession day in the age of Edward you can meet, in Westminster
Abbey, near the royal shrines and tombs, Chaucer's franklin, or country
gentleman, with his red face and white beard. His dagger hangs by his
silk purse, and his girdle is as white as milk, for our friend has been
a sheriff and knight of the shire, and is known all Buckinghamshire over
for his open house and well-covered board. Aye, and many a fat partridge
he has in his pen, and many a fat pike in his fish-pond.
Chaucer's shipman we shall be certain to discover near Billingsgate. He
is from Dartmouth, and wears a short coat, and a knife hanging from his
neck. A hardy good fellow he is, and shrewd, and his beard has shaken in
many a tempest. Bless you! the captain of the _Magdalen_ knows all the
havens from Gothland to Cape Finisterre, aye, and every creek in
Brittany and Spain; and many a draught of Bordeaux wine he has tapped at
night from his cargo.
Nor must we forget that favourite pilgrim of Chaucer--the poor parson of
a town, who is also a learned clerk, and who is by many supposed to
strongly resemble Wycliffe himself, whom Chaucer's patron, John of
Gaunt, protects at the hazard of his life. He is no proud Pharisee, like
the fat abbot who has just gone past the church door; but benign and
wondrous diligent, and in adversity full patient. Rather than be cursed
for the tithe he takes, he gives to the poor of his very subsistence.
Come rain, come thunder, staff in hand, he visits the farthest end of
his parish; he has no spiced conscience--
"For Christe's love, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, _but first he followed it himselve_."
You will find him, be sure, on his knees on the cold floor, before some
humble City altar, heedless of all but prayer, or at the lazar-house on
his knees, beside some poor leper, and pointing through the shadow of
death to the shining gables of the New Jerusalem.
Such were the tenants of Chaucer's London. On these types at least we
may dwell with certainty. As for the proud nobles and the tough-skulled
knights, we must look for them in the pages of Froissart. Of the age of
Edward III. at least our patriarchal poet has shown us some vivid
glimpses, and imagination finds pleasure in tracing home his pilgrims to
their houses in St. Bartholomew's and Budge Row, the Blackfriars
monastery, and the palace on the Thames shore.