Chapter XXVII: Conclusion (1)

"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]

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

A

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

B

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

C

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

D

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

E

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

F

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

G

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

H

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

I

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

J

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

K

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

L

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

M

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

N

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

O

Oaths, 155, 163, 169

Ospringe, 167

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

P

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

R

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

S

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

T

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

U

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

V

Vintry Ward, 15, 16

Violante Visconti, 48

W

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

Y

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.