Geoffrey Chaucer
³...I think some of Chaucer belongs to his time and that much of that time is dead, extinct, and never to be made alive again. What was alive in it, lives through him...² --John Masefield Geoffrey Chaucer¹s world was the Europe of the fourteenth century. It was neither rich or poor, happy nor sad. Rather, it was the intermingling of these, a mixture of splendor and poverty, displaying both worldly desire and spiritual purity. Chaucer¹s travels through it, mostly on ³the King¹s business,² or civil service, shaped his writing, offering the readers of today a brief glimpse into the world in which he lived.
Chaucer lived from approximately AD 1340 to 1400. The world in which he lived was not one of peace or stability. Born the son of a London vintner, he remained a Londoner for most of the rest of his life, leaving the city only on ³the King¹s business².
The city of London was thus Chaucer¹s environment for most of his life. Aside from brief visits into other countries or areas of England, he remained in the city, and it¹s affects on his writing was immense.
London of that time was not the London of today. It was a walled city, guarded against invasion, but long enough time had passed since such a threat had approached that the defenses had loosened. Houses perched upon the walls, and Chaucer in fact, lived for a time in a house built over Aldgate, (one of the gates of the city).
London was a city less than three-quarters of a square mile in size: It ran east and west along the Thames less than one and a half miles, and extended northwards less than half a mile. Over 20,000 people were packed into this small area; the diversity of the inhabitants was overwhelming. Londoners ranged from wealthy to impoverished, from small to large, from shoemaker to blacksmith to minstrel to priest. The city was thus fairly close. Stone building mingled with tile, wood, and thatch. While the major streets were fairly wide, small...
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