Geroffrey chaucer
Geroffrey chaucerKnown as the Father of the English Language, Geoffrey Chaucer, after six centuries, has retained his status as one of the three or four greatest English poets. Throughout his assiduous life as a courtier and civil servant under the royalty of Edward III and Richard II, Chaucer has written many famous pieces that are still admired and praise today. His life serving royalty – in which he undertook multiply positions that allowed him to engage with various people of difference statuses – has greatly swayed his writings. Furthermore, Chaucer himself and the success of this works have placed great influence on the English language.
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in Vintry Ward, London around 1343.1 He was the son of Agnes de Copton and John Chaucer, a prosperous wine merchant. The name, from chaussier (French term for shoes), indicates ancestors who were shoemakers.2 In 1357, when he was approximately 14 years old, he was old enough to enroll as a page in a noble household- the household of King Edward's son Prince Lionel and his wife Elizabeth. This is known from “…an entry in Countess Elizabeth's household account book, which records the purchase of a suit of clothes for Geoffrey Chaucer, including a pair of red and black hose and a pair of shoes.”1 This being his first connection with royalty, he was trained to be a civil servant and a diplomat; at the same time he leant the ways of the court and the use of arms.2 Those days must have been lively days for the young page, for old records show that the countess and her household were constantly on the move from one palace or great mansion to another. 1 Two years later Chaucer was with a European army that Edward III led into France during the Hundred Years' War. He was taken prisoner by the French but was soon ransomed by the king for a sum equivalent to about U.S. $2,400 in 1360. 3
Of his next seven years, nothing definite is known; but there is reason to believe that he may have been studying law in London.1 It is believed that from this time forward, Chaucer began accumulating information and details through his experience for his later work the ‘Canterbury Tales’.
By 1367, he was a member of the royal household with the rank of yeoman and later of squire, with a regular pension, or salary.1 He also had a wife, Philippa, the daughter of Sir Poan Roet of Hainauut and sister of John of Gaunt’s third wife; she was a member of the queen's household.3 Thus, some time in his 20s, Chaucer was launched on the official career that he followed for the remainder of his lifetime.
For the next 30 years, or thereabouts, Chaucer traveled aboard on numerous diplomatic missions because of his training in diplomacy and he also held a number...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.