Chaucer and His Times

CHAUCER AND HIS TIMES BY GRACE E. HADOW THE biography of Chaucer is built upon doubts and thrives upon perplexities accord ing to one of the most famous of Chaucer scholars, and the more carefully we consider e evidence upon which this statement is jised, the more fully do we find it endorsed, the name Chaucer itself has been variously used from the Latin calcearius, a shoe maker, the French chaussier, a maker of long hose, and the French chaufecire, chafewax i.e. a clerk of the court of Chancery whose duty consisted in affixing seals to royal X. The one point of agreement Sseems to be that the family was undoubtedly French origin, though whether the founder of the English branch came over with th Conqueror or in Henry Ills reign, cannot be decided. Most scholars are now agreed that Chaucer was bom about 1540, mnd that his father was John Chaucer, a vintntr of Thames Street, London, though at one time his birth was dated as early as 1328, and Mr. Snelly in his Age of Chaucer, endeavours further to darken counsel already sufficiently obscure by suggesting that there may have been two contemporary Geoffreys, and that the facts which are usually accepted as throwing light on the history of the poet may really apply to his unknown namesake. CONTENTS: NOTES ON CHAUCERS USE OF E CHAUCERS LIFE AND TIMES CHAUCERS WORKS CHAUCERS TREATMENT OP HIS SOURCES CHAUCERS CHARACTERDRAWING HUMOUR CHAUCERS DESCRIPTIVE POWER SOME VIEWS OF CHAUCERS ON MEN AND THINGS CHAUCERS INFLUENCE INDEX