The Pardoner’s Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer

The Chaucers

John Chaucer, the poet’s father, was a wealthy London businessman (wine & leather) with connections to the Royal Court; John Chaucer died 1366/67.

Geoffrey, the son was born, 1342 or 1343.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s name appears in a written record for the first time in 1357 when he was around fifteen years old. He is a member of the household (staff) of Elizabeth, countess of Ulster, the wife of Lionel, the third son of King Edward III.

Chaucer was educated at court and spoke French and Italian as well as Middle English and Latin. He was to become a courtier, civil servant and diplomat for three successive kings: Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV.

In 1359, he was ‹ aged sixteen to seventeen ‹ with King Edward III’s army in France. He was captured and was a P.O.W. until ransomed in 1360.

During the next four years he studied law at one of the Inns of Court, during which time it is recorded that after a brawl he was fined for bashing a priest in a London street. 

In 1366, Chaucer commenced ten years of military service and various diplomatic missions for the king.

He was married in 1366 ‹ Philippa Pan, a young lady he had met while serving in the household of the Countess of Ulster.

In 1367, Chaucer received a salary for life as a yeoman of the King, and lived at court available for a variety of senior missions.

He commenced writing in 1370. In 1378 he was Comptroller of the Customs for the port of London and lived above Aldgate.

Diplomatic missions in Italy brought him into contact with the work of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio.

In October 1385, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Kent and was a Knight of the Shire (MP) for Kent in the parliament which met in that year.

These were difficult years politically and Chaucer was out-of-favour but with Richard II regaining control in 1389, Chaucer was appointed Clerk of the King’s Works ‹ which involved taking care of repair and maintenance of the royal palaces. He was not a success in the position was removed from the position, 1391.

Chaucer remained in favour at court but spent most of his time writing rather than in administration.

In his last years he lived near Westminster Abbey and after he died in 1400 was buried in the Abbey.

			    Prologue: General Comments

Geoffrey Chaucer was around 57 years old when he died and the Canterbury Tales occupied the last twelve or so years of his life ‹ as a hobby. He died in 1400.

In late mediaeval England it was a time of political and social unrest. While Chaucer was a senior civil servant, Richard II was deposed and several of Chaucer’s close associates were executed.

	Social unrest produced the Peasants Revolt in 1381

	It was a time of demographic collapse ‹ the plague, the Black Death, ravaged England in 1348 and there were subsequent outbreaks during the remainder of the century. Around one-third of the population of Europe died of the plague during this period.

Chaucer’s general concerns:

•	ethics, standards, rather than politics, especially ethics within the governing class;

•	the human condition: fallible human beings living in an unstable world;