Origin Geoffrey Chaucer was born in
London, most likely in the early 1340s (by some accounts, including his monument, he was born in 1343), though the precise date and location remain unknown. His great-grandfather Andrew de Chaucer was a tavern keeper, his grandfather Robert Malyn le Chaucer worked as a purveyor of wines, and his father, John Chaucer, rose to become an important wine merchant with a royal appointment. Several previous generations of Geoffrey Chaucer's family had been
vintners and merchants in
Ipswich. His surname is derived from the French
chaucier, which could refer in Middle English to a maker of shoes, boots, or
chausses (leggings). In 1324 his future father, John Chaucer, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve-year-old to her daughter in an attempt to keep the Ipswich property in the family. The aunt was imprisoned and fined £250, now equivalent to about £, suggesting the family was financially secure. John Chaucer married Agnes Copton, who inherited properties in 1349, including 24 shops in London, from her uncle Hamo de Copton, who is described in a will dated 3 April 1354 and listed in the City Hustings Roll as '
moneyer', apparently employed at the
Tower of London. In the City Hustings Roll 110, 5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Chaucer refers to himself as
me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie, Latin for: "I, Geoffrey Chaucer, son of the vintner John Chaucer, London".
Career of the
Canterbury Tales) Although records of the lives of Chaucer's contemporaries
William Langland and the
Gawain Poet are practically non-existent, Chaucer was a public servant whose official life was very well documented. Nearly 500 written items testify to his career. The first of the 'Chaucer Life Records' appears in 1357 in the household accounts of
Elizabeth de Burgh, the
Countess of Ulster, when he became the noblewoman's page through his father's connections, a common medieval form of apprenticeship for boys into knighthood or prestige appointments. De Burgh was married to
Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, the second surviving son of
Edward III; this position brought the teenage Chaucer into the close court circle, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He was also employed as a courtier, a diplomat and a civil servant, as well as working for the king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the King's Works. In 1359, in the early stages of the
Hundred Years' War, Edward invaded France. Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the
English army. In 1360 he was captured during the
siege of Reims. The king paid £16 for his ransom, , and Chaucer was released. of Roet below:
Gules, three Catherine Wheels or (
French:
rouet = 'spinning-wheel').
Ewelme Church,
Oxfordshire; possible funeral helm of his son
Thomas Chaucer. Chaucer's life is uncertain following this period. However he seems to have travelled in France, Spain and
Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps undertaking the
Way of Saint James pilgrimage to
Santiago de Compostela. Around 1366 Chaucer married
Philippa (de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen,
Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of
Katherine Swynford, who later () became the third wife of
John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son,
Thomas Chaucer, had an illustrious career as
chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and
Speaker of the House of Commons. Thomas's daughter
Alice married the
Duke of Suffolk. Thomas's great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson),
John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was heir to the throne as designated by
Richard III before his deposition. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at
Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at
Henry IV's coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" was written for the latter. According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the
Inner Temple (an
Inn of Court) at this time. He became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a
valet de chambre,
yeoman, or
esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment. He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to
Violante Visconti, daughter of
Galeazzo II Visconti, in
Milan.
Jean Froissart and
Petrarch, also notable literary figures, were also in attendance. Around this time, Chaucer is believed to have written
The Book of the Duchess, his first major work, in honour of
Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt who died from the
plague in 1369. The next year, Chaucer travelled to
Picardy as part of a military expedition; in 1373 he visited
Genoa and
Florence. Scholars such as
Walter William Skeat,
Piero Boitani and
Beryl Rowland have suggested that it was during the latter excursions that he
came into contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio. They acquainted him with
mediæval Italian poetry, whose forms and stories he would later employ. The purposes of a trip in 1377 are unclear, as it was known as a time of conflict. Later documents suggest it was a mission (alongside Jean Froissart) to arrange marriage between the future King
Richard II and a French princess, thereby ending the
Hundred Years' War. Were this the purpose of their trip, they seem to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred. In 1378 Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy (secret dispatch) to the Visconti and
Sir John Hawkwood, English
condottiere (mercenary leader) in Milan. A possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his life" for some unspecified task. On 8 June 1374 Chaucer obtained the pivotal appointment as
Comptroller of the Customs for the
port of London. He was presumably well-received in the occupation: he held the position for twelve years, a lengthy titularship by then. The
medievalist David Carlson has described Chaucer's job as "policing the collector... The operating presumption was that the collector would try to cheat, and the comptroller would try to catch him at it; but at the same time, while the comptroller watched the collector, the Exchequer was watching the comptroller, who was evidently expected to try to cheat too". Chaucer appears to have been close to the Court party in politics; of the 11 men prosecuted for treason by the
Lords Appellant in 1388, he was an associate of eight. His life goes undocumented for much of the next ten years, but it is believed that he wrote (or began) most of his famous works during this period. On 16 October 1379 Thomas Staundon filed legal action against his former servant Cecily Chaumpaigne and Chaucer, accusing the latter of unlawfully employing Chaumpaigne before her term of service was completed, in violation of the
Statute of Labourers. Though eight court documents dated between October 1379 and July 1380 survive the action, the case was never prosecuted. No details survive about Chaumpaigne's service or how she came to leave Staundon's employ for Chaucer's. at the site of
the Tabard inn in
Southwark, London, where in 1386 the pilgrims in
The Canterbury Tales set off to visit
Canterbury Cathedral While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to
Kent, being appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent at a time when French invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on
The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He also became a member of parliament (a
knight of the shire) for Kent in 1386 and attended the '
Wonderful Parliament' that year. He appears to have attended most of the 71 days it sat, for which he was paid 24 pounds and nine shillings. On 15 October that year he gave a deposition in the case of
Scrope v. Grosvenor. There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife. She is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political upheavals caused by the
Lords Appellants, despite the fact that Chaucer knew some of the men executed over the affair quite well. On 12 July 1389 Chaucer was appointed the
clerk of the king's works, a sort of
foreman organising most of the king's building projects. No major works were begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on
Westminster Palace,
St George's Chapel, Windsor, continued building the wharf at the Tower of London and built the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job, but it paid two
shillings a day, more than three times his salary as a comptroller. Chaucer was also appointed keeper of the lodge at the King's Park in
Feckenham Forest in
Worcestershire, which was a largely honorary appointment.
Later life In September 1390, records say that Chaucer was robbed and possibly injured while conducting the business, and he stopped working in this capacity on 17 June 1391. He began as Deputy Forester in the royal forest of
Petherton Park in
North Petherton, Somerset on 22 June. It involved administering an area which included moorland, cultivated fields, villages and a forest. Richard II granted him an annual pension of 20 pounds in 1394 (), and Chaucer's name fades from the historical record not long after Richard's overthrow in 1399. The last few records of his life show his pension renewed by the new king and his taking a lease on a residence within the
close of Westminster Abbey on 24 December 1399. Henry IV renewed the grants assigned by Richard, but
The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse hints that the grants might not have been paid. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June 1400, when some debts owed to him were repaid. Chaucer died of unknown causes on 25 October 1400, although the only evidence for this date comes from the engraving on his tomb, which was erected more than 100 years after his death. There is some speculation that he was murdered by enemies of Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV, but the case is entirely circumstantial. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as was his right owing to his status as a tenant of the Abbey's close. In 1556, his remains were transferred to a more ornate tomb, making him the first writer interred in the area now known as
Poets' Corner. ==Relationship to John of Gaunt==