English Literature For Boys And Girls by H.E. Marshall

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After Wyclif's death his followers were gradually crushed out,
and the Lollards disappear from our history. But his teaching
never quite died, for by giving the English people the Bible
Wyclif left a lasting mark on England; and although the
Reformation did not come until two hundred years later, he may be
looked upon as its forerunner.

It is hard to explain all that William Langland and John Wyclif
stand for in English literature and in English history. It was
the evil that they saw around them that made them write and speak
as they did, and it was their speaking and writing, perhaps, that
gave the people courage to rise against oppression. Thus their
teaching and writing mark the beginning of new life to the great
mass of the people of England. For in June, 1381, while John
Wyclif still lived and wrote, Wat Tyler led his men to Blackheath
in a rebellion which proved to be the beginning of freedom for
the workers of England. And although at first sight there seems
to be no connection between the two, it was the same spirit
working in John Wyclif and Wat Tyler that made the one speak and
the other fight as he did.

Chapter XXII CHAUCER--BREAD AND MILK FOR CHILDREN

TO-DAY, as we walk about the streets and watch the people hurry
to and fro, we cannot tell from the dress they wear to what class
they belong. We cannot tell among the men who pass us, all clad
alike in dull, sad-colored clothes, who is a knight and who is a
merchant, who is a shoemaker and who is a baker. If we see them
in their shops we can still tell, perhaps, for we know that a
butcher always wears a blue apron, and a baker a white hat.
These are but the remains of a time long ago when every one
dressed according to his calling, whether at work or not. It was
easy then to tell by the cut and texture of his clothes to what
rank in life a man belonged, for each dressed accordingly, and
only the great might wear silk and velvet and golden ornaments.

And in the time of which we have been reading, in the England
where Edward III and Richard II ruled, where Langland sadly
dreamed and Wyclif boldly wrote and preached, there lived a man
who has left for us a clear and truthful picture of those times.
He has left a picture so vivid that as we read his words the
people of England of the fourteenth century still seem to us to
live. This man was Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer was a poet, and is
generally looked upon as the first great English poet. Like
Caedmon he is called the "Father of English Poetry," and each has
a right to the name. For if Caedmon was the first great poet of
the English people in their new home of England, the language he
used was Anglo-Saxon. The language which Chaucer used was
English, though still not quite the English which we use to-day.

But although Chaucer was a great poet, we know very little about
his life. What we do know has nothing to do with his poems or of
how he wrote them. For in those days, and for long after, a
writer was not expected to live by his writing; but in return for
giving to the world beautiful thoughts, beautiful songs, the King
or some great noble would reward him by giving him a post at
court. About this public life of Chaucer we have a few facts.
But it is difficult at times to fit the man of camp, and court,
and counting-house to the poet and story-teller who possessed a
wealth of words and a knowledge of how to use them greater than
any Englishman who had lived before him. And it is rather
through his works than through the scanty facts of his life that
we learn to know the real man, full of shrewd knowledge of the
world, of humor, kindliness, and cheerful courage.

Chaucer was a man of the middle class. His father, John Chaucer,
was a London wine merchant. The family very likely came at first
from France, and the name may mean shoemaker, from an old Norman
word chaucier or chaussier, a shoemaker. And although the French
word for shoemaker is different now, there is still a slang word
chausseur, meaning a cobbler.

We know nothing at all of Chaucer as a boy, nothing of where he
went to school, nor do we know if he ever went to college. The
first thing we hear of him is that he was a page in the house of
the Princess Elizabeth, the wife of Prince Lionel, who was the
third son of Edward III. So, although Chaucer belonged to the
middle class, he must have had some powerful friend able to get
him a place in a great household.

In those days a boy became a page in a great household very much
as he might now become an office-boy in a large merchant's
office. A page had many duties. He had to wait at table, hold
candles, go messages, and do many other little household
services. Such a post seems strange to us now, yet it was
perhaps quite as interesting as sitting all day long on an office
stool. In time of war it was certainly more exciting, for a page
had often to follow his master to the battlefield. And as a war
with France was begun in 1359, Geoffrey went across the Channel
with his prince.

Of what befell Chaucer in France we know nothing, except that he
was taken prisoner, and that the King, Edward III, himself gave
16 pounds towards his ransom. That sounds a small sum, but it meant
as much as 240 pounds would now. So it would seem that, boy though
he was, Geoffrey Chaucer had already become important. Perhaps he
was already known as a poet and a good story-teller whom the King
was loath to lose. But again for seven years after this we hear
nothing more about him. And when next we do hear of him, he is
valet de chambre in the household of Edward III. Then a few
years later he married one of Queen Philippa's maids-in-waiting.

Of Chaucer's life with his wife and family again we know nothing
except that he had at least one son, named Lewis. We know this
because he wrote a book, called A Treatise on the Astrolabe, for
this little son. An astrolabe was an instrument used in
astronomy to find out the distance of stars from the earth, the
position of the sun and moon, the length of days, and many other
things about the heavens and their bodies.

Chaucer calls his book A Treatise on the Astrolabe, Bread and
Milk for Children. "Little Lewis, my son," he says in the
beginning, "I have perceived well by certain evidences thine
ability to learn science touching numbers and proportions; and as
well consider I thy busy prayer in special to learn the treatise
of the astrolabe." But although there were many books written on
the subject, some were unknown in England, and some were not to
be trusted. "And some of them be too hard to thy tender age of
ten years. This treatise then will I show thee under few light
rules and naked words in English; for Latin canst thou yet but
small, my little son. . . .

"Now will I pray meekly every discreet person that readeth or
heareth this little treatise, to have my rude inditing for
excused, and my superfluity of words, for two causes. The first
cause is for that curious inditing and hard sentence is full
heavy at one and the same time for a child to learn. And the
second cause is this, that soothly me seemeth better to write
unto a child twice a good sentence than he forget it once. And
Lewis, if so be I shew you in my easy English as true conclusions
as be shewn in Latin, grant me the more thank, and pray God save
the King, who is lord of this English."

So we see from this that more than five hundred years ago a
kindly father saw the need of making simple books on difficult
subjects for children. You may never want to read this book
itself, indeed few people read it now, but I think that we should
all be sorry to lose the preface, although it has in it some long
words which perhaps a boy of ten in our day would still find
"full heavy."

It is interesting, too, to notice in this preface that here
Chaucer calls his King "Lord of this English." We now often
speak of the "King's English," so once again we see how an
everyday phrase links us with the past.

Chapter XXIII CHAUCER--"THE CANTERBURY TALES"

CHAUCER rose in the King's service. He became an esquire, and
was sent on business for the King to France and to Italy. To
Italy he went at least twice, and it is well to remember this, as
it had an effect on his most famous poems. He must have done his
business well, for we find him receiving now a pension for life
worth about 200 pounds in our money, now a grant of a daily pitcher
of wine besides a salary of "71/2d. a day and two robes yearly."

Chaucer's wife, too, had a pension, so the poet was well off. He
had powerful friends also, among them John of Gaunt. And when
the Duke's wife died Chaucer wrote a lament which is called the
Dethe of Blaunche the Duchess, or sometimes the Book of the
Duchess. This is one of the earliest known poems of Chaucer, and
although it is not so good as some which are later, there are
many beautiful lines in it.

The poet led a busy life. He was a good business man, and soon
we find him in the civil service, as we would call it now. He
was made Comptroller of Customs, and in this post he had to work
hard, for one of the conditions was that he must write out the
accounts with his own hand, and always be in the office himself.
If we may take some lines he wrote to be about himself, he was so
busy all day long that he had not time to hear what was happening
abroad, or even what was happening among his friends and
neighbors.

"Not only from far countree,
That there no tidings cometh to thee;
Not of thy very neighbours,
That dwellen almost at thy doors,
Thou hearest neither that nor this."

Yet after his hard office work was done he loved nothing better
than to go back to his books, for he goes on to say:

"For when thy labour done all is
And hast y-made thy reckonings,
Instead of rest and newe things
Thou goest home to thy house anon,
And all so dumb as any stone,
Thou sittest at another book,
Till fully dazed is thy look,
And livest thus as a hermite
Although thine abstinence is light."

But if Chaucer loved books he loved people too, and we may
believe that he readily made friends, for there was a kingly
humor about him that must have drawn people to him. And that he
knew men and their ways we learn from his poetry, for it is full
of knowledge of men and women.

For many years Chaucer was well off and comfortable. But he did
not always remain so. There came a time when his friend and
patron, John of Gaunt, fell from power, and Chaucer lost his
appointments. Soon after that his wife died, and with her life
her pension ceased. So for a year or two the poet knew something
of poverty--poverty at least compared to what he had been used
to. But if he lost his money he did not lose his sunny temper,
and in all his writings we find little that is bitter.

After a time John of Gaunt returned to power, and again Chaucer
had a post given to him, and so until he died he suffered ups and
downs. Born when Edward III was in his highest glory, Chaucer
lived to see him hated by his people. He lived through the reign
of Edward's grandson, Richard II, and knew him from the time when
as a gallant yellow-haired boy he had faced Wat Tyler and his
rioters, till as a worn and broken prisoner he yielded the crown
to Henry of Lancaster, the son of John of Gaunt. But before the
broken King died in his darksome prison Chaucer lay taking his
last rest in St. Benet's Chapel in Westminster. He was the first
great poet to be laid there, but since then there have gathered
round him so many bearing the greatest names in English
literature that we call it now the "Poet's Corner."

But although Chaucer lived in stirring times, although he was a
soldier and a courtier, he does not, in the book by which we know
him best, write of battles and of pomp, of kings and of princes.
In this book we find plain, everyday people, people of the great
middle class of merchants and tradesmen and others of like
calling, to which Chaucer himself belonged. It was a class which
year by year had been growing more and more strong in England,
and which year by year had been making its strength more and more
felt. But it was a class which no one had thought of writing
about in plain fashion. And it is in the Canterbury Tales that
we have, for the first time in the English language, pictures of
real men, and what is more wonderful, of real women. They are
not giants or dwarfs, they are not fairy princes or knights in
shining armor. They do no wondrous deeds of strength or skill.
They are not queens of marvelous beauty or enchanted princesses.
They are simply plain, middle-class English people, and yet they
are very interesting.

In Chaucer's time, books, although still copied by hand, had
become more plentiful than ever before. And as more and more
people learned to read, the singing time began to draw to a
close. Stories were now not all written in rhyme, and poetry was
not all written to be sung. Yet the listening time was not quite
over, for these were still the days of talk and story-telling.
Life went at leisure pace. There was no hurry, there was no
machinery. All sewing was done by hand, so when the ladies of a
great household gathered to their handiwork, it was no unusual
thing for one among them to lighten the long hours with tales
read or told. Houses were badly lighted, and there was little to
do indoors in the long winter evenings, so the men gathered
together and listened while one among them told of love and
battle. Indeed, through all the life of the Middle Ages there
was room for story-telling.

So now, although Chaucer meant his tales to be read, he made
believe that they were told by a company of people on a journey
from London to Canterbury. He thus made a framework for them of
the life he knew, and gave a reason for them all being told in
one book.

But a reason had to be given for the journey, for in those days
people did not travel about from place to place for the mere
pleasure of seeing another town, as we do now. Few people
thought of going for a change of air, nobody perhaps ever thought
about going to the seaside for the summer. In short, people
always had a special object in taking a journey.

One reason for this was that traveling was slow and often
dangerous. The roads were bad, and people nearly all traveled on
horseback and in company, for robbers lurked by the way ready to
attack and kill, for the sake of their money, any who rode alone
and unprotected. So when a man had to travel he tried to arrange
to go in company with others.

In olden days the most usual reason for a journey, next to
business, was a pilgrimage. Sometimes this was simply an act of
religion or devotion. Clad in a simple gown, and perhaps with
bare feet, the pilgrim set out. Carrying a staff in his hand,
and begging for food and shelter by the road, he took his way to
the shrine of some saint. There he knelt and prayed and felt
himself blessed in the deed. Sometimes it was an act of penance
for some great sin done; sometimes of thanksgiving for some great
good received, some great danger passed.

But as time went on these pilgrimages lost their old meaning.
People no longer trudged along barefoot, wearing a pilgrim's
garb. They began to look upon a pilgrimage more as a summer
outing, and dressed in their best they rode comfortably on
horseback. And it is a company of pilgrims such as this that
Chaucer paints for us. He describes himself as being of the
company, and it is quite likely that Chaucer really did at one
time go upon this pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, for it
was a very favorite one. Not only was the shrine of St. Thomas
at Canterbury very beautiful in those days, but it was also
within easy distance of London. Neither costing much nor lasting
long, it was a journey which well-to-do merchantmen and others
like them could well afford.

Chaucer tells us that it was when the first sunshiny days of
April came that people began to think of such pilgrimages:--

"When that April with his showers sweet,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,"

when the soft wind "with his sweet breath inspired hath in every
holt and heath the tender crops"; when the little birds make new
songs, then "longen folk to go on pilgrimages, and palmers for to
seeken strange lands, and especially from every shire's end of
England, to Canterbury they wend."

So one day in April a company of pilgrims gathered at the Tabard
Inn on the south side of the Thames, not far from London Bridge.
A tabard, or coat without sleeves, was the sign of the inn; hence
its name. In those days such a coat would often be worn by
workmen for ease in working, but it has come down to us only as
the gayly colored coat worn by heralds.

At the Tabard Inn twenty-nine "of sundry folk," besides Chaucer
himself, were gathered. They were all strangers to each other,
but they were all bound on the same errand. Every one was
willing to be friendly with his neighbor, and Chaucer in his
cheery way had soon made friends with them all.

"And shortly when the sun was to rest,
So had I spoke with them every one."

And having made their acquaintance, Chaucer begins to describe
them all so that we may know them too. He describes them so well
that he makes them all living to us. Some we grow to love; some
we smile upon and have a kindly feeling for, for although they
are not fine folk, they are so very human we cannot help but like
them; and some we do not like at all, for they are rude and
rough, as the poet meant them to be.

Chapter XXIV CHAUCER--AT THE TABARD INN

CHAUCER begins his description of the people who were gathered at
the Tabard Inn with the knight, who was the highest in rank among
them.

"A knight there was, and that a worthy man,
. . . . . .
And though he was worthy he was wise,
And of his port as meek as any maid.
He never yet no villainy ne'er said
In all his life unto no manner wight;
He was a very perfect, gentle knight."

Yet he was no knight of romance or fairy tale, but a good honest
English gentleman who had fought for his King. His coat was of
fustian and was stained with rust from his armor, for he had just
come back from fighting, and was still clad in his war-worn
clothes. "His horse was good, but he ne was gay."

With the knight was his son, a young squire of twenty years. He
was gay and handsome, with curling hair and comely face. His
clothes were in the latest fashion, gayly embroidered. He sat
his horse well and guided it with ease. He was merry and
careless and clever too, for he could joust and dance, sing and
play, read and write, and indeed do everything as a young squire
should. Yet with it all "courteous he was, lowly and
serviceable."

With these two came their servant, a yeoman, clad in hood of
green, and carrying besides many other weapons a "mighty bow."

As was natural in a gathering such as this, monks and friars and
their like figured largely. There was a monk, a worldly man,
fond of dress, fond of hunting, fond of a good dinner; and a
friar even more worldly and pleasure-loving. There was a
pardoner, a man who sold pardons to those who had done wrong, and
a sumpnour or summoner, who was so ugly and vile that children
were afraid of him. A summoner was a person who went to summon
or call people to appear before the Church courts when they had
done wrong. He was a much-hated person, and both he and the
pardoner were great rogues and cheats and had no love for each
other. There was also a poor parson.

All these, except the poor parson, Chaucer holds up to scorn
because he had met many such in real life who, under the pretense
of religion, lived bad lives. But that it was not the Church
that he scorned or any who were truly good he shows by his
picture of the poor parson. He was poor in worldly goods:--

"But rich he was in holy thought and work,
He was also a learned man, a clerk
That Christ's gospel truly would preach,
His parishioners devoutly would he teach;
Benign he was and wonder diligent,
And in adversity full patient.
. . . . .
Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder,
But he left naught for rain nor thunder
In sickness nor in mischief to visit
The farthest of his parish, great or lite*
Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff.
The noble ensample to his sheep he gave,
That first he wrought, and afterward he taught."

*Little.

There was no better parson anywhere. He taught his people
to walk in Christ's way. But first he followed it himself.

Chaucer gives this good man a brother who is a plowman.

"A true worker and a good was he,
Living in peace and perfect charity."

He could dig, and he could thresh, and everything to which he put
his hand he did with a will.

Besides all the other religious folk there were a prioress and a
nun. In those days the convents were the only schools for fine
ladies, and the prioress perhaps spent her days teaching them.
Chaucer makes her very prim and precise.

"At meat well taught was she withal,
She let no morsel from her lips fall,
Nor wet her fingers in her sauce deep.
Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep
That no drop might fall upon her breast.*

In courtesy was set full mickle her lest.**
Her over lip wiped she so clean,
That in her cup there was no morsel seen
Of grease, when she drunken had her draught."

*It should be remembered that in those days forks were
unknown, and people used their fingers.
**Pleasure.

And she was so tender hearted! She would cry if she saw a mouse
caught in a trap, and she fed her little dog on the best of
everything. In her dress she was very dainty and particular.
And yet with all her fine ways we feel that she was no true lady,
and that ever so gently Chaucer is making fun of her.

Besides the prioress and the nun there was only one other woman
in the company. This was the vulgar, bouncing Wife of Bath. She
dressed in rich and gaudy clothes, she liked to go about to see
and be seen and have a good time. She had been married five
times, and though she was getting old and rather deaf, she was
quite ready to marry again, if the husband she had should die
before her.

Chaucer describes nearly every one in the company, and last of
all he pictures for us the host of the Tabard Inn.

"A seemly man our host was withal
For to have been a marshal in a hall.
A large man he was with eyen stepe,*
A fairer burgesse was there none in Chepe,**
Bold was his speech, and wise and well y-taught,
And of manhood him lacked right naught,
Eke thereto he was right a merry man."

*Bright.
**Cheapside, a street in London.

The host's name was Harry Baily, a big man and jolly fellow who
dearly loved a joke. After supper was over he spoke to all the
company gathered there. He told them how glad he was to see
them, and that he had not had so merry a company that year. Then
he told them that he had thought of something to amuse them on
the long way to Canterbury. It was this:--

"That each of you to shorten of your way
In this voyage shall tell tales tway*--
To Canterbury-ward I mean it so,
And homeward ye shall tellen other two;--
Of adventures which whilom have befallen.
And which of you the beareth you best of all,
That is to say, that telleth in this case
Tales of best sentence, and most solace,
Shall have a supper at all our cost,
Here in this place, sitting at this post,
When that we come again fro Canterbury.
And for to make you the more merry
I will myself gladly with you ride,
Right at mine own cost, and be your guide."

*Twain.

To this every one willingly agreed, and next morning they waked
very early and set off. And having ridden a little way they cast
lots as to who should tell the first tale. The lot fell upon the
knight, who accordingly began.

All that I have told you so far forms the first part of the book
and is called the prologue, which means really "before word" or
explanation. It is perhaps the most interesting part of the
book, for it is entirely Chaucer's own and it is truly English.

It is said that Chaucer borrowed the form of his famous tales
from a book called The Decameron, written by an Italian poet
named Boccaccio. Decameron comes from two Greek words deka, ten,
and hemera, a day, the book being so called because the stories
in it were supposed to be told in ten days. During a time of
plague in Florence seven ladies and three gentlemen fled and took
refuge in a house surrounded by a garden far from the town.
There they remained for ten days, and to amuse themselves each
told a tale every day, so that there are a hundred tales in all
in The Decameron.

It is very likely that in one of his journeys to Italy Chaucer
saw this book. Perhaps he even met Boccaccio, and it is more
than likely that he met Petrarch, another great Italian poet who
also retold one of the tales of The Decameron. Several of the
tales which Chaucer makes his people tell are founded on these
tales. Indeed, nearly all his poems are founded on old French,
Italian, or Latin tales. But although Chaucer takes his material
from others, he tells the stories in his own way, and so makes
them his own; and he never wrote anything more truly English in
spirit than the prologue to the Canterbury Tales.