Chaucer, Geoffrey

Chaucer was probably born in London, where his father was a vintner, in about 1342 and lived there for most of his life. He may have attended the school at St Paul’s Cathedral, the nearest to his family home in Thames Street, but there is no record that he did. His legal knowledge and administrative appointments suggest some further education at one of the Inns of Court, but again there is no record of this. He moved to Kent in 1386 but returned to London some years before his death (1400).

Chaucer’s decision to write in English was not inevitable. He was bilingual in English and French, which had been the language of the upper classes since the Norman Conquest. His friend, John Gower, wrote poems in English, French, and Latin. But English was gaining ground, Chaucer’s choice turned out well, and his poems are still read today. They are indeed easier to read than those of his great contemporaries, the authors of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman, because he was a...