Edward's mother Isabella, at Rising Castle, near to Lynn. That Chaucer speaks in his book on the Astrolabe of a Carmelite Friar, "Nicholas of Lynne, that Reverend Clerk." Nicholas of Lynne wrote on the Astrolabe, and so did Chaucer. In 1386, Nicholas of Lynne composed a calendar for John of Gaunt. That Thomas Chaucer, Geoffrey's son, married Matilde, daughter of Sir John Burghersh, and a John de Burghard was mayor of Lynn in 1331-2. That Chaucer speaks of the Cross that Helen found, and "The Holy Cross that Helen found" was the title of a Lynn guild, of which the certificate is still at the Record Office. That Chaucer wrote a Shipman's Tale, and Lynn has a shipman's guild. That Chaucer's Reve lived "beside Baldeswelle,” which is a most obscure Norfolk village. That his Miller's wife invoked the Cross of Bromholme, which is at Bacton Abbey on the east coast of Norfolk. That Chaucer's reference in the Prioress's Tale to child murder by the Jews might refer to St. William, the boy of Norwich, and could not refer to Hugh of Lincoln, because he is there mentioned as "slain also." That the Nun's Priest's Tale speaks of

"Jacke Straw and his meyné,

When that they wolden every Flemyng kille,"

and the Norfolk branch of the Jack Straw rebellion was under John Litester the dyer, who was hanged at North Walsham, and one of whose quarters was set up at Lynn. Now the Flemings are said to have introduced the woollen trade into Norfolk about 1336, at Worstead, the next parish to North Walsham. May not this, Mr. Rye asked, indicate a rising against the industrious foreigner in Norfolk, since there is good reason to think that Litestre was a Worstead man? That the name of Robert Chaumpanye, which comes into the account of Chaucer's earlier life, occurs at Fincham, near Lynn, if it be equivalent to de Campania, while

Chaumpneys occurs in South Lynn itself. These are the twelve inducements to belief that Chaucer may possibly have been born in Lynn. Their cumulative evidence, however, can do no more than add slight confirmation to an opinion more safely based upon the fact that Robert, the father of John Chaucer, had property in Ipswich. The London Chaucers seem to have had kindred in Suffolk and Norfolk, and Chaucer's family may have been East Anglian before it made its home in London.

Royal Street, in which was the tavern left by Richard Chaucer to his church, was named from a Tower Royal, at the upper end of it, which existed in the reign of Edward I. It was let afterwards for private occupation, was in the time of Edward II. called "the Royal," and in the time of Edward III. was given as the "Royal Inn," worth £20 a year, to the college of St. Stephen, Westminster.* The tavern at the corner of Kerion Lane was in that part of Royal Street which lies within the Vintry Ward, the seat of the London wine trade, where in Chaucer's lifetime (1357) Vintners' Hall was built, with almshouses for thirteen poor people. At that time Gascon wines were sold at fourpence and Rhenish at sixpence the gallon-about three and fourpence and five shillings in present money.

The vintners or wine-tunners, to whose body Chaucer's father belonged, were, in the time of Edward III., called Merchant Vintners of Gascoyne. Some of them were English born, some foreigners, great Bordeaux or Gascon merchants; but all were subjects of the King of England. Several of them were mayors of London, and one of them, who held the mayoralty in Edward III.'s reign, in

* Afterwards it was at the church of St. Michael Paternoster in Royal Street, or the Royal, that Richard Whittington was buried and his college founded. The name of the part of the street in Vintry Ward became therefore College Street. A small segment of the old street that now opens upon Cannon Street is still called "Tower Royal.”

the year 1357, feasted together at his house in the Vintry the four kings of England, France, Scotland, and Cyprus. Richard Chaucer, the vintner, therefore, probably could well afford to bequeath to his church the rental of a tavern out of his estate. Either Richard or John would have had means for the liberal education of Geoffrey, his son, and a son Geoffrey we know that John had. Either Richard or John might naturally, with his money and by counsel and help of courtly customers, have enabled the young scholar to make his start in life as a court page. For even royal princes went in search of good wine to carouses in the Vintry.

Geoffrey Chaucer's arms did not connect his family with any noble house. A perpendicular line divided the shield. into two halves, and it was crossed by a transverse bar. On one side of the middle line the bar was coloured red on a white ground, on the other side white on a red ground. Thomas Speght said, "It may be that it were no absurdity to think (nay, it seemeth likely, Chaucer's skill in geometry considered) that he took the grounds and reason of these arms out of Euclid, the 27 and 28 proposition of the first book; and some, perchance, are of that opinion whose skill therein is comparable to the best." But Thomas Fuller left us word * that "Some more wits have made it the dashing of white and red wine (the parents of our ordinary claret) as nicking his father's profession." The truth may have been spoken in that jest. Arms were not granted to merchants until the reign of Henry VI. But long before that time wealthy merchants of the middle ages bore their trade marks upon shields.

Birth-date.

The conjectural date formerly assigned to the birth of Geoffrey Chaucer was 1328; the inscription on the monument in Westminster Abbey, raised to him in 1556 by Nicholas Brigham, giving the date of his death * "Church History," bk. iv., cent. 14.

in the year 1400, it was assumed that he lived to the age of seventy-two. In later years stress was laid, for a time, upon a record that in fact helps little to determination of the question. A dispute occurred in the tenth year of Richard II., between Sir Richard le Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor concerning their arms. Heralds were appointed to examine and take evidence, and many of the chief nobility appeared as witnesses. Among the witnesses was Geoffrey Chaucer, who testified "that he saw Scrope armed at Rottes in France, azure with a bend d'or, and that coat was by public voice and fame taken for Scrope's coat." When Mr. William Godwin was at work upon his Life of Chaucer, published in 1803, he sought in the Tower for a copy of this document, and found in it that Chaucer, examined on the 12th of October, 1386, in the church of St. Margaret's, Westminster, was described as "Geffray Chaucere, Esquier, del age de xl ans et plus, armeez par xxvij ans," (aged over forty years, and having borne arms for twenty-seven years). As Chaucer's age, if born in 1328, would at that time have been fifty-eight, Mr. Godwin, while adhering to the old reckoning, raised upon this document the shadow of a doubt whether Chaucer might not have been, at every stage of his life, fifteen or sixteen years younger than had been supposed, and whether he might not accordingly have died in 1400 at the age of about fifty-five, instead of seventy-two. If so, Gower could hardly have admonished his friend of his "dayes old," and "latter age," nor would Chaucer, in his "House of Fame," have pleaded "I am old," as reason against his instruction in the science of the stars. 1832, Sir N. Harris Nicolas published in two volumes the text of the depositions in "The Controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor in the Court of Chivalry, A.D. MCCCLXXXV. MCCCXC." with a "History of the Family of Scrope and Biographical Notices of the

In

Deponents." His research made clear to him that the record touching Chaucer could not be taken as evidence of age. "There are," he said, "strong reasons, derived from many passages in his own works and in the writings of Gower, for believing that he was born long before 1345; and the many instances which have been adduced of the mistakes that occur respecting the ages of the deponents, of whom some are stated to have been ten, and others even twenty years younger than they actually were, prevents Chaucer's deposition from being conclusive on the point." The date of first bearing arms, the main point in inquiry by a Herald's Court, seems to have been always asked and rightly entered; the less material question of the actual age was entered more roughly, often by guess, now and then by such a careless guess that one entry contradicts the other. Sir George Bogan was entered at sixty "et pluis" when his age was over eighty. Sir Richard Bingham, aged sixty-six, was said to be fifty "et pluis." Sir Robert Marny is said to have been fifty-two (without any "pluis"), and first armed at the first relief of Stirling-that is to say when he was two years old. Sir Bernard Brocas, when his age was really fifty-six, was said to be forty, while the record adds. that he was first armed at La Hogue, so that the Roll itself represents him as having gone to the wars when he was not yet one year old. John Schakel also, said to be forty-five in 1386, and to have been first armed in the year of the battle of Morlaix, must (if this record be decisive) have gone to the wars aged one.

But a date before which Geoffrey Chaucer was not born is to be found, if we consider him to be that Geoffrey the son of John who signed a lease in 1380. It is reasonable to accept this identification, if at the same time it be clearly recognised that the evidence for it is not conclusive; since John might have had in the poet a brother, half-brother, or other kinsman, Geoffrey, after whom he named a son.