As Sir Walter Scott pointed out, the Saxon language can name only barnyard animals on the hoof. Chaucer himself often used French translations of Latin texts that he chose the language of the lower-class Saxons rather than Norman nobility has perplexed readers and scholars for centuries.
Known as the first English author, Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was considered the grammatica, or language which would not change, and most of the upper-class English spoke French.
Although Chaucer was close to Gaunt, he was always on the fringes of the world of courtly political intrigue of this time, a period Shakespeare dramatized in Richard II. Chaucer’s own son, Thomas, became one of the richest men in London, and his great-grandson (who died on the battlefield) was named heir apparent to the throne of England. Of all the Canterbury pilgrims (and there is a “Chaucer”), the one who most closely approximates his situation is the social-climbing Franklin, a man heartily concerned with the gentility of his son.
Chaucer and Gaunt married the daughters of the French Knight Sir Paon de Roet-Gaunt in order to legitimize his sons by the Roet’s daughter, who had been his mistress for some time (all the English kings after Henry VI came from this line), and Chaucer to enter the world of the aristocracy. At this time, Chaucer made the acquaintance of the man who would most deeply influence his political career: John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The countess was French, so French poets such as Guillaume de Machaut and Eustache Deschamps provided an early inspiration, and Chaucer’s earliest poems, The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Birds, rest on a heavy French base. The way must have opened quickly for Chaucer, who could both tell stories and compose songs. A young man in this position would be in service to the aristocrats of the court who required diversions as well as domestic help. As a squire in the court of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, the wife of Lionel, Earl of Ulster (later Duke of Clarence), Chaucer would have served as a gentleman’s gentleman-essentially a butler.
Chaucer was descended from two generations of wealthy vintners who had everything but a title and in 1357 Chaucer began pursuing a position at court. Geoffrey Chaucer was born between the years 1340-1345, the son of John and Agnes (de Copton) Chaucer.
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