Third the long French romances needed to be translated
even for knightly hearers. "Let clerks indite in Latin," says the author of
the "Testament of Love," "and let Frenchmen in their French also indite
their quaint terms, for it is kindly to their mouths; and let us show our
fantasies in such wordes as we learned of our mother's tongue." But the new
national life afforded nobler materials than "fantasies" now for English
literature. With the completion of the work of national unity had come the
completion of the work of national freedom. The vigour of English life
showed itself in the wide extension of commerce, in the progress of the
towns, and the upgrowth of a free yeomanry. It gave even nobler signs of
its activity in the spirit of national independence and moral earnestness
which awoke at the call of Wyclif. New forces of thought and feeling which
were destined to tell on every age of our later history broke their way
through the crust of feudalism in the socialist revolt of the Lollards, and
a sudden burst of military glory threw its glamour over the age of Crecy
and Poitiers. It is this new gladness of a great people which utters itself
in the verse of Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer was born about 1340, the son of a
London vintner who lived in Thames Street; and it was in London that the
bulk of his life was spent. His family, though not noble, seems to have
been of some importance, for from the opening of his career we find Chaucer
in close connexion with the Court. At sixteen he was made page to the wife
of Lionel of Clarence; at nineteen he first bore arms in the campaign of
1359. But he was luckless enough to be made prisoner; and from the time of
his release after the treaty of Bretigny he took no further share in the
military enterprises of his time. He seems again to have returned to
service about the Court, and it was now that his first poems made their
appearance, the "Compleynte to Pity" in 1368, and in 1369 the "Death of
Blanch the Duchesse," the wife of John of Gaunt who from this time at least
may be looked upon as his patron. It may have been to John's influence that
he owed his employment in seven diplomatic missions which were probably
connected with the financial straits of the Crown. Three of these, in 1372,
1374, and 1378, carried him to Italy. He visited Genoa and the brilliant
court of the Visconti at Milan; at Florence, where the memory of Dante, the
"great master" whom he commemorates so reverently