life. He who does not, dies. Take the man who began this contest, put a withy about his neck, draw him to a moor, and bury him in the mud. Take the men of his nearest kindred and strike off their heads; take the women of his nearest kindred and cut off their noses. Let their beauty die. If any man of you renew this strife, he dies. Bring ye the relics, I will swear thereon, and so shall ye.' They swore that they would not renew the strife. They buried the dead. Then the trumpets were again blown merrily, cup-bearers thronged, gleemen sang, for seven days the people were in joy. Afterwards the king went to Cornwall, and there came to him a craftsman who said, "Hail be thou, Arthur! I am thine own man. I know wondrous crafts of carpentry. I heard of the fight of knights | at thy board for pride of place when each would be within. But I will make a fair Table at which sixteen hundred may sit so that none be without. And when thou ridest thou may'st carry it and set it where thou wilt, and needest never fear to the world's end a strife of knights, for there the high will be as the low." Timber was brought, and in four weeks the Table was completed. This was the same Table that Britons boast of. So was foreboded ere Arthur was born; so said Merlin, that a king should come of Uther Pendragon; that gleemen should make a table of this king's breast, and happy poets should sit there and eat their fill ere they departed, and take out of this king's tongue draughts of wine, and revel night and day to the world's end. And that he whom Arthur looked on should bow to him, and in his end, saving it were at Doomsday, should no man believe. None tell of Arthur's death, for he himself His men said to him, "Go we to France, and win the land." Arthur answered, "Your will I will do, but first I will to Norway, where King Sichelin is dead, and has left his kingdom to Loth, his sister's son, my brother-in-law, who is Walwain's father. I will make Loth king in Norway, and teach him to rule. When I have done that I will make ready my army and pass into France." But the earls of Norway took Riculf for king, and opposed Arthur. There was a great fight, heads flew in the field, faces paled, Riculf was slain with five-and-twenty thousand of the Norwegians, and Loth held Norway as Arthur's man. Then came Loth's eldest son Walwain [Gawain] from Rome, where he had been trained and dubbed knight by the Pope Supplice. He was noble, liberal, and brave. Arthur sailed then to Denmark, where the strong king scil, without battle, gave hostage and became King Arthur's man. Then Arthur went to France, with knights from all the kingdoms under him, to fight King Frolle. He took Flanders, he took Boulogne. France was then named Gaul, and Frolle had lately come from Rome, whither he sent as tribute of the land ten hundred pounds of silver and of gold. Frolle was routed in battle, and fled to Paris and fastened the gates. Arthur beset Paris for four weeks, and the people despaired. But Frolle, free man in heart, said he would never sue to Arthur, but would fight him, man to man. Arthur left all his host, and alone upon an island with Frolle, in presence of the armies fought with him in single combat, and clave him from the helm down to the breast. Then Arthur conquered all France, and abolished the Romanish laws, and took Burgundy and Lorraine, and went back to Paris, and on Easter Day he gave gifts and possessions of land to his knights. To Kay, his steward, he gave Anjou; and Neustria to Beduer, his cup-bearer. In May he returned to London, and there was great welcoming. On Whit-Sunday King Arthur was crowned at Caerleon by Usk. There was no burgh so fair or so widely known, save it be Rome, and some with the king held Caerleon to be better than Rome, and Usk the happiest of waters. But since Arthur left, Caerleon has never thrived, nor will it thrive till Doomsday. Three archbishops there set the crown on Arthur's head. Saint Dubric went before, on either side went the two Archbishops of London and York. Fifteen bishops went before, embroidered all with burning gold. There walked four kings before Arthur, each bearing a golden sword, and four queens walked before Wenhaver. Dubric sang the mass, and after the mass there was joy and pomp of feasting. In those days Britons had bliss. The women had sworn that they would take no husband from the land who had not thrice made his courage known in combat. After the feasting there was racing and shield-play, there were rich gifts. During this feast there came twelve knights from Rome, sent by the Emperor Luces, and claimed of Arthur homage and amends for the death of Frolle at Paris. The Britons attacked these men furiously, but Arthur protected them as messengers obedient to their lord. Then he called his earls, and heard many counsels, and sent writs of defiance to Rome. The twelve knights returned to Rome adorned by Arthur with silver and gold, and carried word to the Emperor Luces that Arthur would pay no tribute, but would come and bind him, and hang him, and destroy his land. Then the emperor gathered his force, and there came to him many kings. There were four hundred thousand knights, and never was he born who could count the number of the men on foot. Arthur gathered his men, and set his kingdom in the hand of Modred, his sister's son, brave knight, though false, and trusted because he was Walwain's brother; he set it in the hand of Modred and of Wenhaver, his queen. All that he had, Arthur gave to Modred; his land, his people, his dear queen; and led his army to Southampton. As they sailed forth on a calm sea Arthur dreamed of a terrible fight in the sky between a hateful bear and a burning dragon, who slew the bear and tore him limb from limb. When he landed he heard of a fiendish giant in Brittany that held Mount Saint Michel, and had carried off and destroyed Helen, the daughter of Howel of Brittany. Arthur went with Sir Beduer, and in single fight destroyed the monster. Then are told the adventures of Arthur in his war with the Emperor of Rome and all his power. Walwain was a bold knight, and he knew Romanish speech. When he went, one of three, to bid the emperor in Arthur's name withdraw from his march upon France, Walwain in presence of the emperor clave the skull of a councillor who spoke with scorn of Arthur and the Britons; then the three leapt to horse and with a host after them escaped, turning often to destroy the foremost of their pursuers. Beduer was slain in those wars, and Kay was sorely wounded, so that he died, and was buried among hermits at a castle called after him Caen. When Luces, the emperor, was slain, his body was laid by Arthur in a long chest covered with gold, and Arthur sent it on a bier to Rome with a great taunt, that he himself would follow. But otherwise it befell, because of Modred. There came a knight riding with tidings of Modred, but he would not speak until the king had rested. In the morning the knight asked how Arthur had slept, and Arthur said that he had been made sad by a dream. "I dreamt that my men set me on a hall Arthur The knight sought to give comfort, but he brought tidings that Modred was false, and had taken to himself all Britain, with Wenhaver, the queen. vowed vengeance, and Walwain openly cast off his brother. Modred called Childric from Saxland to help him in the fight against his uncle. He would give Childric all the realm beyond the Humber. Modred gathered a hundred thousand, and withstood Arthur's landing at Romney. In that fight Walwain, who there slew eleven thanes and Childric's son, was slain by a Saxish earl. Modred was driven back, and fled to London. London denied him entry. Then he was received at Winchester. But while the people fought with Arthur, he was treacherous still to his own, and stole away to Hampton. Thence he went into Cornwall, while Winchester was besieged and burnt. Wenhaver, who was at York, escaped by night, with two of her knights, to Caerleon, and became a nun. Modred, in Cornwall, gathered men from Ireland, from Scotland, and from Saxland. Fast as rain men poured in upon Arthur as he marched. The hosts met upon the Tambre [the river Camel], the river was flooded with blood. There was Modred slain. There was Arthur wounded; he had fifteen wounds, in the least of them one might thrust two gloves. No more remained in the fight, of two hundred thousand men that there lay hewed in pieces, but only King Arthur and two of his knights. Then came to him a young lad, Constantine, who was Cador's son, and Arthur welcomed him and said, "I give thee here my kingdom, while thou livest. And she shall heal my wounds, and make me whole Constantine slew Modred's sons, and reigned in peace till, after four years, his foes slew him, and he was buried in Stonehenge. Then ruled his sister's son, the wicked Conan, for six years. Then Vortiporus, who reigned seven years. In his time the Saxish folk attacked the land, but they were driven home again. Next followed Malgus, fairest of men except Adam and Absalom. Cinric, one of his kindred, took the kingdom; he was derided, hated; war began over all the country, and the Saxish men had all beyond the Humber. Gurmund, a king's son from Africa, wasted the land in Cinric's time. He burnt Cirencester by catching its sparrows in a fine net, and sending them back with burning tinder in nut shells tied to their feet. The sparrows flew into their holes among the houses, and set fire to them. Then Gurmund went to London. He slew Britons, and was a friend to Saxish people, and gave the land as he had promised into the hand of Engles, whose land is near Alemaine. When they came they were called English, and the land was then called Engleland, for it was all theirs. Layamon ends the long romance of British history with the departure of Cadwalader, who was King of Britain, to the good Pope Sergius at Rome, leaving his stepson Yvor, and Yuni, his sister's son, to lead the Britons into the Welsh land and rule them there, while the Alemannish men should possess England. For an angel had said to him in a dream: "Awake, Cadwalader, Christ hath thee dear! From John Stowe's Folio of Chaucer, 1561 CHAPTER III. CHAUCER'S "CANTERBURY TALES." EOFFREY CHAUCER died on the 25th of October, in the year 1400, aged seventy-two, and left "The Canterbury Tales" unfinished. The evidence of his age during the latter period of his life, in which he was producing and arranging his chief work, is taken from his monument, and is corroborated by his works. His monument was erected in Westminster Abbey, in 1556, by a poet named Nicholas Brigham. There was a preceding inscription, from which the precise date of death and record of age at death were probably transferred. According to this record, Chaucer was born in 1328, and in 1386, when he was deprived of his offices in the Customs, he was fifty-eight years old. Before that date he must have written "The House of Fame," in which he thus describes himself as going home to his study from his day's work as Comptroller of Customs: For when thy labour all done is, Till fully dased is thy looke, And livest thus as an hermite, In the same poem Chaucer speaks of himself as old. "Wilt thou lerne of sterrés ought?" In some year when his age was not much under fifty-eight he might say this. He would hardly have said it if he had been twelve or fourteen years younger. Again, John Gower, writing in or soon after 1393, when Chaucer's age, if he was born in 1328, was sixty-five, or a year or more older, makes Venus send a message to Chaucer, "now in his dayes olde," That he upon his latter age To sette an end of all his werke, do make his Testament of Love. If we are to place Chaucer's birth-date twelve or fourteen years later than 1328, this must have been written when he was not many years older than fifty. Confusion of opinion as to Chaucer's age has arisen from accepting testimony of which the untrust1 Lite, little. Sir Guy worthiness was clearly shown by Sir Harris Nicolas about fifty years ago, when he edited with minute care the documents by which some critics have been since misled. Between the years 1385 and 1390 there were many hearings of evidence in the Court of Chivalry in a controversy between two, Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor, upon a question of right to certain armorial bearings. On the 15th of October, 1386, Chaucer appeared as a witness in favour of Sir Richard Scrope, and is described as "Geoffray Chaucere, Esquier, del age de xl. ans et plus, armeez p. xxvij. ans plus, armeez p. xxvij. ans" ("Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire, aged forty years and upwards, having borne arms twenty-seven years"). In 1832 Sir Harris Nicolas was publishing by subscription a transcript of all the records of this case, with biographical sketches of the witnesses. The minute study of the depositions thus published, by a writer who was foremost among experts in family history, made it clear to him that errors and discrepancies abound in the statements of the age of witnesses. Bryan, described as aged sixty and upwards, was nearer eighty. Sir John Massy, of Tatton, when examined in 1386 for Scrope, was fifty years old; when examined in the same year for Grosvenor he was forty-three. Sir Richard Bingham and Sir Robert Conyers must both have married at the age of eight "and more," if the record be true. Sampson Strauley was fifty-two years old when he was called forty and more, "but," said Sir Harris Nicolas, "the word 'pluis' is often used with great latitude in the depositions, and sometimes meant ten or even twenty years." Sir Robert Marney is said to be fifty-two years old, and to have first borne arms at the first relief of Stirling. As that was in the summer of 1336, he must have gone into battle at the of two. age He is said also to have been at the siege of Tournay in 1340; aged six, if we accept evidence of age from the Scrope and Grosvenor depositions. Sir Bernard Brocas was aged fifty-six when as a witness in the Scrope and Grosvenor case he is set down as forty; and the same faithful record adds that he was first armed at La Hogue-that is to say, in the year of his birth. John Schakel is said, as a witness in 1386, to be forty-five years old, and to have first borne arms in the year of the battle of Morlaix-that is to say, when he was one year old. John Thirlewall is made to represent himself as born when his father was one hundred and thirty-five years old. Whatever may have been the cause of such gross errors, there they are; and of a piece with them is the assertion that Chaucer's age in 1386 was forty and more when it was fifty-eight. Sir It was in this year that he lost his offices in the Customs, and he was so far from being soured by adversity that after this date he was putting his most genial work into the shaping and arranging of "The Canterbury Tales." Some of them had been written as detached pieces in former years; these, with the new tales written in later life, were now to be set in a collection bound together by connected narrative, after the fashion set by Boccaccio in his "Decameron." Before the "Decameron" there was an Italian collection of tales, the "Hundred Old Stories" ("Cento Novelle Antiche"), collected towards the end of the thirteenth century. The "Decameron" is said to have been planned by Giovanni Boccaccio when he was about thirty-six years old, after Florence had been desolated by the great plague-the Black Death -in 1348. Between March and July a hundred thousand perished in Florence only. The date of production should be put a few years later, for in the opening, where Boccaccio feigns that seven ladies, all in deep mourning, as most proper for that time, met during the plague in the church of Santa Maria Novella, where they formed the whole congregation, and agreed to escape to a country house two miles from the city, he says, "I do not mention their names, lest any of them should be put to the blush by something hereinafter related of them; for the limits of allowed disport are much narrower in our day than they were in those times." The scourge of pestilence, regarded as God's punishment for sin, caused for a time afterwards some outward show of a more decent life than had before been common. The seven ladies, "all relations or near friends, all discreet, nobly descended, and perfectly accomplished, both in person and behaviour," found for companions three gentlemen, lovers of three of the ladies, the other four being all related to one or other of them. The ten went next morning by break of day, the ladies with some of their women, and the gentlemen every one with his servant, to their chosen retreat. "It was a little eminence, remote from any great road, covered with trees and shrubs of an agreeable verdure; and on the top was a stately palace, with a grand and beautiful court in the middle; within were galleries, and fine apartments elegantly fitted up, and adorned with the most curious paintings; around it were fine meadows, and most delightful gardens, with fountains of the purest and best water. The vaults also were stored with the richest wines, suited rather to the taste of copious topers than of modest and virtuous ladies. This palace they found cleared out, and everything set in order for their reception, with the rooms all graced with the flowers of the season, to their great satisfaction." In this pleasant retreat the friends chose day after day, in due succession, one of their number to be king or queen of the day, and among their pleasures they included story-telling, when they gathered at midday about a fountain. Each of the ten told a tale every day, and the ten days, or Decameron (from déka, ten, and huépa, a day), thus yielded a hundred stories, told in the prose of a master. The days are opened with pleasant preludes of rural description, that make part of a short recital of the morning occupations; and each day closes with like pleasant suggestion, enriched with a song from one of the company. The charm of Boccaccio's setting to his hundred tales established a fashion. Franco Sacchetti, a Florentine magistrate, after 1376, made a considerable collection of stories. Ser Giovanni, a notary of Florence, began in 1378 to put together tales under the title of "Il Pecorone" ("The Dunce"). He supposed a young Florentine, Auretto, to have fallen in love, by hearsay, with a nun of Forli. To see her he became a monk of her order, was appointed chaplain of her convent, and had liberty to visit her daily. It was agreed between them that, when they met, each should tell the other a story. They met in this manner for twenty-five days, each day yielding two stories, and ending with song. Our English poets Chaucer and Gower planned, under the same influence, "The Canterbury Tales," and the "Confessio Amantis;" but, though Chaucer did not mean wholly to exclude prose tales from his plan, they did not follow Boccaccio in his use of prose. Each fashioned a framework for his tales as his own genius prompted, and framework and tales, except two moral pieces given by Chaucer as prose, were fashioned in verse. Chaucer formed for his tales a company of storytellers, who figured in its chief forms, from the knight to the ploughman, the real fellowship of English life in his own day. They were not to be persons of equal rank and like character, amusing one another in luxurious idleness. Each of his stories was to be told by a person to whose character it was fitted. The companions were also to be companions in duty as well as pleasure, and represent in as much as possible of its variety the pilgrimage of life. Spring was the favourite season for old English pilgrimages that united satisfaction to the wish for a holiday trip with the sense of doing a religious duty. Of all pilgrimages that to Canterbury was most convenient to the Londoners. They who now spend a holiday in foreign travel might then have taken a pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella, or Rome, or Jerusalem; they who would now take an autumn at Margate or Ramsgate, might then go on a spring pilgrimage to Canterbury. The Church had done its utmost to encourage pilgrimage to Thomas à Becket's shrine. He had been murdered for his support of the Pope's claim to be king of kings. A great resort of Englishmen to Becket's shrine could be made to stand for indirect assent of the people of England to the Church's claim of supremacy over the temporal power; and although even then that cause was virtually lost in England, it was a cause worth battling for, and battled for not hopelessly. This influence went, with the convenient nearness of Canterbury to London, as a reason for the special popularity of the Canterbury Pilgrimage in London of the fourteenth century. As pilgrims started on their holiday with money in their pockets, although they might come back with none, they were worth plundering. Country roads were in those days unsafe, and pilgrims who were not rich enough to go with an escort of servants found it a prudent as well as pleasant custom to join company. They could ride more safely and find better entertainment by the way. It would have been difficult, or impossible, to invent any form of companionship that would naturally bring together persons so widely differing in character and station as the representatives of human life among whom Chaucer fancies himself trotting on the high-road as a Canterbury pilgrim. 1 In reading Chaucer aloud, for household pleasure, the old pronunciation of the vowel sounds, which is partly retained in northern provincial English, and akin to that of modern German, should be so far marked as to bring out the old music of the lines without too much disguising the sense of a word for ears familiar with modern English. The reader's purpose is to send home Chaucer's meaning through his music, in the way best suited for that purpose. As a general rule, the final "e" is sounded before a consonant, but not before a vowel. Words of French origin, being nearer their source, have in Chaucer's English a nearer resemblance to French in pronunciation than in English of the present day, the accent falling usually where it would fall if the word were altogether French. a Here, their. The old form of the third personal pronoun, he, she, it, was "he, heo, hit;" genitive, "his, hire, his" (not "its"); dative and ablative, "him, hire, him; " accusative, "hine, heo, hit." In the plural, nominative and accusative, "hi" for they; genitive, "hira" for their; and dative and ablative, "him" or "heom," in Chaucer "hem." When, as in Chaucer's time, the genitive plural "hira" had its final "a" weakened to "e," it did not differ in form from the feminine singular "hire," of her, or to her, and in Chaucer's English they may have to be distinguished by the context. forms they, their, and them, "thai," "thaire," and "tham," superseded the inflexions of "hi" by spreading southward from the northern dialect of English, into which they were first brought from Scandinavia. The old Norse third personal pronoun, corresponding to The Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, And palmers for to seeken straungé strondes, To ferné halwes, couthe 5 in sondry londes; 4 And specially, from every shirés ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The holy blisful martir for to seeke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke." In Southwerk at the Tabard 7 as I lay, In felawschipe,8 and pilgryms were thei allo, To take oure weye ther as I yow devyse. 11 20 30 40 50 "he, heo, hit," was "hann, hon, that," and made in its plural masculine, nominative, "thei-r;" genitive, "thei-rra;" dative, "thei-m;" accusative, "thá." Chaucer uses the nominative "thei," as in line 26. 3 Corages. From French " cœur," " "courage," disposition of the heart. "Il n'a su vaincre son courage," he could not get the better of his temper. Chaucer is not using the word in its now restricted 7 Tabard. The Tabard, sign of this inn, was the sleeveless coat worn by the labourers who needed free use of their arms. Its form is now seen only in the coats of heralds. 8 By aventure i falle in felawschipe, fallen by chance into fellowship. 9 Esed. "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked ?" ("1 Henry IV.," iii. 3.) The first sense of ease is undisturbed rest, Latin "otium," or undisturbed possession. First English "eath," easy; "ead," prosperity, possession; as we say, easy circumstances." 10 Forward, First-English "foreweard," agreement. 11 Devyse, French "devis," was in the old sense used to express talk, chat, prattling together. 12 Natheles, nevertheless. 13 Or that, ere that. 14 Worthy, worth, First-English "weorth," kin to the Latin "virt-us," has here, for its first sense, strength and valour. 15 Noman ferre, no man farther. First-English "feor," far; "fyrre," farther. |