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Skeat. Skeat's life of Chaucer, in vol. I of his Oxford Chaucer, is based upon the Life-Records (see below). Some inaccuracies are noted by Flügel, Anglia 21 :245.

Life-Records. In the publications of the Chaucer Society, 2d series, Nos. 12, 14, 21, 32. The last part, 1900, contains 58 pages of Forewords by R. E. G. Kirk, summing up all now known of the poet's life. In this collection is printed every document relating to Chaucer, forming the only authentic basis for his biography. Upon these, so far as then available, were founded the sketches by ten Brink in his Hist. Eng. Lit., and by Pollard in his Primer. Additional facts which have come to light since 1900 are mentioned N. and Q. 1902 I: 134, 1904 I:28, 1905 II:5; Athen. 1906 I: 233; Mod. Lang. Notes 21:224.

Kern. The Ancestry of Chaucer. A. A. Kern. diss. Johns Hopkins Univ., 1906, pp. 163. Reviewed Nation 1907 I: 432-3; Jour. Gc. Phil.

Rearranging, and in some details correcting, the material of the Life-Records dealing with Chaucer's ancestry. Reproduces in part the results of V. B. Redstone as to the Suffolk ancestry of the Chaucers, a family known in that county by the name Malyn; see Redstone's paper on "The Chaucer-Malyn Family" in Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, vol. XII, briefly noted Athen. 1906 I: 233. See also Kern in Mod. Lang. Notes 23 : 52.

Appendix

a) Dates of Chaucer's Birth and Death

The date of Chaucer's death is known to us only from his tomb in Westminster Abbey, where the inscription, when legible, read "25 Octobris 1400". This tomb is said by Stow and succeeding writers to have been erected by one Nicholas Brigham; see the Life in the Speght Chaucer, as cited above, for the epitaph, with date, which Brigham is said to have added. But in Notes and Queries 1904 I: 28 Furnivall writes that he has found in MS Egerton 2642 the statement that "Hickeman" wrote the epitaph of Chaucer and got the tumulus decorated. And in Athen. 1850 II: 768 (cited N. and Q. 1850 II : 142) it is said that examination shows the altar

tomb to be the original tomb; only the canopy was added by Brigham.

From this it appears that we have the date of Chaucer's death only on the evidence of either Hickeman or Brigham, regarding whose sources of information we know nothing, and both of whom lived more than a century after Chaucer. Also, the now obliterated inscription is repeated for us by Stow and by Camden; we have no earlier testimony as to its text. Tyrwhitt, without expressing doubt, speaks cautiously of the date of the poet's death, as of his birth. No fact has as yet been discovered, however, to invalidate the belief that Chaucer died in 1400.

The Speght-Stow life, see ante, also says that at the time of Chaucer's death he had lived "about 72 years." The date 1328, for his birth, was accordingly inferred, and repeated until Fiedler, in the introd. to his transl. of the Cant. Tales, see Section III E here, attacked it, arguing from the evidence given by Chaucer himself in the Scrope-Grosvenor trial in 1386.

The report of the proceedings at this trial, which was a controversy over the right to bear certain arms, was published by Sir Harris Nicolas in 1832, entitled The Scrope and Grosvenor Controversy. Chaucer's deposition is preserved among those of the many other witnesses called; he describes himself as being of “xl ans et plus", and states that he had been armed for 27 years. A translation of Chaucer's evidence is given by Skeat I : xxxvi-vii, mainly from Sir Harris Nicolas. The latter, in his Life of Chaucer, treating the "xl ans et plus" as a little more than forty, says that there are strong reasons for believing 1345 too late a date; these reasons are the passages in Chaucer's works alluding to his age, and the misstatements as to age of several of the witnesses at this trial. Here, however, it should be noted that Chaucer's remarks about his age are not to be interpreted too literally; and that the mistakes of the other witnesses, although accepted as such by Morley, Eng. Writers V: 93 ff., require further proof. It is a singular fact in this connection that the materials for vol. III of Nicolas' work have disappeared, see N. and Q. 1906 II : 328.

A piece of definite evidence toward the date of Chaucer's birth was presented by Walter Rye in Athen. 1881 I: 165, and LifeRecords p. 125; see reprint Skeat I: xi-xii. A plea of 1326, by the guardians of Chaucer's father, John Chaucer, states that John Chaucer was in 1325 not 14 years old. See Furnivall, Acad. 1896 I : 117.

b) Supposed Love Affair

In Trial Forewords pp. 35 ff. Furnivall interpreted lines 37 ff. of the Book of the Duchesse to refer to a long and hopeless love by Chaucer. He was followed by Fleay in his Guide to Chaucer and Spenser, pp. 36-7, by Ward in his Life, p. 53, by ten Brink, Hist.

Eng. Lit. II: 48-49, by Wülker, by Garnett and Gosse; the interpretation was mentioned without question by Skeat, Minor Poems p. 236, but dubiously in Oxford Chaucer I : liii. The theory was strenuously opposed by Lounsbury in Atlantic Monthly 40 : 592 ff., Studies I: 211-224; and see in especial W. O. Sypherd, "Chaucer's Eight Years' Sickness", in Mod. Lang. Notes 20: 240-43, where the conventionality of Chaucer's expression is argued.

c) Monument

Caxton, in an epilogue added to his print of the Boethius, speaks of Chaucer, and says: "of whom the body and corps lieth buried in thabbay of westmestre beside london to fore the chapele of seynt benet by whos sepulture is wreton on a table honging a pylere his Epytaphye maad by a poete laureat whereof the copye followeth" (Surigon's epitaph, see above).

This pillar and epitaph were raised by Caxton himself, see Blades p. 214.

In the edition of Gower's Confessio Amantis of 1532 by Berthelette, the To the Reder mentions the friendship between Chaucer and Gower, describes Gower's tomb, and then closes, "The other lieth buried in the monastery of seynt Peters at westminster in an ile on the south side of the churche. On whos soules, and alle cristen . . . ." etc. Berthelette's preface is reprinted by Todd, Illustrations pp. 138 ff., with a picture of Chaucer's tomb as in 1809, to face p. 144.

John Stow, in his Survey of London, 1598 and again 1603 (ed. Thoms 1876 pp. 171-2) says, speaking of the graves in Westminster Abbey, "Geffrey Chaucer, the most famous poet of England, also in the cloister, 1400, but since Nicholas Brigham, gentleman, raised a monument for him in the south cross aisle of the church; his works were partly published in print by William Caxton, in the reign of Henry VI" etc. On Stow's probable error (derived from Foxe's Acts and Monuments) in placing Chaucer's grave in the cloister, see Athen. 1902 II: 189-90, 288, 552.

William Camden, in his Reges, Reginae, Nobiles, et Alij in Ecclesia Collegiata B. Petri Westmonasterij Sepulti, London 1606, pp. 66-67, has this: "In Australi plaga Ecclesiae. Galfridus Chaucer Poeta celeberrimus, qui primus Anglicam Poësin ita illustravit, vt Anglicus Homerus habeatur. Obijt 1400. Anno vero 1555 Nicholaus Brigham, Musarum nomine huius ossa transtulit & illi nouum tumulum ex marmore, his versibus inscriptis posuit.

Qui fuit Anglorum vates ter maximus olim,
Galfridus Chaucer conditur hoc tumulo.

Annum si quaeras Domini, si tempora mortis,
Ecce notae subsunt, quae tibi cuncta notant.
25 Octobris 1400.

Aerumnarum requies, Mors.

N. Brigham hos fecit Musarum nomine sumptus.

Si rogitas quis fueram, forsan te fama docebit :
Quod si fama neget, mundi quia gloria transit,
Haec monumenta lege."

At the foot of p. 67 Camden notes: "Rachael Brigham, filia Nicolai Brigham quadrimula obijt, sita est iuxta Galfridum Chaucerum. Obijt 1557 21 Iunij." [See Athen, 1894 I: 541, 1902 II : 552.]

Pits, 1619, gives the epitaph and the account of Brigham's erection of the new monument, see above.

Weever, in his Ancient Funerall Monvments within the Vnited Monarchie of Great Britaine, Ireland, and the islands adiacent (etc.), London 1631, treats of Chaucer on pp. 489 ff. He quotes Speght and Leland, mentions the erection of the monument “at the cost and charges of Nicholas Brigham, gentleman, Anno 1555", and the burial of Brigham's infant daughter beside the tomb; he cites Hoccleve's lines of elegy, and on p. 490 gives "the Inscriptions vpon his Tombe at this day" The epitaph is as in Camden; Weever adds: "About the ledge of the Tombe, these verses were written", and cites Si rogitas, etc., see ante. Eulogies of Chaucer, apparently from Speght, follow.

Ashmole, in his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, London, 1652, has upon p. 226, just under the Finis of Hermes Bird (Lydgate's Churl and Bird) and facing Chaucer's tale of the Canon's Yeoman, a cut of Chaucer's tomb, crowded on to the page; it is marked "Vaughan sculp". It represents a canopy of four arches, with a tomb below which is about two-thirds the length of the canopy; at the back of the recess, under the canopy, the epitaph appears in the central compartment, with a full-length figure of Chaucer on one side, marked “Imago Chauceri", and the other side blank. The epitaph reads as in Camden, except that the last word of the third line is vitae, not mortis, and that the two and one-half lines of Latin below the mention of Brigham do not appear. The date 1556 is below the line naming Brigham.

Ashmole gives a life of Chaucer on pp. 470-72 of this same work; he quotes Speght, Bale, Pits, and Stow, and says that

Chaucer "ayed at London 25 Octob. Ann. 1400, as appeares by the inscription upon his Tombe at Saint Peters in Westminster Abby in an Isle on the South Side of the Church. Mr. Nicholas Brigham built this Marble Monument to his Memory, the true Pourtraicture whereof I have caused to be exactly graved in Brasse, and placed in page 226. There was formerly round the ledge of the Tombe these following Verses, but now no remainder of them left.

Si rogites (etc.)

The Picture of Chaucer is now somewhat decay'd, but the Graver has recovered it after a Principal left to Posterity by his worthy Schollar Tho. Occleve, who hath also these Verses upon it. (Hoccleve is cited.) Before Mr. Brigham built the aforesaid Monument it seemes Chaucer had a Stone layd over his Grave upon which was ingraved this following Epitaph:

Galfridus Chaucer Vates & fama Poesis,

Materna hac sacra sum tumulatus humo."

Antony à Wood, in his Fasti Oxonienses, 1691-2, does not give epitaph or arms; he says, in his account of Cowley, "in the south cross isle, or large isle joyning to the south side of the choir, was buried near to the place where the reliques of Jeff. Chaucer had been lodged."

John Dart, author of the life of Chaucer first planned for the Urry Chaucer of 1721, includes in his Westmonasterium (etc.), 1743, a full page engraving of the monument, by J. Cole, to face p. 83 of vol. I. His discussion of Chaucer in the text is mainly a complaint of the changes made by the editors in his Life of the poet above mentioned, but he gives a brief biographical notice, in which he says that Chaucer was born in London in 1328; that "his father, as I take it, was one Sir John Chaucer, employ'd in foreign affairs by Edward III"; that Chaucer died in the second year of Edward III, aged 72, and was buried before the Chapel of St. Bennet, "where his stone of broad Grey Marble, as I take it, was not long since remaining, but was taken up when Mr. Dryden's Monument was erected, and sawn to mend the Pavement." Dart also says that "upon the corner Pillar of St. Bennet's Chapel hung antiently a leaden Plate" with Chaucer's epitaph by Surigonus of Milan; he records that Nicholas Brigham erected the present tomb "about the year 1555", and says that he put the tomb "in a convenient Place, as near his Grave as he could, on which was formerly painted his Picture in a Blank on the North side the epitaph, but now quite defac'd. It was exactly like the Painting of Ocklefe, printed before the old Editions, and was remaining in Mr. Ashmole's Time, who in one of his Treatises, has given us the Monument. . . . There was formerly round the

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