Ben verray king, this song to you I sende; Chaucer's envoy is more in the vein of such demands as Deschamps sometimes made upon his patrons (cf. Skeat's remarks above, p. 33, and Deschamps, Oeuvres 11. 32 ff., 256, 300).16 The phrase, 'Brutes Albioun,' too, seems to repose on reminiscences of Deschamps, who introduces both words, and variants of them ('Albie,' etc.), not only in his poem addressed to Chaucer (2. 138-140; cf. Oxford Chaucer 1. lvi-lvii1), but elsewhere (1. 106-7, 318; 2. 33; 3. 110; 6. 87; 7. 244-5). In the rhymes with Albio (u)n, Latin derivatives are usually, and almost necessarily employed, as by Chaucer here (1. 317-8; 3. 109-10; 6. 133-4; 7. 244-5; but Bullion, 3. 110; Lion, 7. 244). IX. SIR GEOFFREY CHAUCER Would not the poet, from August, 1386, have been entitled to the above designation? On the 6th of that month, a writ was addressed to the Sheriff of Kent, requiring him to have 'duos Milites, gladiis cinctos, magis idoneos et discretos,' chosen as knights of the shire, whereupon he returned William Betenham as the one knight, and Chaucer as the other.1 Other testimony, some of it more dubious on account of its lateness, is as follows: I. 1. Bale, in 1548, calls Chaucer 'eques auratus." and Leland (ca. 1545) had written 'De Gallofrido Chaucero, Equite.' 16 The first two lines are illustrated by Gower's Cronica Tripartata 3. 322-5: Unde coronatur trino de jure probatur, Regnum conquestat, que per hoc sibi jus manifestat; Insuper eligitur a plebe que sic stabilitur. Cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 3. 11-12. 17 Critical edition by Jenkins, Mod. Lang. Notes 33. 268, 437. 1 Kirk, Life-Records IV, pp. 261-2. 2 Hammond, Chaucer, p. 8. Pits (1619) has: 'Ipse tandem auratus factus est Eques' (ibid., p. 13). Phillips (1674) calls him 'Sir Geoffry Chaucer' and 'Knight' (ibid., p. 36). 3 Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, p. 87. 2. Chaucer bore arms, which were formerly to be seen upon his tomb.* 3. The designation of 'Sir' is given to him ca. 1560 in Sloane MS. 314 (Spurgeon, p. 95); by Legh, 1562 (97); by Whetstone, 1576 (113); by Greene, 1590 (131); in 1590 (132); in 1592 (137-8); by Peacham, 1622 (197); by Foulis, 1635 (211); by Baker, 1643 (222); by Gayton, 1654 (229); by Jones, 1659 (237); by Gayton, 1663 (240); by Aubrey, 1669-96 (245); by Ramesey, 1669 (246), and in Dryden's patent as poet laureate, 1670 (247), etc. X. CHAUCER'S MISSION TO FLORENCE IN 1372 No one seems ever to have conjectured what was the errand on which Chaucer was dispatched to Florence. What service could the Florentines render Edward III, in the existing state of his affairs? He would hardly have sent Chaucer to negotiate concerning the establishment of a Florentine quarter in some English port, since they only incidentally and individually traded to foreign ports; and for a similar reason he would not have been in quest of galleys. Besides, why should such a mission be secret, since for these objects Edward sent public embassies to Genoa, and openly declared the reasons why they were sent? In relation to distant countries, what interest did Florence peculiarly represent? No one needs to be told that it was banking and the coinage of money. The florin was a standard measure of value, and the Bardi were known throughout Western Europe. Now that Edward was at this time in dire need of money is beyond question. In 1371 Parliament demanded £50,000 from the parishes of England, and the clergy were induced to vote £50,000 more.1 But these sums were as nothing in comparison with the amounts lost or wasted by the government. Off La Rochelle, on June 24, 1372, 20,000 marks, with which Guichard d'Angle, fellow-commissioner with Chaucer in 1377 and 1378, was to pay Edward's soldiers in Guienne, went down in a founder 'Hammond, pp. 20, 47. ing ship, or were carried away by the victorious Spaniards; and by Oct. 9 of that year, Edward, who had been cruising in the Channel for several weeks, in a vain endeavor to bring succor to his troops in Guienne, returned to England, having wasted £900,000 in a hopeless enterprise.3 At the October Parliament, 'a heavy subsidy on wool was granted for two years, and a fifteenth for one year, to meet the king's urgent need of money for the expenses of the war.' A little later, Edward received 'a grant of customs, which was clearly an unconstitutional proceeding." These measures indicate the straits to which the King was reduced, especially since in January, 1370, he had received the grant of a tenth for three years from the clergy, and yet borrowed largely from his subjects for the expenses of the war.5 Guienne was being lost to England, because of the financial embarrassment prevailing there. John of Gaunt's disastrous raid through France in 1373 cost immense sums, for which he was not only obliged to draw on his own princely income, but also to pledge his credit in every direction, borrowing here £2000, there £200 or 200 marks." Even before leaving Guienne, toward the end of 1371, he was reduced to borrowing so small a sum as £20a—and this when he had permanently in his pay a hundred knights and a hundred squires, of whom a single individual might receive a yearly retainer amounting to more than $25,000 of our money. Well might it be said of the King that he was profuse in his expenditure1o; well might it be said of John of Gaunt; and well might it be said of the Black Prince.11 At the time of Chaucer's appointment, Edward was 2 Froissart, ed. Luce, 8. 43, cf. p. xxvii; Walsingham, Hist. Angl. 1. 314; Nicolas, Hist. of the Royal Navy 2. 145. 'Walsingham 1. 315; cf. Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, pp. 98-9. 'Dict. Nat. Biog. 17. 67. "Dict. Nat. Biog. 17. 66. "Armitage-Smith, pp. 85, 88; Dict. Nat. Biog. 17. 100. 7 Armitage-Smith, pp. 102-3. 8 Ibid., p. 117, note 2. 10 Ibid., p. 228. With the number of knights, cf. K. T. 993, 2096, 2099. "When he was preparing in 1365 for the expedition which was to be a principal means of losing England her French empire, he lent Peter the Cruel 56,000 florins (£8,400 $630,000 or more), and broke up his plate to pay the soldiers whom he engaged on Peter's behalf. falling into premature and dishonored senility, having less than five years more to live; after Crécy and Poitiers, after the naval exploits of Sluys and Espagnols-sur-Mer, England was fallen upon evil days, and encountering reverses on every hand: the Black Prince had come home to die; Guienne was practically lost; and John of Gaunt, who was now working his will with the kingdom and the King.20 Whether he was successful or not, cessful. Edward knew not where to betake himself for the indispensable funds, become more indispensable than ever, now that the shadows of the fifth act of his dramatic life were thickening round him, and the skill and indomitable perseverance of Charles V were at length proving more than a match for the brilliant impetuosity which signalized the Edwardian house. The Commons were beginning to grumble, to contrast the present plight of the kingdom with its glory twenty years earlier12; and, worst of all, they were more and more loath to appropriate the heavy sums repeatedly called for. Edward engaged a Genoese fleet,13 and appointed a Genoese captain, but where was he to "Cf. Nicolas 2. 148-9: 'Parliament met on the 3rd of November [1372], and the state of the Navy received immediate attention. After the Commons had granted another subsidy for its support, they represented that "twenty years since, and always before that time, the navy of the realm was so noble and so plentiful in all ports, maritime towns, and those on rivers, that the whole country deemed and called our Lord King of the Sea, and he and all his country were the more dreaded both by sea and land on account of the said navy. And now it was so decreased and weakened from diverse causes that there was hardly sufficient to defend the country in case of need against royal power, whence there was great danger to the realm, the causes of which were too long to write."' 13 'Nothing came of this, apparently. The skill of Pietro Fregoso was required in another quarter, with rewards far beyond any that Edward was prepared to offer, and no doubt the proposed mariners and galleys were requisitioned for the Genoese adventure in Cyprus. Historians continue to say that the Genoese fleet was on the spot, or actually employed in the English service (Nicolas, 2. 149; Roncière, Hist. de la Marine Fr. 2. 23), but I see no proof of this, and the contract for a year with Gregorio Usodimare and Oberto Gay on Jan. 8-9, 1373 (Rymer) seems a clear indication to the contrary. The 50 crossbow-men and 50 sailors called for by this contract were not nearly enough to man a single galley (each galley of the Genoese fleet engaged by the French in 1337 was to carry 210 men, according to Roncière 1. 411, note 3; according to Nicolas 2. 225, these consisted of 180 rowers and 30 crossbow-men, the latter to obtain the money it would cost ?14 Where, but in the financial centre of Europe, in Florence? With Florentine banks England had had relations for at least. three-quarters of a century. In 1299 Edward I was endeavoring to obtain a large sum from the Spini (Rymer, June 12), and two years later Boniface VIII complained that they had been molested in London (Rymer, Sept. 24). In 1317 Edward II sent to Philip V, requesting protection for the Bardi (Rymer, Nov. 23). Before 1345 Edward III must have borrowed large sums from both the Bardi and the Peruzzi, for in that year both these banks failed, dragging down many smaller houses in their fall, and causing widespread misery in Florence. Edward owed the Bardi 900,000, and the Peruzzi 600,000 gold florins15 (£135,000 and £90,000, respectively-say, normally, $10,125,000 and $6,750,000, but really, in the present year, 1919, much more).16 include the master of the vessel and four other officers; in 1356, 15 Aragonese galleys were each to have 30 crossbow-men, besides the rowers, according to Roncière 1. 507, note 2, and cf. 1. 267; again, Nicolas, 2. 225, tells us of five galleys in 1335, each with 154 rowers and 12 crossbow-men). "The cost per galley to Charles V was 1000 florins a month in 1371 (Roncière 2. 12), and the same to John II in 1356, with the addition of bread (ibid. 2. 507); and 900 gold florins to Philip VI in 1337 (Nicolas 2. 225). Edward's contract with Usodimare and Gay called for 25 francs a month for each of these, 15 each for two companions, 10 for each crossbow-man, and 7 for each sailor, besides half of all prisoners and goods captured, and everything that could properly be accounted pillage (Nicolas 2. 224-5); the monthly expense for even this comparatively slight aid was therefore 930 francs. If we suppose the Genoese fleet originally contemplated by Edward to have consisted of 20 galleys, the cost per month would have been £3000 (at least $225,000), not to speak of the probably high salaries of Fregoso and Provan (cf. the scale of wages in the English navy, Nicolas 2. 177, 193-4). 15 Giovanni Villani 12. 54 (Rer. Ital. Script. 13. 934); Dict. Nat. Biog. 17. 57; Coulton, Chaucer and his England, p. 126. The rate of interest at this period, owing to debasement of coin, defalcations, repudiation, etc., varied from 20 to 33 per cent. 10 Notwithstanding, the Bardi did not utterly decline to deal with Edward, for they were bound to him in a large sum of money on the following dates (Cal. Pat. Rolls): Oct. 12, 1364; Sept. 29, 1365; Sept. 29, 1366; July 28, 1368; one member of that company on Dec. 10, 1373; while considerable amounts are recorded as having been paid to them for the King on Aug. 16, 1372, and July 7, 1373. These sums, however, probably represented but a fraction of Edward's requirements. |