The Life & Times of Chaucer by Gardner John

Author:Gardner, John [Gardner, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, poetry, ebook, Biography, History, book
Amazon: B00AG8GVDG
Goodreads: 39936964
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 1977-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

My lady yaf me al hooly [gave me wholly]

The noble yifte of hir mercy…

As helpë me God, I was as blyvë [swiftly]

Reysëd, as fro deth to lyvë… [raised]

Lady White, in other words, sums up not only all that gives us delight in nature but also the benevolence of the unseen power nature veils. The Book of the Duchess does, of course, far more—a lyrical and philosophical masterpiece—but the heart of its greatness is its convincing expression of Gaunt’s love and grief, and Chaucer’s anguish and concern.

Not too surprisingly, Gaunt’s campaign in France went badly. Even if he’d been at his best, there was little he could do. Under the brilliant du Guesclin the French fought methodically, with infuriating patience—keeping out of sight, refusing battle except when they knew they had the clear advantage—as the Scots had done forty years ago, during Edward III’s first campaign. Gaunt’s army had no choice but vain ravaging marches, hunger and pestilence moving along with them, snatching at the stragglers. The duke was back in England from November 1369 to June 1370, consulting with his father and the Black Prince.

It must have been a painful meeting. It was the first the two brothers had seen of each other since the death of Blanche, and the Black Prince was much worse now, his once powerful body wasted to a skeleton. Yet they were king’s sons; they got down to business quickly. What was wrong was clear enough. Whatever a man’s courage and will to fight, he can’t kill shadows and empty air, an invisible enemy like du Guesclin. But not even the Black Prince was sure, at first, what to do against the Frenchman’s strategy. In September, sick of body and mind, furious at the war’s dragging on and on, more allies abandoning the English every month, the Black Prince—over Gaunt’s strong protest—turned on Limoges the tactics he’d despised when he’d seen King Pedro of Spain use them, and for him as for Pedro, they backfired. Former neutrals and indifferent peasants became fanatical Anglophobes. The Black Prince, feverish and raging, sailed home.

England’s depression, and no doubt Chaucer’s, deepened. In plague-gutted France and England, it was beginning to be remarked, chivalry was dead. Gunpowder was standard, and no longer used merely to frighten the horses. As defense against the longbow, breastplates and leg armor of leather were being added to chain mail, with the result that a knight was virtually helpless when down off his horse, hence easy to capture or—by the increasingly popular strategy of King Pedro—kill. Though there were still noble gentlemen of the kind that had rushed to their death at Crécy—still men like Richard Stury and Guichard d’Angle—they were becoming increasingly inferior, in general, to the seasoned and able, thoroughly unchivalric mercenary companies who would fight on any side, in any cause, whatever its morality, for cash. The “new English gentlery” was on its way, men whose code was that of the crusaders who would shame Christendom in the European campaign of the

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