'Save London, and send true lawyers their meed. For whoso wants money with them shall not speed.'
The words of the poets already referred to are of the greatest value to us, and we are grateful for the vivid pictures of mediæval life they have left us, but we have in Chaucer an ideal Londoner, far beyond the others in the charm of his writing, one who loved the city in which he lived and died.
Langland was too much occupied in denouncing the evils of his time to be able to see the good. Lydgate, Hoccleve and Gower also took partial views of the life around them. It is the great genius and large-heartedness of Chaucer that enables us to see the mixed good and evil.
Thanks to the labours of many scholars[61] we seem to know Chaucer, who died five centuries ago, better than many great men who have lived nearer our own days, and, strange to say, although we take him as a representative of the Middle Ages--and he was that--he was so imbued with the modern spirit that we cannot but feel that he is at one with us in his views of the life around him. He was associated with all parts of London, so that in a walk through the town with him we can illustrate our journey from the facts known of his life and with extracts from his works.
The facts of Chaucer's life, as written in official documents which have been found by enthusiastic searchers, are largely illustrative of London history, and it is only with these special facts that we are here concerned.
Geoffrey Chaucer was the son of a citizen and vintner of the city of London, and probably born at his father's house in Thames Street, in the Vintry, at or near the foot of Dowgate Hill. The house came into Geoffrey's possession after his father's death, when he sold it. There has been much discussion as to the date of his birth. It must have been after 1328, because we know that in that year his father was a bachelor. There is much to be said in favour of the supposition that he was born about 1340.
His family must have stood well in public esteem, with good connections, as the young man was early attached to the Court, and during his lifetime he filled several offices of distinction. His grandfather, Robert le Chaucer, was one of the collectors at the Port of London of the new customs upon wine, granted by the merchants of Aquitaine.