Geoffrey chaucer biography bbc

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    Geoffrey Chaucer

    English poet and author (c. 1340s – 1400)

    "Chaucer" redirects here. For other uses, see Chaucer (disambiguation).

    Geoffrey Chaucer (CHAW-sər; c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.[1] He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry".[2] He was the first writer to be buried in what has since komma to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey.[3]

    Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament having been elected as shire knight for Kent.

    Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde, and Parlement of

  • geoffrey chaucer biography bbc

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    The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'

    Alamy

    For millennia, people slept in two shifts – once in the evening, and once in the morning. But why? And how did the habit disappear?

    It was around 23:00 on 13 April 1699, in a small village in the north of England. Nine-year-old Jane Rowth blinked her eyes open and squinted out into the moody evening shadows. She and her mother had just awoken from a short sleep.

    Mrs Rowth got up and went over to the fireside of their modest home, where she began smoking a pipe. Just then, two men appeared by the window. They called out and instructed her to get ready to go with them.

    As Jane later explained to a courtroom, her mother had evidently been expecting the visitors. She went with them freely – but first whispered to her daughter to "lye still, and shee would come againe in the morning". Perhaps Mrs Rowth had some nocturnal task to complete. Or maybe she was in trouble, and knew that leaving the house w

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    Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400)

    Illuminated manuscript of the prologue to 'The Canterbury Tales'  ©Chaucer was the first great poet writing in English, whose best-known work is 'The Canterbury Tales'.

    Geoffrey Chaucer was born between 1340 and 1345, probably in London. His father was a prosperous wine merchant. We do not know any details of his early life and education.

    In 1357, he was a page to Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Edward III's third son. Chaucer was captured by the French during the Brittany expedition of 1359, but was ransomed by the king. Edward III later sent him on diplomatic missions to France, Genoa and Florence. His travels exposed him to the work of authors such as Dante, Boccaccio and Froissart.

    Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, a lady-in-waiting in the queen's household. They are thought to have had three or four children. Philippa's sister, Katherine Swynford, later became the third wife of John of Gaunt, the king's fourth son and C