GEOFFREY CHAUCER was born about the year 1340; the
exact date is not known. His father, John, and his grand-
father, Robert, had associations with the wine trade and, more
tenuously, with the Court. John was Deputy Butler to the
King at Southampton in 1348. Geoffrey Chaucer's mother is
believed to have been Agnes de Copton, niece of an official at
the Mint. They lived in London in the parish of St Martin's-
in-the-Vintry, reasonably well-to-do but in a humbler walk
of life than that to be adorned so capably by their brilliant son.

It is thought that Chaucer was sent for his early schooling
to St Paul's Almonry. From there he went on to be a page in
the household of the Countess of Ulster, later Duchess of
Clarence, wife of Lionel the third son of Edward III. The
first mention of Geoffrey Chaucer's existence is in her house-
hold accounts for 1357. She had bought him a short cloak, a
pair of shoes, and some parti-coloured red and black breeches.

To be page in a family of such eminence was a coveted
position. His duties as a page included making beds, carrying
candles, and running errands. He would there have acquired
the finest education in good manners, a matter of great im-
portance not only in his career as a courtier but also in his
career as a poet. No English poet has so mannerly an approach
to his reader.

As a page he would wait on the greatest in the land. One of
these was the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt; throughout
his life he was Chaucer's most faithful patron and protector.

In 1359 Chaucer was sent abroad, a soldier in the egg, on
one of those intermittent forays into France that made up so

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