New Biography: Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400 CE), The Masterful 14th Century English Poet

(Sketch of Geoffrey Chaucer from The Illustrated Magazine of Art. 1-1 (ca. 1853), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1342 to a family with some ties to government bureaucracy (court and minting), but Chaucer’s father mainly made a living by producing wine. When Geoffrey Chaucer was around fifteen years of age, he managed to gain a position as page to the Countess of Ulster. In that position he acted as a servant and a messenger for his noble employer. Two years later, in 1359, Chaucer was sent to fight in the long-running Hundred Years War between England and France. French soldiers, however, captured the seventeen-year-old youth. Thankfully for Chaucer, he was not imprisoned for very long. The Countess of Ulster’s father-in-law, King Edward III of England, must have seen something he liked in young Geoffrey Chaucer, for he paid the boy’s ransom and negotiated his release in 1360.

Continue reading about Geoffrey Chaucer's life, HERE.