OTHER JOURNEYS AND THE CUSTOMHOUSE
 

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In 1376, the year when Edward III and his heir, the Black Prince, were both dying, Sir John Burley, knight, and Chaucer, esquire of the king, received payment for journeys “on secret business of the king.” The records do not show where they went or what matters they discussed. During 1377 Chaucer …advanced sums for a mission…also described as “the king’s secret business.”
 

…to Paris and Montreuil…and to “parts of France”…
 

According to Froissart…attempting to negotiate a marriage between Richard and a French princess… frequently inaccurate…
 

…official note…1381… It speaks of Chaucer as having been in France “to treat of peace in time of Edward III and in time of Richard II to discuss a marriage between the king and a daughter [not named] of his adversary of France.” A French marriage did not take place, and war with France was renewed.
 

…received funds…1378…for a journey to Lombardy… "certain business concerning the king’s war” with Bernabo Visconti, lord of Milan, and Sir John Hawkwood, the Englishman who was Bernabo’s son-in-law and commander of mercenaries.
 

CHAUCER AND KENT

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…Parliament in 1386 as one of the two “knights of the shire”… Kent …When it convened in October, troops had been called up to defend London against the threatened French invasion. But there were no funds to pay them; they were wandering the London streets searching for food and loot. In the sessions of Parliament, powerful noblemen, led by the king’s youngest uncle, Thomas of Glouscester, attacked the chancellor and the treasurer of the realm and compelled Richard to dismiss them. Gloucester and his allies may have threatened to depose Richard if he did not comply. Though knights of the shire took a prominent part in the attack, there is no record that Chaucer was more than a quiet observer.
 

PERSONAL MATTERS
 

…1388… the king’s enemies, the Appellants, who dominated Parliament, caused the execution of three men with whom Chaucer had worked…Brembre… Burley…Tresilian.
 

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Chaucer was not entirely free from official duties; he was still a member of the Kent peace commission. But between 1386 and 1389 he had leisure in which he could work on the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales and a number of the tales themselves.
 

CLERK OF THE WORKS AND FORRESTER
 

…1389…clerk of the king’s works… for construction and repair at …Tower of London… palace, fortress, prison, armory, mint and place of …records…Westminster Palace…Sheen. Construction of lists in The Knight’s Tale …sometimes… compared to Chaucer’s task at Smithfield.
 

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June 1391…appointed deputy forester of the royal forest at North Petherton in Somerset.
 

…lived at Park House in the forest…
 

…1393 Chaucer received from King Richard a gift of  º10 “for good service.” Ther next year Richard granted him an annuity of º20…King Richard…certified to Chaucer in 1398 the yearly gift of a tun of wine.
 

LAST YEARS
 

Henry, John of Gaunt’s son…exiled in 1398.
 

…royal protection was issued… to “Geoffrey Chaucer, our beloved esquire going about divers parts of England on the king’s arduous and pressing business.”
 

As king, Henry renewed the grants Chaucer had received for Richard II and granted an additional forty marks yearly for life.
 

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…tomb may, however, have been erected as late as 1555..
 

Martin M. Crow and Virginia E. Leland
 

THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY OF CHAUCER’S WORKS
 

...the manuscripts and early printed editions attribute to Chaucer a great many works that were demonstrably written not by Chaucer but by his contemporaries or by fifteenth-century “Chaucerians” who emulated his style and poetic forms.
 

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In the late 1370s Chaucer’s reading of Italian poetry, mainly that of Boccaccio, is apparent in almost everything he wrote. In the early 1380s he undertook the translation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy …
 

...in the middle of the 1380s Chaucer developed an interest in the technical aspects of astronomy…
 

…early 1390s. …apparently came upon the works included in Jankyn’s “book of Wicked Wives”…apparent throughout the “Marriage Group”
 

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Before 1372: Fragment “A: of The Romaunt of the Rose (if Chaucer’s); possibly the ABC; The Book of the Duchess (1368-72).
 

1372-80: Lyrics such as the Complaint unto Pity and Complaint to His Lady; Saint Cecilia (The Second Nun’s Tale, possibly later); some of the tragedies later used in the Monk’s Tale; The House of Fame (1378-80); Anelida and Arcite.
 

1380-87: The Parliament of Fowls (1380-82); Boece; Troilus and Criseyde (1382-86); Adam Scriveyn; The Complaint of Mars (probably around 1385); The Complaint of Venus; Palamoun and Arcite (The Knight’s Tale); possibly the “Boethian ballades” (The Former Age, Fortune, Truth, Gentilesse, Lak of Stedfastnesse); The Legend of Good Women (though some of the legends may be earlier, and the Prologue was later revised).
 

1388-92: The General Prologue and the earlier of The Canterbury Tales; A Treatise on the Astrolabe (1391-92, with additions in 1393 or later).
 

1392-95: Most of The Canterbury Tales, including probably The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale (though part of the latter is probably earlier), and The Parson’s Tale… Scogan, Bukton, and the Complaint to His Purse.
 

Larry D. Benson