Chaucer’s Background

Abstract

WHEN Geoffrey Chaucer was born, Edward III, of the House of Plantagenet, was on the throne. Edward III was the son of the weak Edward II and of Isabella of France, who, while she was regent, had with her lover Mortimer misruled the realm as badly as her murdered husband had done before her. Although guilty of breaches of good faith, frivolity, extravagance, and self-indulgence, Edward III made a sincere effort to reform the government. He succeeded in large measure and on the whole was a fairly good ruler. A man of imposing physique but of moderate intelligence, he kindled a spirit of patriotism in his people by his stirring military victories against the Scots and the French. Edward III was first of all an ardent soldier whose chief desire was for military glory, but he was also deeply concerned with the forms of religion. His excess of animal spirits, however, prevented attainment of true spirituality. As he grew old, he turned from military adventures to amatory ones; in his last senile years he was completely dominated by Alice Perrers. When he died in 1377, the only fruit of his extensive conquests that remained in English hands was the city of Calais.