“Chaucer Age” (Important Happenings in his age)

 

“Chaucer Age”

(Important Happenings in his age)

v  Black Death re- engaged England during Chaucer’s childhood. Wipeout thirty to fifty percent population.

v  Labor force gained leverage and was able to bargain for better wages, which led resentment from the nobles and propertied classes.

v  Merchants increasing their power over the legal establishment.

v  Hundred Year war created profit for England.

v  When Chaucer, was growing up London was pretty much run by a merchant oligarchy, which attempted to control both the aristocracy and lesser artisan classes.

v  Dr. GM Trevelyan calls 14^th century as “Chaucer’s England”.

v  Chaucer the poet and teller of tales, who makes the living land of the 14^th century, live still in 20^th century.

New ways of writing:

Chaucer used a quite different way to tell a story . he put his stories into the mouth of a group of people.

This group is going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, so that he could tell every sort of story in a natural way.