Geoffrey Chaucer is by far the best-known poet of the English Middle Ages, and it is primarily in The Canterbury Tales that his fame rests. His lifetime (c. 1340-1400) spanned some of the most tumultuous events of the era. He saw the ravages of the Black Death (1348), in which over one-third of Europe’s population was wiped out. He may have witnessed the destruction wrought in London by the Peasants’ Revolt (1381), as his apartment sat directly over the city gate through which the rebellious thousands poured, bent on a campaign of arson and destruction that culminated in the beheading of the archbishop of Canterbury. And he participated in several of the battles between the English and French that would later be called the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453). A high-ranking official in the king’s service, he was by turns a courier, soldier, diplomat (and possibly spy), customs inspector, overseer of building projects, forest officer, and member of Parliament. He also traveled widely; his errands in the king’s service took him to France and Italy on several occasions, and even to Spain. Entirely separate from his official duties was his work as a poet.
