1340?-1400

English poet and civil servant who wrote the literary classic The Canterbury Tales, among other works, and held numerous government posts during the reigns of Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV. Fluent in French (the language of the wine trade), Chaucer held royal appointments as customs controller, forester, and clerk of the king's works. He also went on (sometimes secret) diplomatic missions to France and Italy, where he discovered and assimilated the works of Boccaccio, Dante, and Petrarch. This experience, combined with his acute powers of observation, humor, and discernment, allowed Chaucer to capture the complexity, vitality, variety, and contradictions of the medieval world in his writings, which are still vivid after six centuries.