Part 83 (2/2)
There rides behind this worthy pair a stout yeoman, such as you can see a dozen of every morning, in this reign, in ten minutes' walk down Cheapside, for the n.o.bles' houses in the City swarm with such retainers--st.u.r.dy, brown-faced country fellows, quick of quarrel, and not disposed to bear gibes. He wears a coat and hood of Lincoln green, and has a sword, dagger, horn, and buckler by his side. The sheaf of arrows at his girdle have peac.o.c.k-feathers. Ten to one but that fellow let fly many a shaft at Cressy and Poictiers, for he is fond of saying, over his ale-bowl, that he carries ”ten Frenchmen's lives under his belt.”
The prioress Chaucer sketches so daintily might have been seen any day ambling through Bishopsgate from her country nunnery, on her way to shrine or altar, or on a visit to some n.o.ble patroness to whom she is akin. ”By St. Eloy!” she cries to her mule, ”if thou stumble again I will chide thee!” and she says it in the French of Stratford at Bow. Her wimple is trimly plaited, and how fas.h.i.+onable is her cloak! She wears twisted round her arm a pair of coral beads, and from them hangs a gold ornament with the unecclesiastical motto of ”Amor vincit omnia.” Behind her rides a nun and three priests, and by the side of her mule run the little greyhounds whom she feeds, and on whom she doats.
The rich monk that loved hunting was a character that any monastery of Chaucer's London could furnish. Go early in the morning to Aldersgate or Cripplegate, and you will be sure to find such a one riding out with his greyhounds and falcon. His dress is rich, for he does not sneer at worldly pleasures. His sleeves are trimmed with fur, and the pin that fastens his hood is a gold love-knot. His brown palfrey is fat, like its master, who does not despise a roast Thames swan for dinner, and whose face s.h.i.+nes with good humour and good living. It is such men as these that Wycliffe's followers deride, and point the finger at; but they forget that the Church uses strong arguments with perverse adversaries.
To find Chaucer's merchant you need not go further than a few yards from Milk Street. There you will see him at any stall, grave, and with forked beard; on his head a Flemish beaver hat, and his boots ”full fetishly”
clasped. He talks much of profits and exchanges, and the necessity of guarding the sea from the French between Middleburgh and the Ess.e.x ports.
Chaucer's poor lean Oxford clerk you will find in Paul's, peering about the tombs, as if looking for a benefice. All his riches, worthy man! are some twenty books at his bed's head, and he is talking philosophy to a fellow-student lean and thin as himself, to the profound contempt of that stiff serjeant-at-law who is waiting for clients near the font, on which his fees are paid.
Any procession day in the age of Edward you can meet, in Westminster Abbey, near the royal shrines and tombs, Chaucer's franklin, or country gentleman, with his red face and white beard. His dagger hangs by his silk purse, and his girdle is as white as milk, for our friend has been a sheriff and knight of the s.h.i.+re, and is known all Buckinghams.h.i.+re over for his open house and well-covered board. Aye, and many a fat partridge he has in his pen, and many a fat pike in his fish-pond.
Chaucer's s.h.i.+pman we shall be certain to discover near Billingsgate. He is from Dartmouth, and wears a short coat, and a knife hanging from his neck. A hardy good fellow he is, and shrewd, and his beard has shaken in many a tempest. Bless you! the captain of the _Magdalen_ knows all the havens from Gothland to Cape Finisterre, aye, and every creek in Brittany and Spain; and many a draught of Bordeaux wine he has tapped at night from his cargo.
Nor must we forget that favourite pilgrim of Chaucer--the poor parson of a town, who is also a learned clerk, and who is by many supposed to strongly resemble Wycliffe himself, whom Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt, protects at the hazard of his life. He is no proud Pharisee, like the fat abbot who has just gone past the church door; but benign and wondrous diligent, and in adversity full patient. Rather than be cursed for the t.i.the he takes, he gives to the poor of his very subsistence.
Come rain, come thunder, staff in hand, he visits the farthest end of his parish; he has no spiced conscience--
”For Christe's love, and his apostles twelve, He taught, _but first he followed it himselve_.”
You will find him, be sure, on his knees on the cold floor, before some humble City altar, heedless of all but prayer, or at the lazar-house on his knees, beside some poor leper, and pointing through the shadow of death to the s.h.i.+ning gables of the New Jerusalem.
Such were the tenants of Chaucer's London. On these types at least we may dwell with certainty. As for the proud n.o.bles and the tough-skulled knights, we must look for them in the pages of Froissart. Of the age of Edward III. at least our patriarchal poet has shown us some vivid glimpses, and imagination finds pleasure in tracing home his pilgrims to their houses in St. Bartholomew's and Budge Row, the Blackfriars monastery, and the palace on the Thames sh.o.r.e.
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