Chaucer | Page 8

she chiefly feared was still the
German Hansa. Chaucer's "Merchant" characteristically wears a
"Flandrish beaver hat;" and it is no accident that the scene of the
"Pardoner's Tale," which begins with a description of "superfluity
abominable," is laid in Flanders. In England, indeed the towns never
came to domineer as they did in the Netherlands. Yet, since no trading
country will long submit to be ruled by the landed interest only, so in
proportion as the English towns, and London especially, grew richer,
their voices were listened to in the settlement of the affairs of the nation.
It might be very well for Chaucer to close the description of his
"Merchant" with what looks very much like a fashionable writer's half
sneer:--
Forsooth, he was a worthy man withal; But, truly, I wot not how men
him call.
Yet not only was high political and social rank reached by individual
"merchant princes," such as the wealthy William de la Pole, a
descendant of whom is said (though on unsatisfactory evidence) to
have been Chaucer's grand-daughter, but the government of the country
came to be very perceptibly influenced by the class from which they
sprang. On the accession of Richard II, two London citizens were
appointed controllers of the war-subsidies granted to the Crown; and in
the Parliament of 1382 a committee of fourteen merchants refused to
entertain the question of a merchants' loan to the king. The importance
and self-consciousness of the smaller tradesmen and handicraftsmen
increased with that of the great merchants. When in 1393 King Richard
II marked the termination of his quarrel with the City of London by a
stately procession through "new Troy," he was welcomed, according to
the Friar who has commemorated the event in Latin verse, by the trades
in an array resembling an angelic host; and among the crafts
enumerated we recognise several of those represented in Chaucer's

company of pilgrims--by the "Carpenter," the "Webbe" (Weaver), and
the "Dyer," all clothed
in one livery Of a solemn and great fraternity.
The middle class, in short, was learning to hold up its head, collectively
and individually. The historical original of Chaucer's "Host"--the actual
Master Harry Bailly, vintner and landlord of the Tabard Inn in
Southwark, was likewise a member of Parliament, and very probably
felt as sure of himself in real life as the mimic personage bearing his
name does in its fictitious reproduction. And he and his fellows, the
"poor and simple Commons"--for so humble was the style they were
wont to assume in their addresses to the sovereign,--began to look upon
themselves, and to be looked upon, as a power in the State. The London
traders and handicraftsmen knew what it was to be well-to-do citizens,
and if they had failed to understand it, home monition would have
helped to make it clear to them:--
Well seemed each of them a fair burgess, For sitting in a guildhall on a
dais. And each one for the wisdom that he can Was shapely for to be an
alderman. They had enough of chattels and of rent, And very gladly
would their wives assent; And, truly, else they had been much to blame.
It is full fair to be yclept madame, And fair to go to vigils all before,
And have a mantle royally y-bore.
The English State had ceased to be the feudal monarchy --the
ramification of contributory courts and camps--of the crude days of
William the Conqueror and his successors. The Norman lords and their
English dependants no longer formed two separate elements in the
body politic. In the great French wars of Edward III, the English armies
had no longer mainly consisted of the baronial levies. The nobles had
indeed, as of old, ridden into battle at the head of their vassals and
retainers; but the body of the force had been made up of Englishmen
serving for pay, and armed with their national implement, the
bow--such as Chaucer's "Yeoman" carried with him on the ride to
Canterbury:--
A sheaf of peacock arrows bright and keen Under his belt he bare full

thriftily. Well could he dress his tackle yeomanly: His arrows drooped
not with feathers low, And in his hand he bare a mighty bow.
The use of the bow was specially favoured by both Edward III and his
successor; and when early in the next century the chivalrous Scottish
king, James I (of whom mention will be made among Chaucer's poetic
disciples) returned from his long English captivity to his native land, he
had no more eager care than that his subjects should learn to emulate
the English in the handling of their favourite weapon. Chaucer seems to
be unable to picture an army without it, and we find him relating how,
from ancient Troy,--
Hector and many a worthy wight