Geoffrey Chaucer: the medieval father of English literature

History this week. February 1905.

“A quiet morning at the rail yard until the ground gives way.”

An entire locomotive is swallowed whole. It is another setback for an audacious project to tunnel under the Hudson River. And today, 115 years later, these tunnels are a national emergency waiting to happen. Listen to history this week from the History Channel, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to your dead to me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian author and broadcaster, and today we are preparing

our pens and parchment, and perigranating back to the 14th century to learn all about Jeffrey Chaucer, author of the famous Canterbury Tales, and to inform and entertain us on our journey with joined by two very special Traveling Companions. In history corner, she's the JMR Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Languages at the University of Oxford, and an expert on Chaucer and late medieval literature, maybe you've read her award-winning biography, Chaucer, a European

life or her new book, The Wife of Bath, a biography. It's Professor Marian Turner, welcome Marian. Delight to be here, thank you for inviting me. I'm very happy to have you here, and in comedy corner. He's a comedian, actor, and podcaster. You'd have seen him in taskmaster, man, down, and as Rose Metaphayer's assistant on the wonderful Junior Taskmaster. Plus, you may have heard his dull sit tones on my favorite podcast, "Three Been Salad,"

or seen his new live tour show, The Bench, but you'll definitely know him from our previous episodes of your dead to me, most recently, Charles Dickens at Christmas and our theory and literature, it's Mike Wozniak. Welcome back, Mike. Thank you, hello. Thanks for having me back. Mike, we went medieval, you last time out. Yeah. We went all King Arthurie. I had a lovely old time. You knew a lot. It was grist to my meal. It was, yeah, I felt like I hadn't wasted my

childhoods. You were in your element, but this, this is a different kettle of food. Oh, is it? Yeah, this is utter bleak ignorance. In a new level of ignorance, it's beyond the unknown unknowns. Okay, well, we're going to have a lovely time talking about one of the great poets of of English literature. So, what do you know?

So, let's start with the first second of the podcast. It's the so-worthy and no.

This is where I have a go at guessing what you are lovely listener might know about today's subjects. And if we're using Mike as the benchmark, maybe not much, but you've possibly heard Chaucer described as the father of English literature. Perhaps you've read his cadbury tales at school, and you modeled your way through the middle English while looking for the

“root bits. That's what I did. Maybe you saw the BBC's 2003 adaptation, which transferred”

the famous candidate tales to a 21st century setting. And if you're a naughty kid, like me, you will remember Paul Bettany's turn as Jeffrey Chaucer in the brilliant movie, a night's tale that all medieval historians love. But what about the life behind the literature? What did Chaucer get up to when he wasn't scribbling his poems? And where do snazzy leggings fit into our story? Let's find out. You're excited about the leggings? I'm excited about the leggings.

Okay, Mike. Yes. From your high level of knowledge, you've already promised us. What sort of family do you think Jeffrey Chaucer was born into? What kind of class do you think he arrived into? Oh, well, he's literate. Yeah, and not just literate. I don't know that the son of some sort of merchant or trader or ships captain or someone who's got some qualifications possibly a member of a guild. That's correct. But not nobility. I'm saying.

That neck of the woods. Are you hustling us? Are you pretending to not know anything,

and then suddenly rolling up knowledge? Mary, I think Mike got it first time, son of a merchant.

Yeah, brilliant. Mergent is it, okay. Yeah, so a wine merchant.

“So his father was a vintner, so what we call them? So that's what we call them in Devon, as well.”

Well, where we do, we do when we're trying to be a little bit classy and a bit pretentious. The vintner. I have a local vintner, and there are some cool Ian. And he's absolutely he's my episode. Well Ian, which is a version of the name John, which is Chaucer's dad. Good heavens. So John Chaucer, vintner and Chaucer's mother was called Agnes. Chaucer was born early 1340s. We don't know the exact year, but about 1342 in London,

in Vintry Ward. So the board which had lots of vintners in. So it was one of the areas of London that is right next to the Thames, which is appropriate because that's where the wine comes in. Sure. So Chaucer's born very near the river, and this is a huge time for mercantile trading. So he's born in a place where he can see the ships coming in, loads with products from all over the world, bringing spices from as far away as Indonesia. And then going out again,

laden with English wool, which was England's only real export product. So he's living at the

in this very multi-lingual cosmopolitan kind of area. You know people often think of the

“middle ages as people are kind of grubbing about. And of course, you know, some people were.”

But life in London was really international. He was rubbing shoulders with people who spoke lots of different languages, but bringing in lots of luxury products. Where's the wine coming from, primarily? France. Okay. So the French are still good at wine, even in 40s.

Yeah, they've always been good at wine. My mum will be pleased to hear that. Good. That's good.

But then one very big thing happened. Do you know the very big thing that happened to Little Jeff when he was five years old? Think mid-14th century big things. A plague upon the Venice? Not just of Venice, we're right. Yes, the Great Plague of All Plagues, the Black Death. Okay. It's hard. It hit pretty hard. Yeah. Family wise. Yeah. And in France. Yeah, and to everyone. So the Black Death came to England at 1348. And, you know, it completely dwarfs the pandemic that we've

been through. If you imagine a pandemic that wiped out maybe a third, maybe a half of the population.

“Really quickly. Of Europe. Yeah. We're not just talking about it in here. It's, you know,”

and the Near East to hugely dramatic. And it also affected young people as much as the old. It wasn't only hitting the more vulnerable, all sectors of society are hit. So extraordinary trauma. You know, quite hard for us to imagine. And yes, Chaucer lost several relatives, but not his parents, not his immediate family. And what then happened to Chaucer's family is typical of what happened to the country as a whole. Because if you survived, although probably psychologically, you might

be in a bad way. But materially, things were quite good for you. It was quite good to be a plague survivor. Because if you think about the country as a whole, you've got the same amount of land to farm, for example, but half the number of people to farm it. So what's going to happen? Wages go up. Is vintering, is that, is that sort of clayed proof for people still getting on it? I mean, everything's affected, right? Because all over Europe, you've got a much lower workforce. So everything

is hard to, to do. But it means that people are then, are then able to, to be paid more. So the wine still comes in and, you know, the Chaucer family are not only fine economically in that level, but they also inherited a lot. Because again, the people who survived, they're inheriting. So both his parents inherited property and land and money from their relatives who had died in the plague. So there's a lot of social mobility after the plague. It's actually the late 40th century

is an amazing time for social mobility. People can move jobs if their employer isn't paying a decent

wage. They can go to another employer or they can move to the city. The government plus lots of laws to try and stop employees from asking for higher wages, but it didn't work. None of them would be, you know, these statutes of laborers did not work. It's very clear which side they were on. Yes, yes. So we've got massive inflation and wage inflation. If you were alive, you were then doing well. It's educationally then. What's the normal for a kid like that? Yeah, yes. It's not going

to one of the rarefieds. There's no governance. I assume more of that. Well, he would have gone to school.

“Yeah. So people of this kind of middle class level went to grammar school and that's what”

sure said it. So we don't have his school records, but there were several schools in London, including one at St Paul's. They had lots of books. He would probably have learnt to read and write at home when he was very small and now went to grammar school. Education, so the schools were only for boys. Though well-off girls would also have been literate, but girls usually would have been literate in English and French or as boys are tri-lingual, educated boys, English, French and

Latin. So unlike today, you know, this was a multi-lingual educated society in this country and most of the education at school was in Latin, but people again, they often tend to think of all-the-style education as very much the students being very passive, being, you know, receiving a lot of information, but that wasn't the case in medieval education in schools. Boys did a lot of performance, a lot of learning rhetoric, you know, you might be given a fable and ask to

invent different morals and then defend or get up and give different sides of the debate. So it was a kind of mediator. What I had at all was completely

directly just sort of rammed down our throat, basically. Yeah, I mean, I mean, it was strict

often, you know, there's one great case of a schoolmaster getting injured because he was climbing up a tree, trying to get lots of sticks to beat the school tree, so it was strict, but. It was like a fable in all of itself. The moral of that story is don't beat children. But yes, he would have got a really solid education there, though he was also certainly a self-enticator. He was an auto-diadite, because he read so much more than, you know, most people

are reading at that time. He's with what, but he's also getting a good education. Yeah, a really interesting childhood. Yeah, very interesting. But in, so Mike, if you were a teenage Jeffrey

profession are you aiming to go into next? Me personally. Yeah, what do you, I don't think I'll have

“made them the most of this. I think I would. It's a choice. I think it's got a bit better work”

ethic than me. Sure. I think I think Chaucer, I mean, assuming he would have gone into the family trade. Okay, so you think wine, you think he's going, I think. I think wine, you know, if he's having a lovely life and wine's, it's got a bit of glamour, hasn't it? And he's into his reading and his writing. He can do that on the weekends. It's a very sensible answer. I assume. He sort of goes, he doesn't, no, he doesn't quite different. He kind of starts to leap classes

in a way. Yeah, because he's up or down. Up, he becomes a page boy in a great household. So and this is a very desirable thing to get. So usually, you know, higher class boys would get this kind of job. So it's far the probably got him this job because his father had been a royal tax

collector. So we had connections in the royal court. So Chaucer's first job, when he's just a

teenager about 14 or 15, he pops up in the accounts of Elizabeth de Burr, Countess of Ulster,

“who is the daughter in law of the king. So the daughter in law of Edward III, she was married to”

Prince Lionel. So a page boy is, I mean, he would have done a bit of kind of errand running and things like that. Yeah. But you're also simply a member of this lavish aristocratic household, where you're also going to be, you know, doing some riding. And I see you're not viewed as you're not working on this. Yes, exactly. So although you're doing some, as I say, relatively menial errand running, but you're mainly just kind of sitting about learning some poetry,

you're there partly to make the heads of the household look good, because they can have a retinue. Right. Excellent. But modern sort of equity or something, just sort of solidly dressed thing about not necessarily doing a lot with the post. He's mixing with, sure,

kind of more aristocratic people, although he always stays really kind of middle class. But he's

mixing with these, these high class people. So he's still Jeffrey from the block, but he's he's making moves. Exactly. He's Jeffrey the correct pronunciation for his name. Well, he's often referred to in the records as Gal Frieder, so as the Latin version. So, I mean, and what we often see with names is that people are referred to in slightly different ways,

“because people were so used to code switching between languages. I think Jeffrey is fine.”

Jeffrey is fine. Okay. So he's working for Elizabeth de Burr, no relation to Christopher, unfortunately. Ladies and gentlemen, maybe she was, maybe she was. He does meet his wife doing this gig. We think. Probably, yes, Philippe, so Philippe de Rue, there's a there's a reference in the records to her being connected with the same, the same group. So we're not certain, but he probably meets his wife at this point. And she was a little bit a little bit um,

higher class than him. Oh, she's got a deer in the middle of her neck. Exactly. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, exactly. He's not Jeffrey Dutchews or is he? No. No.

It's from this period that we have our first documentary evidence for Chaucer's life. Yes. Absolutely.

What do you think it is, Mike? Presumably from the animals of the of the of the de Burr family in some way. So I'm wondering what they what they would document as he got involved in a wedding or has there been a sort of a disaster in a hunt. So, all right, if they're going to else turn, they've killed the wrong stack and stood up some local drama. I mean, I do think this is very impressive research type, think, thinking about the accounts that because it is from the

accounts and people often expect that the first record is going to be might refer to something to do with his poetry, for example. Yeah. But in fact, it's a really frivolous reference. It's a reference to his fashion choices, to his quotes. This is where the snazzy leggings that Greg mentioned earlier in the past. So the record is simply that Elizabeth de Burr bought him these quotes. Okay. And when I was researching my biography of Chorcer, I started to look up these clothes

and try and find out more about what the Poltock was because what we're told is that she buys him a Poltock with these two colored hose like these leggings and some shoes. Now it turns out hide hose. Yes, exactly. Now it turns out that the Poltocks were brand new at this time. Okay. And we start, so there's in the 50s, the 1350s. Yeah. And in the 1360s, we start to see references to the Poltock and the leggings that were associated with them and the Poltock. The scandalous items.

Yeah. So and chroniclers in the early 1360s start to write about the fact that young men are going about wearing these clothes and that they are very tight and short and are exposing their genitals and buttocks inappropriately. And indeed some chroniclers said that they thought that the play could return to England because God was punishing people for wearing these outrageous clothes. So it's a great, you know, it's all young people's fault. There they are. Where are there

are falling out fits, you know? Not like it used to be. The modern person thinking that Covid

you know, people think of Chaucer often as this, the father figure of English literature. Yeah.

“But you know, here he is as a teenager. Everyone is a teenager. He has to wear these. Yes.”

Yes. He's been given this just like when I was maybe the same age. My mother bought me some cycling shorts. Black cycling shorts with some sort of bright, sort of lured green flashes down side. Yes. And she made me wear them to a birthday party that I had, I personally said about it, sometimes particularly no, some older boys there. It was absolutely murderous. It was just, I mean, is this a trauma? Oh, my God. I mean, yeah, that's really dragged it back out.

Are you having PTSD? I'm having PTSD. It'll be in my final slideshow. So I feel like feeling like I understand shorts a little bit better. So teenager for Chaucer, he's not dressing sort of, you know, privilege, fancy big sort of fur robes. He's dressing like he's in Van Halen. He's wearing, sort of skin type leggings short cropped off. I like to think of him as this fashion butcher. But also, it is so interesting to think that unlike teenagers today, he's not choosing

his own clothes. Yeah. Express his own identity. He's being told what to wear. He's being paid in clothes and food and a place to sleep at this at this time. He also ticked off another major event in the 14th century, having survived the black death. Yes. He then rides straight into another one. Uh, do you know what this one would be like? Big 14th century extravaganza, mega event. Yeah. 100 years' war? Absolutely. Well done. Yeah, very good. Was he a soldier? Well, I mean, soldier is

perhaps a generous word. I get the feeling he's just guy on a horse. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so it's actually the whole household went to war. So by this point, he seems to be working for Lionel, Lisbeth's husband. Yeah. And so the princes are all going towards. They take their retinues. Of course. With them. Yeah. Um, so he goes over this. Can't get boring up on that hill when you're watching that if there's a gap in the battle.

You need someone for a bit of banter. Yeah. And he did, but he was fighting. He did go off to the right. Yeah. And so the 100 years' war, which, you know, actually was longer than 100 years. Yeah, it's 116 years. Yeah. So it's supposed to start 1337, finished 1453.

Chances over their 1359, 1360. And it was a fight. I said, Edward the third of England claiming

France himself saying, I should be king of France. Yeah. And the French king saying, um, no. Michael, you know, famously, the pen is mightier than the sword. Yes. So how do you think our budding poet does in battle? I'm imagining he would do a bismillic. So I've wanted him to be a bismill because he's such a, because he's still talked about as a writers. Yeah. Come on. He can't, don't be a double threat or triple threat. Like leave something for the rest of us. Okay.

You know, so I'm, I'm hoping that he was desperately cowardly sort of pretending to guide us horse the wrong way. He does get captured. Does he? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So he was in a sort of zone of jeopardy, at least. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So he was captured outside rooms and then he was ransomed. And so when you were a prisoner of war in those days, it didn't tend to be that bad. Like he probably wasn't thrown into a prison cell. You were kept in pretty decent conditions,

especially if you weren't a, a peasant. And then he was ransomed for 16 pounds. I'm going to take a little guess here. Yeah. I'm going to suggest that that's more than 16 pounds as today. Yes. Just a little bit. Yes. It is. The inflation crisis that we all feeling. Yeah. Okay. And we can compare it with other people, you know, so there were some people who were ransomed for 50 pounds at the same time, but then there was also a carter with seven of his fellows who were ransomed

as a job lot for 12 pounds. So, you know, it's okay to be 16 pounds, but it's, you know, there were people who were worth a lot more. I'm not planning to get that, but I'm just curious of

“your economic value. Yeah. Who's kidnapping me is key? Because I think I'd always like to prefer”

there to be extreme. Oh, okay. You see, it's the sort of bridge of spice things. You're being, I think, there's a lot more fun to be had. I'd rather be exchange for some sort of

deep cover North Korean saboteurs, something like that. Someone of high value that should never

be let back into the wild. That's, yeah. So, 16 pounds gets Jeffrey Chaucer back. Who's paying that ransom? Is it the King? The King? Yes. Okay. So, not even, not even Lizzy De Burr. No. No. No. The King's paying all the ransoms. Does Jeffrey Chaucer bounce back from his, his ransom for Yasuko? Because, obviously, he's, that must be quite traumatizing. I think he was fine to be honest. I don't think it was a different time. It was a different time. He's 17, he's gone so far, he's seen

people die. He's mental health. He's been invented at this point. You've seen our population die in the play. Yeah. You know, this is nothing. All right, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, so we see him just

“afterwards carrying letters. So, I think that was what he was better at, you know, across his life.”

So, what do you excel at? I'm really quite good at delivering letters. Exactly.

commonly, we see him doing things like diplomacy, secret business of the King, carrying letters,

“peace treaties. That's more his thing. Okay. But then we actually don't see him in the records”

for several years. So, between 1360 and 1366, we're not sure what he's doing. Oh. Rather wonderfully, he reappears in Navar. Spain. Yeah. So, then it was an independent kingdom. So now it's part of Northern Spain, but then it was an independent kingdom. And really interesting that he went there because at that time, Navar was a much more multicultural country than England. So, this is the time that he went to a country where there were significant Jewish and Muslim

populations, as well as the Christian population. And he was there doing something that we don't really know what he was doing. But we have his safe conduct. We know that he was doing something diplomatic. There were all kinds of things happening at that point. Aragon actually invaded Navar while he was there. There were lots of English soldiers there at the time. So, I mean, there's many things he could have been doing. But I guess in terms of just thinking about his life, he probably

went there from Aquitaine, which the Black Prince, the oldest son of Edward III, was ruling at the time. He may have been in the service of the Black Prince. He may have been in Royal service in the King's service. He was doing something to do with other Royal households. You know, as he had been for Elizabeth and Lionel. That's the kind of... As he left Elizabeth and Lionel's Gaff, then, as he is outplaying his own... Yeah. Farrow for this point. Okay. So, he's married to Philippa DeRoy.

They were married till the late '80s when she dies. They had at least three children. Okay. So, we know of Thomas Trosa, who later became Speaker in Parliament, had a very successful career, Elizabeth, who became a nun in some extremely fancy nunneries, ended up in Barking, which was lovely nunnery, where... Good nunnery. Yeah. Lots of, had it been good. Very expensive to get into. You had a lot of money to get in and then you could dine off imported figs and

read a lot of books and in many ways it was much better than entering the sexual economy at that time. Crumbs. And then Lewis, who we know much less about, although we do know that Trosa wrote him a book. Oh, that's nice. Very nice. Truita is on the Astrolabe, because his son wasn't very good at Latin when he was 10. So, Trosa wrote him an English treatise to help him to understand his scientific object, the Astrolabe, which helps you to tell the time. Okay. So, Philippa Trosa,

as she becomes known from this point, is a lady of the Queen's chamber. Yes. Absolutely. So, we now have them both in royal service. Quite nice, they've got, they sort of share a, you know, when you do a career, the same as your partner, it's quite nice. It can be tricky, you can't do it. Well, it's a way it can be nice, because you both know there. You've got to make sure they're a boundaries, though. Absolutely. Sure. Is that coming from us? Especially

like child child care comes into it. Sure. That's right. I mean, it gets fiddly. Fair enough. All right. Yeah. Yeah. What's interesting, or one of the things that's interesting, is that his wife is working, right? People often assume that women aren't working at this time, but women at all kinds

of different jobs. His wife always has a salary. Yeah. Even though a lot of the time her job

is kind of, you know, hanging around, again, being kind of helpful, but also just being a lady in

“important women's chambers. And when he's in royal service, he's getting an annuity from”

the king, also from other people at various times. He's also paid in wine, so he gets a picture of wine a day, which later on becomes a ton of wine a year, which is something like 252 gallons. He probably didn't drink all that. He was probably giving it out to people, but, you know, wine isn't ongoing. Picture a day. Yeah. How much is it? It was probably about a gallon. Blimey. Yeah. It's a lot of wine. That's a lot to get. Yeah. Yeah. As you say, it's probably

for his household, right? Yeah, probably sharing it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And so he's an international diplomat. This is Jeffrey Chorsa, diplomat. Man overseas, he's in Italy, he's in France, he's been to Spain, the var. Yeah. He's picking up languages or he knows languages. He knows languages, so everyone's trying language, who is everyone educated man, is trying language this time. But he also knew Italian, which he'd probably picked up from all the bankers and traders in

ventry ward, because he had a mercantile background, so aristocrats much less likely to come across Italian. Yeah. He had Italian, which is probably why he was picked to go on the Italian mission. Oh, so he's going on those Italian missions is where he then picks up and reads Dante,

Picasso, and his reading of those poets enables him utterly to change English literature. Amazing.

“As his career goes on. We'll get to that in a bit, because that is obviously incredibly important,”

but I first I want to ask Mike some fun questions about Chorsa's very storied career. Yeah. So he had a staggering number of jobs. Yeah. We've already heard several already, but got a mini quiz for you. Okay. So these was not a position that Jeffrey Chorsa held during his service. So here we go. Inspector of walls and ditches, Deputy Forester, Clark of the King's works overseeing the renovations of the Tower of London, the Member of Parliament for Suffolk,

the second of England to the daughter of the Lord of Milan, which of those six things was not

“on Chorsa's CV. Okay. I can see, it seems like an amenable fellow so far. Yeah, it feels like”

he's quite capable and a lot of people are getting so I can see him being pressured into doing the ditches gig. Maybe early doors, but I can see him putting his foot down at the old forestry thing. That doesn't seem like forest is going to be his mealy. Okay. You're saying Deputy Forester is one we've made up. Yeah. My Freud MP for Suffolk was wrong because he was actually MP for Kent. Was he really? So he did all six of those jobs in terms of being an MP, but he was representing

Kent not Suffolk. So he was in charge of the wool custom, Deputy Forester, he didn't spec those walls and ditches. He renovated the Tower of London, he negotiated the marriage of the King of England. Do that marriage didn't happen? Okay. Maybe he wasn't very good at his job, but he's so a pain. Yeah, yeah, he's paid by the day. Okay. You've got to get a daily race and if you're afraid of it, so you're freelancing, managing negotiations otherwise you get stiffed. Well it helps

us to know a lot about him because we can know how many days he was absent from England because of the day he is. Nice. The invoiceing is good. Yeah, okay. He's interesting. History this week, February 1905, a quiet morning at the Railyard until the ground gives way and an entire local motive is swallowed whole. It is another setback for an audacious project to tunnel under the Hudson River. And today, 115 years later, these tunnels are a national emergency

waiting to happen. Listen to history this week from the history channel wherever you get your podcasts.

“The most important relationship in his life other than Fillefer of course and his children”

would be to the the son of Edward III. Have you heard of John of Gaunt, Mike? I don't think I have no. He's one of those big names of medieval history that no one really knows who he is, but they know his famous. Who is John of Gaunt? Why is he important to Chaucer? So John of Gaunt fourth son of Edward III. Chaucer probably met him when he was working for Elizabeth. We know they were at the same place then. And John of Gaunt was so important really mainly because so when

Edward III died, his eldest son had predeceased him. So his grandson, the 10 year old, Richard II, becomes King. Obviously a 10 year old can't really become King. Can't do much. So his uncle, John of Gaunt, was the one who was really in charge. So John of Gaunt was really running things. The Regent. Yeah, not officially, but was largely running things. So from 1377 for several years, John of Gaunt had also married Blanche of Lancaster, who was the greatest

eras in the kingdom. So we now often talk about the Duchy of Lancaster. So this is when the Lancaster lands start coming into the royal family. So John then becomes Duke of Lancaster, but he has all this wealth, as I say, not only because he's son of the King, but because he made a

“very good marriage. And the role of women is really important. So John later, after Blanche's death,”

and Blanche's death was the occasion of Chaucer's first poem that we know about. The book

of the Duchess was about Blanche's death. John of Gaunt then made another important marriage to someone called Constance of Castile, the the daughter of the King of Castile. But the person he loved was Catherine Swinford. Catherine Swinford was Chaucer's sister in law. Phillipa's sister. Yes, Phillipa's sister Catherine, who would be married to Swinford, who was a retainer of John of Gaunt. After Swinford died, we think after he died. John of Gaunt and Catherine

started a long, long relationship. So she was his mistress for 20 years. Right. They had four illegitimate children. And then right towards the end of Gaunt's life late 1390s. He married his mistress. Now no one did that. Duke did not do that. Mary's mistress, who's relatively unimportant. They've got four illegitimate children. He gets the legitimate, the children, retrospectively

legitimated. Nice. But Parliament put in a clause saying that they could never use that

legitimation to give them a right to the throne. Okay. Nonetheless, all of our monarchs, since Henry the 7th, only have a right to the throne through those children. The Beaufort. We need to change them. So Chaucer was a connection with John of Gaunt, partly on his own merits. He'd met him when he was in service. John of Gaunt gave him lots of jobs, but they stayed closely connected because of this sexual relationship between Gaunt and Chaucer's sister-in-law. And that

probably encouraged John of Gaunt to help Chaucer. He gave him lots of jobs. He was the one in charge when Chaucer got his apartment in London, his job at the Customs Office. He kept on favoring him. And you know, things were very relaxed at this time in terms of kind of sexual morays. So

his illegitimate children, Catherine's legitimate children that she had had with her husband.

“They were all associating together. And it meant that when Gaunt's son, Henry the Fourth”

later becomes King, he's favoring Chaucer's children, as well as his illegitimate half. Because they're almost half siblings, almost. They're all hanging out grown-up together. There's a commune of existence. Yeah. Exactly.

You said the book of the Duchess is Chaucer's first poem. This is fairly mid-laged, Jeffrey Chaucer.

You know, he's kind of far along his career. Yeah, I mean, the book of the Duchess is the first poem that has survived. So he may have written earlier poems. He may have written poems in French when he was younger. That's right. You know, most people are writing in French. But the earliest poem that has survived, yeah, he's around 30, early 1370s. And then he was just prolific. You know, he wrote so much. And today, people have often only heard of the Canterbury Tales. But he wrote

so much else. So from the early 1370s to mid-1380s, he writes several dream poems. So the book of the Duchess, the House of Fame, the Parliament of Files, the Legend of Good Women. He translates both this is constellation of philosophy from Latin into English. Wow. He translates parts of the romance of the Rose. He writes lots of short poems and lyrics. He writes some of the Canterbury Tales as standalone texts that then later he put into the Canterbury. Oh, the nice

tale, for example. Exactly, most famously, the night's tale. So he's writing in English. Whereas it would, although some people were writing in English, it would have been more normal, especially for a court poet. Someone writing kind of courtly forms, you know, love visions, dreams. It would be more normal to write in French. Yeah. He's also very influenced by the world around him.

“There's this idea that you need both, you know, you need to read the books, he's steeped in”

literary influences from all kinds of places. But he's also interested in contemporary society. And I think he does take a lot of, a lot of inspiration from the things that are going on around him. So we can link things like his great interest in different voices in the common voice. We might link that to things like the development of the speaker, in Parliament at time, that at the time, which is Son became of course. Yeah, exactly. So there's a movement at the time

to allow one person to speak for others, to allow ordinary people to speak more in Parliament, in petitions, in that kind of world. And then, you know, this is also the time when we see insurgent voices, which can be productive, but can also be really problematic. So the great revolt, usually known as the peasant revolt, though it wasn't really many peasants. It was lots of different people. But that also happens during the process of lifetime. And the rebels, indeed,

came into London through Old Gate. And he lived in an apartment over Old Gate over that gate. Yeah. So this is a man who has survived the black death, fought in the hundred years war,

and then his literary necks door, when the peasants revolt happens. He's basically forest gump. He's

“seeing the entire 40th century. Just keeps happening to him. Is that what Tyler? Yeah, what Tyler?”

There you go. What Tyler? And obviously, you know, famously rich of the second rides out and says, you have no other captain than I. You don't know that. And he also ends up in a courtroom battle in 1379. Mike, do you know why? 1379. This one's not a famous one. So you don't know. Okay. You don't need to sort of. So it's not going to be, I don't know, what would it be over? It's usually, usually have a money, right? Yeah. I wonder if someone's made off with his old

pole tox. Oh, someone's nicked leggings. Yeah. Yeah. I wish it were that. Yeah. I mean, Marion, this is, we're going to have to rewrite our medieval episode of Law and Order. This is a, this is quite interesting. There was a time few years ago where Jeffrey Chaucer was quite controversial because of this case. Yes. And now we can remove the sort of sting of toxic cancellation because he's, he's innocent, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a really interesting case.

It's also really interesting in terms of letting us know what's still out there to find in the records. So this is a case in which Chaucer was essentially accused of something called raptus in Latin, which in different cases is sometimes abduction is sometimes rape, sexual rape. So a woman called Cecilia Champaign released him from further actions relating to her raptus. And for a long time, you know, there were a lot of historians and literary critics who

were really, really keen to emphasize that this could not possibly have been rape. We're very invested in the idea that this poet who we loved could not have been a rapeist. Yeah. And then there were others who became very invested in the idea that he must have been a rapeist. That we must believe women and accept that someone could be a great poet and a rapist. And of course, someone could be a great poet and a rapist. Yeah. But there was a lot to debate about what the

word and the document meant because in some documents, it means abduction and abduction was not always

own will but then because their family want to get them back, they call it abduction. Lots of

“complicated things going on. But a couple of years ago, and this is how exciting the world of”

chores and studies is. So two scholars, Sebastian Specky and you and Roger found some new documents. And what they found was that Cecilia Champaign and Trossa were on the same side of this law case and they were both defendants together and they employed the same lawyer. Right. And then they found the ret which was that the someone called Thomas Stondon was making a lawsuit against the two of them. What had happened according to Stondon was that Cecilia had been his servant and she had left

for the end of her contract to go and be Chaucer's servant. So this was a labour dispute. Sure. And the reason then that Cecilia would release him from any actions relating to a rapist

would be that she was saying no I was not forcibly removed from my former employer because it's

much it would be much harder to make a case against Trossa and Cecilia if she was saying you know I what this this didn't happen forcibly I wasn't forced away from the service because then all they have to do is defend the contract the contract probably wasn't written down. It was easier to say well I left and then was employed. But these documents did as I say it demonstrated they were on the same side and that this was something that was brought under the statute of labourers. So going back

to talking earlier about the play. Yeah. The statutes of labourers had brought in a lot more legislation to make it harder for people to leave their employers for higher wages. Of course. And Jeffrey was offering higher wages. Yes. Exactly. We can uncancelled Jeffrey Chaucer. That's good. And there you go proof that being a historian is a very exciting job. Absolutely. And you know it's so many records still haven't been looked out. I'll still there the actual arc. In the national arc you found. There's a lot

“there. Yeah. Fabulous. I think it's time for us to move on to his most famous poem. It's time for us to”

get to the Canterbury Tales. Mike without further ado could you just recite the Canterbury Tales for us please? Or the list. Yeah just give us all the books and also just if you could just start with the poetry just give us the book. And the night's tale we've talked about obviously you've got your pilgrims. Yeah. Barbades. Barbade too. You a horse whisperer. And then. Oh, I think there is the summannas. Is there summannas or there's something like that? There's one of my sister told

me about years ago that I can barely remember it's a bit. Horse whisperer I love all of you. That might be real. You've done pretty well there I think. I mean Marion, can you give us an actual synopsis of what is the Canterbury Tales? A group of people meet, they meet in the Tabardin which was a real pub just south of the river in southern Great. They're all going off on pilgrimage to Canterbury and they decide that you know to make it less boring so they don't just have to think

about pilgrimage and god all the time. They're going to tell stories on the way there, on the way back and they're going to compete for a free meal. And the hosts, the Inkeeper Harry Bailey is going to run this tale telling competition. So you get this kind of group of people together who are all going to tell stories but it's really different from the catchyos and the big difference is the nature of the tale tellers. So the catchyos tale tellers are all of the same class which is

high class. Chorces are not to the highest class person is the night who's not that high and there is a plowman at the bottom. The vast majority are in between so you know we have a summoner, a fire, a merchant, a man of law, a lawyer, a sailor, a cook, all of the miller. Yeah, the miller, the real, all of these kinds of people. So that's really, really important. The idea that a miller has just as much a right to tell a tale as a night are might tell a better tale. So it allows

Chorces to tell lots of different kinds of tales and lots of different genres, lots of different forms. So you really do get this this kind of sense that there's something for everyone who wins competition. It's unfinished. Ah come on Jeffrey. Chorces hated finishing things. You really hated it

“and I think it's because if you finish something you kind of have to give it a meaning. You have to say”

this is what it means, this is the winner, this is and he hated that. So most of his poems are unfinished or stagially overfinished in such a ridiculous way that it doesn't give you a resolution.

Yeah. So they don't get to country. Never mind get back home. Oh brilliant. Yeah. I mean that's good.

I feel like so much had finished the canopy tales. We should have a modern ending somehow. Some scribes did that. So the only scripts you get people who change the order so they have them get to country. They write things that happen in country. They turn them back around, they add bits in. Yeah, what would they, would they credit themselves? Well, they try and pretend that this is the original Chorces. Well, in a way it's neither because they're not, they're not making it over,

but also it was such a normal thing to do to add different things in my scripts.

Okay fine. Which ones are not by Joseph? Yeah. And the interesting thing of course is

you said the hierarchy, the night goes first. Yeah. And then so who butts in next? The Miller.

Right. And so the night is the person of highest secular non-religious estate. Yeah. And so he tells the first the first story after kind of a fixed lottery. And then the host says, "Okay, well, the monk, the person of highest religious class should tell the next story." And then the Miller says, "No, no, no, no." And the Miller is very drunk, and he says, "I could have tell you a great story. I'm going to go next," you know.

You presumably have done a lot of travelling to gigs in cars with other comedians. Yeah, yeah. There's this feel very familiar. Oh, completely. I mean, I do a podcast with Henry Packer. Yeah. Yeah, I would. He's a mighty storyteller. Really. It's brilliant literature. And it's also very, as you say, it's funny.

Some of the stories are kind of beautiful, some of them are quite sort of moving. Yeah. But there is that rudeness, that raucousness, there are fart jokes, there are naughty, you know,

“there's something for everyone. But I think what's very important now is that we hear some”

middle English. Chaucer is writing in English, but it's not the English that we are using today. Cool. And I think the best person to do this would be, of course, a classically trained actor, such a kind of life. I don't know what you're laughing. I mean, I think if you as a consumer professional. Oh, sure. Mike, would you like to turn over the page in front of you and read us some middle English, please? Oh, wow. Okay. And we're just going to go into it.

Fine. Okay. Wish me luck. They're south. He first did their game,

imagining. Oh, felony and all the composing. The Kruli, the red, this and the green. The Picross and the pale Dred is smear with knife and dirt of the cloak. The ship nebrimming with the blackest mocker. Oh, I enjoyed that very much. That was really good. What was the accident you went for there? It was sort of, it went a bit sort of offensive Danish. In the end. Yeah, there was a slight scandinwo, I'm not feeling to it. But I thought it was quite good. Really good.

That's a Marion, would you like to give us the official pronunciation? They're sorely first, the dark imagining of felony and all the composing. The Kruli are lead as any lead. The Picross and Eek, the pale Dreda. The smeller with the knif under the cloaker. The ship nebrimming with the blackest smokeer. Now, then, we heard Picross pickpocket. Yeah. We heard, can you? Yeah. Yeah. There are words in there that we can all kind of go, oh, yeah.

Yeah. And there are some words that you go, what? Yeah. And some of them, when you see it. So, instead of saying pale, pale, because the vowels have shifted, the great vowel shift has changed those kinds of things. Or instead of 'I', you say 'E'. So, a mix of kind of saying it and reading it can often make

“it much more comprehensible. But I think, to this is a, I think, a really interesting passage.”

So, it's from the night's tail. When you're, it's talking about kind of dark elements of life. But that line of the smileer with the knife under the cloaker. Yeah. That idea of hidden, hidden treachery coming. But also, part of this is a depiction of war. But it's so Temple of Mars. But it's the war that Chaucer would have known. So, the idea of the, the scorched earth, the the shepherds' huts being, being burnt. Yeah. So, the kind of war which he took part in,

which was often not pitched battle. But was attacking the countryside. It was a shepherds' huts. It was a shepherds' huts. Yeah. But the dark imagining of felony is great, isn't it? It's beautiful. But might it brilliantly, I mean, impressive. It did really well, Mike. That was excellent. What were the comedians' tail be in the storytelling competition, Mike? The comedians. Oh, well, well, well, we're be of, of the worst gig. Those were the most, many, guys. That's one of the heckle of my, that's, that's, yeah,

in the green room or whatever. That's, that's when everyone's shushes and just, and everyone leans in, when there's a really nut, I can go and really, really badly. So, it's not the stormy gigs. It's not the ones where you've absolutely killed one, I don't want to hear that. No, no, no, that, that, that comic is, it's being boating out. Oh, immediately. It's, it's, it's the real stinker. Okay, so the, yes. There's the one where the audience here, people were following you out to do violence upon you,

“running to the car park. Yeah, it's locking the doors. Marion, why is the country tales so important?”

Both as a literary work and also in terms of our sense of the English language. Espos, in terms of language, Chaucer borrows and coins a lot of new, new words. Now, of course, sometimes, that's simply been recorded because his, his work is so well known, but he certainly was expanding the English language a lot in the country tales and in his other works as well. You know, my favorite example is that he was so new, fangled that he invented the word new, fangled.

Oh, lovely. He also changed what poetic forms were available in English. So, he was the first

person to use the 10 syllable line and to use an early form of the Ayambic pentameter. So, the five stress line that became the fundamental building block of English poetry. So, that's hugely important. In terms of content, the country bootails really affirms the idea that we shouldn't just

classes of both sexes, of all different kinds of people. And he's really the master of juxtaposition

of those different kinds of voices and of different kinds of stories. So, we have, you know, a serious saint's life and philosophy, but also these extremely rude stories in which, you know, people have sex in a tree or stick their bombs out of the window or divide up a fart into 12.

“That's the one my sister told me about. Yeah, exactly. I remember here. So, this kind of fabulous juxtaposition”

of all kinds of different things can be part of literature. Yeah, absolutely. And also, you're on the way in today, you said that we still use juicerian meter in our ordinary speech. Yeah, I mean, the way that we talk is Ayambic often. So, I want to go and have a cup of tea. Now, so partly Ayambic pentameter works because it's a natural way that we talk. And partly, we've become used to that as a poetic mode. So, that is how our stress patterns work in speech.

I mean, as I say, it's not only sourcing that, of course, Ayambic pentameter is developed much more by later poets, but that kind of heartbeat rhythm is really fundamental to how we talk. So, Chorses writing in English and that is why he is the father of the English language in many ways. And obviously, you said Ayambic pentameter, that's Shakespeare later on. But we need to move on with Chorses later life, is he just constantly writing until the end of his life or is it based?

No, he writes all of his life. So, most of the country retails are written in the 1390s, which is also when he writes his treatise on the Australia, he re-writes a prologue language of good women, he writes lots of short poems. And he's working. So, we see him working throughout the '90s. In 1399 Henry IV, the son of John of Gord, he serps the throne from Richard

the Second of his cousin. But Chorses has great connections with both sides. So, he's been connected

with Gord and Gord's household or his life as we've already talked about. But he's also been employed by Richard. So, he weathered that storm and we see him getting his allowances renewed and increased by Henry towards the end of his life, he's living in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, which was not necessarily a religious thing. I mean, there were lots of shops and brothels and

“things like that in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. But he's living at that's why he gets buried”

there because he lives there, not because poets won't really live there. Yeah, there was no poet's corner at the time. It's just his local church. Yeah, I mean, it would have been more normal for him to have been buried in some Margaret's Westminster. He must have had a good relationship with the monks for them to bury him there. But it's because he lives there and it's later his tomb gets moved and poets corner get started. But, yeah, certainly in the last year of his life, we see him

writing a poem to the new king asking for his money. Oh, great. Yeah. So, his final literary work is titled Cash Plays. If actually it's cool, what's the name of the poem? Yeah, complaint to his person. A complaint to his purse. Good. I mean, Mike, as a dad, you must get plenty of that from your kids. You're a little bit plain to the point. Yeah, yeah. Please, Dad. Wonderful. I think all invoices should be titled, complaint to the purse. Oh, yeah. Yes, there's freelancers. I think

“we're all familiar with that. Yeah, come on. I've done the gig high up. So, he died on Christmas”

day, 1400, which we don't know no. Oh, come on. Let's have it. No, no. We don't know the day that he died. The date of his death is traditionally given in October, 1400. Oh, really? Yeah. But that's just because that's when he doesn't get his allowance. We don't know. That's when the records tell us he's not there anymore. So we died before that point, but we don't know the date. Yeah, because he died, he's given the full groceries. I'm just going to say he can't sell because he was going to sell.

Literally your dead to me and then he's like literally dead. So, he dies in 1400. All right.

Okay. Oh, bye. The end of October. A nice round number, though. Well done, Jeffrey. First. Yeah.

Yeah. He basically saw the whole 14th century and went that enough of that. Thank you. I mean, yeah. I mean, I'm that eventually accomplished all the highlights. The obvious thing to say, Marion, is that he died 76 years before the printing press came to England. So, Caxton famously brings over a sort of flamish printing press and prints the English things for the first time. So how come Chaucer's work is so embedded? It's so successful. How come he's so

popular if this was not circulating in print? Yeah. So Chaucer was writing in London English, right, in the East Midland dialect and around London. So that gives him an advantage because his work is circulating around the capital. This is when standard English starts to develop in in chance to resume bureaucratic documents and then it's also the language that Caxton does won't mainly to publish it. So he's got an advantage there. People really liked his work.

I mean, it was really good, right? It's not just the luck of circumstances. It was also brilliant. People loved it. And so we see from early on in the 15th century, other poets promoting his work, calling him Father Chaucer. So hot cleave, lit gate. The early 15th century poets are talking about him and trying to write poetry that imitated Chaucer's poetry though it wasn't as good.

Tales. There's more than 80, which is a lot for the 80. Wow. That's incredible. And then

“Caxton is the first big book that he publishes is the Canterbury Tales. And then a few years later”

he prints a second edition because he's got a better manuscript. So he prints another edition. Everyone went on loving it. So when we look at the history of English literature, you can see references to or the influence of Chaucer in every single one of Shakespeare's plays. When you get to modernism, you know, the opening of the wasteland, April is the coolest month. It's an inversion of the opening line of the Canterbury Tales when the Tapro with his sure

is sweet. Just a couple of years ago, you know, Zady Smith writes her wife of Willsden based on the wife of his prologente. We see him just all through English literature right up to the present. Amazing. So that's the life of Jeffrey Chaucer. Wow. Quite the life, quite the sort of literary history, really. But you want to win, though! Time now for the nuanced window. This is where Mike and I spend two minutes

silently inspecting ditches while Marion turns a new page and tells us something we need to know about Jeffrey Chaucer. So my stopwatch is ready. Take it away, Professor Marion. I'm going to talk about Chaucer and character. So when people think of Chaucer, they often think about his characters, the wife of Bath, the Miller, the Knight, the Host. And Chaucer did to

really significant things with literary character. First of all, he developed the idea of the

unreliable narrator. So in many of his poems, the person telling the story is biased and with holds part of the story. Or let's their prejudices come through in the telling. So they're not objective. And the idea of unreliable narration was to become a really key part of the novel. We see it especially in modern novels such as LaLita, for example. Chaucer shows us

“that what we see is dependent on where we are standing. And I think this interest in perspective”

can be linked to the rise of artistic perspective at exactly this time. Chaucer would have seen Jotto's art, for instance, when he traveled in Italy. So he's really interested in using literary character to explore subjectivity and ambiguity. Secondly, he made his character as much more 3D than previous characters in literature, especially his female characters. The wife of Bath is based on characters from Latin and French texts, who were stereotypes, cynical old prostitutes.

Chaucer's version is far more nuanced. She's much funnier and more appealing. She has a memory and a sense of the future. She talks about domestic violence and rape, and she talks explicitly about the lack of female voices in literature. In Charleston, Crusade 2, Chaucer changes the character of the heroine. In Becatio's ill-thlostratoe, Chaucer's source, Crusade is a fickle, promiscuous betrayer. Chaucer, though, shows us the powerlessness and vulnerability of Crusade's

situation, reveals the plans of her thought and her constrained options, makes her a much more rounded and sympathetic character. He's interested in depicting characters complexity and interiority, especially women's. Other authors sometimes disapproved of this. In the 15th century, Henryston wrote a sequel to Troilis and Crusade, in which Crusade is punished by becoming a prostitute with a venereal disease. Later artists such as Pierre Paolo Paselini turned

the wife of Bath into a monstrous stereotype. Chaucer's concern with depicting complex female characters is one of his great achievements and makes him stand out both from his contemporaries

and from many of his successes. Amazing, thank you so much. Lovely. There we go, Jeffrey Chaucer.

Amazing. We often say Shakespeare writes great female characters, but Chaucer was doing it 200 years earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the unreliable narrator thing. That's yeah, I'm going to have a deep dive. Yeah, I love what we talked about that in our ago, the Christy episode, another great literary sort of giant and her notion of the writer who's actually leading you down, but he's already doing it in the 1380s.

Yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting and that whole sense of perspective of shifting, you know, how do you see things? Really fundamental to Chaucer's poetry. Nice. Pretty good, Jeffrey Chaucer, isn't he? He sounds good. I'm going to have to have a bit of a

“raise, doesn't it? Yeah. I think, yeah, thank you. And I think you can read it in the authentic”

little bit. Oh, no problem. Oh, no problem. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, no problem. We've got that down. Yeah, the master class, yeah. So what do you know now? Okay, well it's time now for the support you know now. This is our quickfire quiz for Mike to see how much he has learned. Okay. Mike, you are famously good at quizzes. You are. Well, I've done a thing I've done okay in a couple of your quizzes. Yes,

generally your pub quiz, not not so much. Well, this is not a pub quiz. pub quiz, I'm a deadweight pub quiz. I'm like I'm going to get some more crisps. Okay, yeah. All right. I've got 10 questions for you. Okay. Question one. What business was Jeffrey Chaucer's father in? He was a wine merchant question two. What is the first documentary evidence that we have for Chaucer's life? Oh, Oh, crumbs, crumbs, crumbs.

Uh, I think clothes. It was the poll talk. Yes. The crazy, uh, leggings. Yeah, revealing,

during the hundred years war? He was sent to war. He was captured and ransomed for 16 pounds.

“16 pounds, bargain. Question four. What was the name of Jeffrey Chaucer's wife?”

Philippa. It was Philippa de Roe. Yeah. Question five. What was Chaucer's connection to the

powerful John of Gaunt. So, Philippa's sister was John of Gaunt's squeeze within the

four illegitimate later illegitimate children. And he was his sort of benefactor. His goes to Guy. His, uh, he was the, the wizard's sleeve. Fuck his up which, uh, Jeffrey, um, disappeared. That's a, that's a weird analogy, but okay. Yeah, question go. Question six. Name two jobs. Chaucer had while in royal service. He was an inspector of walls and ditches. He was deputy foreign. He was very good. And of course, he did the tariff London, diplomat negotiator,

control of the wall trade. Yeah. Question seven. What is the framing narrative of the Canterbury tales? It's taken from the idea of, of 10 tales, told by 10 tales of us, at 10 tales. It's a, it's a, it's a bunch of guys are going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. They don't want it to be boring. So they all, they'll, they'll tell her tales and they have

a competition to see who will win and that goes first followed by Miller. We don't know who wins.

We don't know who wins. Ah, so they don't make it. Question eight. Name two of the story tellers in the Canterbury tales. Uh, you've got the millers tale. Yeah. The nights we've already mentioned pilgrim tellers. Absolutely. Not a lot of lovely one. None, priorist could wife of bath physician's tale. Question nine. What new evidence tells us about Chorcer and Cessaly champagne. Oh, uh, it was a, label of spute. They, they were codependents.

“And this for a perfect 10, Mike, what was Chorcer's final poem about? Do you remember the name?”

Oh, it was about money. Yeah. A complaint to the person. It was very good. Well done. The perfect 10 out 10 lovin' down. Well done, Mike. You are super sweet. This is why we book here. I love it. Thank you

so much, Marion, as well. Thank you. Really enlightening. Really interesting. And, uh, listener,

if you want more literary history, you can check out Mike's earlier episodes on our theory and literature, which is an absolute hoot or Charles Dickens at Christmas. Of course, I got the Christy episode too. We mentioned, we've just got the episode, the live episode done at Hay Festival about printing a medieval England, where we mentioned Chorcer. And for more 14th century lives, we have our travel episode about Ibn Batuta. It's a very interesting guy. If you've enjoyed the

podcast, please share the show with your friends, subscribe to your dead to me on BBC Sounds to hear new episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. And if you're outside the UK, you can listen at BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. But just like to say, huge thank you to our guests. In history corner, we have the marvelous Professor Marion Turner from the University of Oxford. Thank you, Marion. Oh, I've loved it. Thank you for having me. It was lovely having you here. And

thank you for reading Middle English, so beautifully. And in comedy corner, we had the magnificent Middle English a poet himself. Mike was the egg. Thank you, Mike. Thanks, I'm back. I've had a joyous time. Brilliant. Yeah, we learned a lot in my. And so you lovely listener, join me next time as we'd read another chapter from the big your dead to me book of history. But for now, I'm off to go and drag people out of the pub and force them to walk to Canterbury while I

regal them with the podcast as tail. It's very long and very rude. Bye! Your dead to me is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4. This episode was researched by Rosalind Sklar. It was written by Dr. Emmy Rose Price Good Fellow, Dr. Emma Negose and me, the audio producer with Steve Hanky and our production coordinator was Jill Huggett. It was produced by Dr. Emmy Rose Price Good Fellow, me and senior producer,

Dr. Emma Negose and our executive editor was Philip Sellers. Greg will be bringing a live version of the your dead to me podcast to theatres around the UK this spring. You can join him in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester, and for more information and ticket details go to your dead to me live.com. I'm Sharival and I've been investigation

“fraud for decades. Now I'm shining light on the secret techniques criminals use to steal your money.”

Within sight from guest experts and the real people involved in these scams, so you can see the fraudsters coming before it's too late. That's the new series of scams secrets. Listen, now, on BBC sounds. History this week, February 1905, a quiet morning at the rail yard until the ground gives way, an entire locomotive is swallowed whole. It is another setback for an audacious project

to tunnel under the Hudson River. And today, 115 years later, these tunnels are a national emergency waiting to happen. Listen to history this week from the history channel wherever you get your podcasts.