38 Sir Geoffrey Chaucer 



Ben vcrray king, this song to you I sende ; 

 And ye, that mowen al our harm amende, 

 Have minde upon my supplicacioun ! 



Chaucer's envoy is more in the vein of such demands as 

 Deschamps sometimes made upon his patrons (cf. Skeat's 

 remarks above, p. 33, and Deschamps, Oeuvres 11. 32 ff., 256, 

 300).^" The phrase, 'Brutes Albioun,' too, seems to repose on 

 reminiscences of Deschamps, who introduces both words, and 

 variants of them ('Albie,' etc.), not only in his poem addressed 

 to Chaucer (2. 138-140; cf. Oxford Chaucer i. Ivi-lvii^'), but 

 elsewhere (i. 106-7, 318; 2. 33; 3. no; 6. 87; 7. 244-5). I" 

 the rhymes with Alhio{u)n, Latin derivatives are usually, and 

 almost necessarily employed, as by Chaucer here (i. 317-8; 3. 

 109-10; 6.133-4; 7.244-5; hut Bullion, T,. no; Lion, y. 244). 



IX. SIR GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



Would not the poet, from August, 1386, have been entitled 

 to the above designation? On the 6th of that month, a writ was 

 addressed to the Sheriff of Kent, requiring him to have 'duos 

 Milites, gladiis cinctos, magis idoneos et discretos,' chosen as 

 knights of the shire, whereupon he returned William Betenham 

 as the one knight, and Chaucer as the other. ^ Other testimony, 

 some of it more dubious on account of its lateness, is as follows : 



I. Bale, in 154S, calls Chaucer 'eques auratus.'- and Leland 

 (ca. 1545) had written 'De Gallofrido Chaucero, Equite.''' 



"The first two lines are illustrated by Gower's Cronica Tripartafa 



3- 322-5 : 



Unde coronatur trino de jure probatur, 



Regnum conquestat, que per hoc sibi jus manifestat; 



Regno succedit heres, nee ab inde recedit ; 



Insuper eligitur a plebe que sic stabilitur. 



Cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 3. 11-12. 



" Critical edition by Jenkins, Mod. Lang. Notes 33. 268. 437. 



^ Kirk, Life-Records IV, pp. 261-2. 



"Hammond, Chaucer, p. 8. Pits (1619) has: 'Ipse tandem auratus 



factus est Eques' (ibid., p. 13). Phillips (1674) calls him 'Sir Geoff ry 



Chaucer' and 'Knight' (ibid., p. 36). 



^ Spurgeon, Fiz>e Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticisni and Allusion, 



p. 87. 



