Kuhl — Chaucer's Burgesses. 
665 
(Essex), and elsewhere. 1 Dyke owned lands in Kent, and 
likewise had a brewery. 2 All three were residents in the 
same parish. 3 
To repeat, in conclusion, it must have impressed the 
reader that the four guilds selected by Chaucer are of the 
same rank,—strikingly so. They are not the smallest com¬ 
panies, nor are they the largest. But they are the largest 
that were not involved in the political squabbles of the day. 
All this, of course, is significant in showing that Chaucer’s 
choice was deliberate. 4 
It is convenient here, before passing on to more general 
matters, to interpret some of the lines in the description of 
the burgesses. In the discussion of Aldermen 5 I assumed 
that the allusion in lines 371-2 6 was political. Since another 
interpretation has been the accepted one, 7 it will be neces¬ 
sary to take this matter up in detail. To discuss the point, 
however, we must first of all dispose of the two preceding 
lines: 
Wei semed ech of hem a fair burgeys 
To sitten in a yeldehalle on a deys. 8 
Professor Skeat thought this referred to the banquets which 
the various guilds held from time to time in their guildhalls. 9 
He was unaware of the fact, however, that the Common 
Council of the City held its meetings in the Guildhall (mod¬ 
ern “City Hall”). 10 Before rejecting Skeat let us render the 
1 Cal of Wills, etc., p. 3il. 
2 Ibid., p. 369. 
3 S. Dionisius Backchurch. For a list of other tapicers who lived in this 
parish see Ibid., pp. 41, 131, 179. 
4 This is entirely in keeping with Chaucer’s method throughout. Pro¬ 
fessor Skeat has pointed out (Yol. V. p. 36), that Chaucer’s pilgrims were 
of a “superior estate.” Professor G. L. Kittredge in his brilliant study on 
Chaucer and his Poetry (Harvard University Press, 1915, p. 32) states that 
Chaucer always had such “stupendous luck” in seeing the best. 
5 See supra. 
6 Everich for the wisdom that he kan 
Was shaply for to been an alderman. 
7 See reference to Hinckley, infra. 
3 369-370. 
9 Vol. V. p. 36. 
10 The earliest reference to “Guildhall” is in 1269. ( A Descriptive Account 
of the Guildhall of the City of London by J. E. Price, London, 1886, p.45). 
Two additional references to the City Hall in Chaucer’s day—“Gyhalde” 
(Life Records, p. 191), “Guyldehall” (Rot. Pari., III. p. 225)—furnish 
variants in spelling. 
