During the Middle Ages, there was no public health service. The rich governors of Britain's towns did not see public health as their responsibility, and did not provide clean water or sewage disposal facilities. Instead, cesspits often existed side by side. This meant that water-based germs and parasites were common. Butchers and traders dumped waste into the streets and rivers, and streams often became choked with sewage. Cesspits were often not emptied. Although there was some medical knowledge that this situation was not healthy, little was done until the outbreak of plague in 1348.
The Black Death is the name given to a disease called the bubonic plague. The Black Death was caused by fleas carried by rats that were very common in towns and cities. The fleas bit into their victims literally injecting them with the disease. Death could be very quick for the weaker victims.
Its symptoms were described in 1348 by a man called Boccaccio who lived in Florence, Italy: The first signs of the plague were lumps in the groin or armpits. After this, discolored black spots appeared on the arms and thighs and other parts of the body. Almost all died within three days, usually without any fever.
Up to 33% of the British population died during the plague. Because of this devastation, King Edward III ordered the Lord Mayor to take action. Streets were to be cleaned, and plague victims to be isolated. By the 1370s, laws banned rubbish from being thrown into the street. These laws were not strictly keeping up, however, and contagious disease was still a problem.
Nobody seemed to care about hygiene in the Middle Ages. There were dirty germs in the streets, which is why many people caught diseases. Everything was dirty and I would think that the smell would be very foul. It is hard to understand that people could be roaming around on the streets with such a great amount of filth.
PEASANTS
In a medieval society, the vast majority of people are peasants. They are employed in farming, and either own or rent land. The ones who own land will have a slightly higher status than those who are just tenants, but they will still generally owe some form of service to their local lord, mostly in the form of labour.
Very few people cared about the poor in Medieval England and the lifestyle of peasants was harsh with no services available to them if things went wrong. Although, a local monastery or convent might help though this. The peasants were at the bottom of the Feudal System and had to obey their local lord to whom they had sworn an oath of obedience on the Bible.
The one thing the peasant had to do in Medieval England was to pay out money in taxes or rent. He had to pay rent for his land to his lord; he had to pay a tax to the church called a tithe. This was a tax on all of the farm produce he had produced in that year. The church collected so much produce from this tax that it had to be stored in huge tithe barns. Some of these barns can still be seen today. Peasants also had to work for free on church land. This was very difficult as this time could have been used by the peasant to work on their own land. However, the power of the church was so big that no-one dared break this rule.
Peasants lived in cruck houses. These had a wooden frame onto which was plastered wattle and daub. Families would have cooked and slept in the same room. Children would have slept in a loft if the cruck house was big enough. For all peasants, life was "nasty, brutal and short."
Life was very hard for the peasants. It was a great difference to how much the bishops worked. In recent times there is not such a difference. The poor had to live through a hard life, in which all they had to do was work. They were ordered like slaves and didn’t have any luxuries. They had short lives, which are very different to ours.
CHAUCER
Chaucer was a writer and a bureaucrat. He was the outstanding English poet before William Shakespeare. Chaucer is remembered as the author of Canterbury Tales, which is known as one of the greatest works of world literature. Chaucer made an important role to English literature in using English at a time, when most poetry was written in Anglo-Norman or Latin. He spent one or two periods of is time in disrespect and unpopularity.
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London. His name came from a French origin. He was the son of a wealthy wine merchant, and he had a wife called Agnes. Much is known of his early education, but his works show that he could read French, Latin, and Italian. Chaucer had the early life of many English children, but when he turned eight, he was a very "rare" English child. He grew up in London, England in the mid-1300s. He had a childhood, which was later mentioned in his work, but it is not known if it was true. When Chaucer was about eight to eleven years old, he went under the King, Edward III’s, ruling as a junior page at Westminster Abbey. When Chaucer was about sixteen, he took some time off of the royal family and went to a school. However, the school is unknown but it probably was attached to a city church.
In 1359-1360 Chaucer went to France with Edward III's army during the Hundred Years' War. He was captured and he then returned to England after the treaty in 1360. There is no certain information of his life from 1361 until 1366, when he maybe married Philippa Roet, who was one of Queen Philippa's ladies. Philippa apparently gave him two sons: Lewis and Thomas. They were later highly successful in public service. Philippa died in 1387. After her death, He was in the King's service, held a many positions at court, and spent some time in Spain.
Between 1367 and 1378 Chaucer made several journeys abroad on political and commercial missions. In 1374 he became a government official at the port of London. During that time he was charged with rape, but if he was guilty or not has never been discovered. In 1385 he lost his employment and his free home, and moved to Kent where he was chosen as justice of the peace. He was also elected to Parliament. This was a period of great creativity for Chaucer. In this time he produced most of his best poetry.
When his wife died, Chaucer was sued for debt. Several of his friends were executed by the Parliament. In 1389 Richard II regained control and Chaucer re-entered the service of the crown, to conserve and repair governmental buildings in and out of London. In the late 1390s he received royal gifts and pensions.
His works ranged from short poems about his kids, to giant storybooks with many different poems on the same topic.
Chaucer died in London on October 25, 1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the part of the church which afterwards was called Poet's Corner. A monument was built to remember him in 1555.
Chaucer’s Works
Chaucer took his inspiration for his works from several sources. Many of these were Italian authors. He might have read their works on his travels to Italy.
His first narrative poem, The Book of the Duchess, was probably written in September 1369. It was based largely on French sources.
Chaucer did not begin working on the Canterbury Tales until he was in his early 40s. The book was left unfinished when the he died. It depicts a pilgrimage of 30 people, who are going on a spring day in April to the shrine of the St. Thomas à Becket. Throughout the journey they amuse themselves by telling stories. In the group of pilgrims, there was a knight, a monk, a prioress, a plowman, a miller, a merchant, a clerk, and an widowed wife from Bath.
The rhyming verse was written in Middle English, an old form of the language we use today. Chaucer's style and techniques have been copied through centuries. Shakespeare even borrowed his plot for the drama.
My Opinions
Geoffrey Chaucer led an amazing life, from serving the King, to being the Father of English poetry. I think he was a true and worthy English poet. I think that this is because he affected the world of poetry in many ways. He had some ups and downs in his life but he never stopped writing. I also think that he had quite a lucky life. He wasn’t an ordinary person, and he was mostly supported by the King. He had many things that normal people could not have. I think that Chaucer achieved great things in this life, and might have influenced the English that we speak today.
I think that he is extraordinary, not only because he was a great author, but because he wrote poems in English, in a time when nearly everything was written in French or Latin. I think that this makes him different to other authors.
