Geoffrey Chaucer
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This extract is from https://gardenandhappy.com/medlar/ “….Great writers such as Shakespeare and Chaucer used medlars to convey the loss of womanly virtue. In The Honest Whore, Thomas Dekker wrote: “Women are like medlars, no sooner ripe but rotten”. Hmm, that bit about “no sooner ripe but rotten” is more likely to apply to the male of the species. As soon…
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Treasure buried in fields and discovered centuries later are always in the news these days. These are usually coins, of course, but also jewellery, including posy rings. A posy ring was found in Wales very recently so I was interested to then read about the true meaning of such rings in A Crisis of Truth…
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Oh, dear, sometimes typos are inadvertently funny. I’ve just been looking through a serious book on the history of English literature (I won’t identify it further, because it wouldn’t be fair – the work is serious). Anyway, we come to Chaucer‘s, um, Horse of Fame. Yes, you read it correctly. Horse, not House!
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THE ANCIENT GATES OF OLD LONDON
Aldersgate, Aldgate, Anne Sutton, Bastard of Fauconberg, Bethnal Green, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ealdred, Edmund the Martyr, Edward IV, Edward V, gates, Geoffrey Chaucer, Great Fire of London, Henry I, John Stow, London, Ludgate, Moorgate, Newgate Prison, Old London Bridge, past maps, Peter Hammond, Richard III, Southwark, Watling StreetREBLOGGED FROM A MEDIEVAL POTPOURRI THE ANCIENT GATES OF LONDON Old London Map c1572. Franz Hogenberg And so Dear Reader, we are going to take a break from murderous queens, scheming duchesses, bad kings, good kings, missing royal children and silly bishops. We are going to take a look at London’s Old Gates. Where were…
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So Sir Michael Morpurgo is refusing to include The Merchant Of Venice in a new book adapting Shakespeare’s plays for children under 16 because the portrayal of Shylock is too offensive. See this link. Well, let’s be honest, there are precious few Shakespeare’s works that won’t offend someone. Everything of his that I endured at…
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Recently Bacton Priory, destroyed in the Reformation, has recently been recreated as a 3D model to show how it may have appeared in the late Middle Ages. This is part of a project on the Paston family, who wrote over 1000 letters during the Wars of the Roses period, helping to give historians greater…
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There is something that has always puzzled me about Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: if there were up to thirty pilgrims (which is what’s reckoned) how on earth could one of them (at a time)tell a tale that the other twenty-nine could hear? In the text Chaucer has his pilgrims point out places they’re passing, so it…
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Oh where, Oh where, has Chaucer’s “Foul Oak” gone….?
A2, Anne of Bohemia, Baginton Oak, Canterbury, Christ Church Greyfriars, Dover, Eltham Palace, executions, Foul Oak Hatcham, Geoffrey Chaucer, highway robbery, Nicholas Brembre, Old Kent Road, Palace of Westminster, Richard II, Smithfield, St. george’s Chapel, St. Paul’s, Tower of London, Warwickshire, Watling Street, Windsor CastleAccording to Project Gutenberg, on 6th September 1390 Geoffrey Chaucer was mugged at a place called the Foul Oak, but not the Baginton Oak. Rather was it on what we now call the Old Kent Road but was originally the Roman Watling Street, leading out of London, on the way to Canterbury and…
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As the author of this Guardian review points out, when we think of Chaucer, we visualise a rather chubby, light-hearted, witty, somewhat cheeky middle-aged man as portrayed in the few portaits we have of him, such as the one above. Well, it would seem that as a younger man he was indeed cheeky! And…
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This article Lancs Live article is Part Two of a three-part series concerning the history of the House of Lancaster, which we reviewed earlier. Almost at the beginning (well, three short paragraphs in) I found “…. Edward II whose piety could not make up for his lack of leadership….” Piety? Edward II? Well, he…
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