Geoffrey Chaucer’s life wasn’t always about writing, in fact, it was rarely about writing. He is often remembered as a great writer and the man who wrote “The Canterbury Tales”, but much more occupied his life then just writing. He was an amazing alchemist and astronomer, as well as servant to the countess Elizabeth. His service bound his life to more than what he wanted and his quote “Forbid us something, and that thing we desire” –Geoffrey Chaucer (Geoffrey) allows us to see how he might have felt. He had a life of hard work, and unfortunately the majority of that work wasn’t in writing. He was born a young commoner, raised in royalty, and died a lonely old man, undeservingly.
Even though Chaucer was the first common man buried in Westminster Abbey, he was born as any commoner sometime near 1340. He was born into the bourgeois class, descended from an affluent family who made their money in the London wine trade (Pollard).
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From here he joins the parliament and writes more works such as The Legend of Good Women in 1386, and in 1387 Chaucer’s wife died, and he began The Canterbury Tales. His life wasn’t just happy writing from there; he was appointed Clerk of the Kings Works where he would approve building projects. This job wasn’t great for Chaucer, however because he was robbed, and possibly injured.
He changed his jobs so that he could get away from potential burglary, and is thought to have gone into severe finical problems because no financial records were found. He also gave away his pension of 20 pounds to allow someone else to have his money as according to Pollard.
Chaucer, toward end of his life, was given 40 pounds and a literal “butt” load of wine annually or 126 gallons. He lived in riches for 1 year until his death in 1400. On October 25, as is escribed on his tombstone, he died of unknown causes and the Canterbury tales were never