Chaucer's day in court

A document dated May 1, 1380 states that a woman had named Geoffrey Chaucer regarding raptus. That discovery has caused speculation for over 100 years. The subject is not often spoken of, but it still surprised me that the Chaucer entry for the 1968 Britannica refrained from a hint of it. The 1996 Britannica edition devotes two sentences to the topic and suggests Chaucer was not guilty.
     Chaucer scholars hesitate to admit that this brilliant poet could have had dark moments. Many have gone to great lengths to sidestep reality. A "vicious imagination," for example, is claimed necessary to see Chaucer causing a lady's ruination. A biographer declares our poet a "hero" of the affair. Some portray him merely as an accessory, or actually doing the lady a favor because her guardian mismanaged her affairs, or a friend of Chaucer wanted to marry her and couldn't get her guardian's permission.
     These scenarios are, according to P. R. Watts a lawyer/researcher in 1947, "entirely unsupported by evidence." To the contrary, he finds that none could be true because the lady was an adult, not someone's young ward. And, to have finances to mismanage would be unlikely because her brother was in prison for debt.
     Watts informs us about the medieval use of raptus, and the intention and substance of an appeal, along with how the fourteenth century dealt with felonious rape. Before a statute of 1285, raptus could mean either the abduction or deflowering of a woman. But afterward, raptus is always to be interpreted as rape (forced coitus), unless circumstances disallow it.
     The second term, appeal, is a problem because the meaning is at odds with what generally comes to our mind. Back then, to appeal meant to accuse, to bring a criminal charge against another person. It was an appeal for justice, for a wrongdoer to be punished.
     And did the punishment fit the crime? If unmarried, the man might take the lady as his spouse to satisfy the charges. Watts, however, cites a case from Chaucer's era to illustrate another possibility: A woman named Alice accused a man named John of having ravished her virginity. Although John claimed innocence, he was found guilty. John had a wife, so marriage could not resolve the problem. Fortunately for John, Alice withdrew her appeal, because, by the judgment handed down, Alice was to "tear out John's eyes and cut off his testicles."
     Chaucer's position at court (his favor with the king) would not protect him, because the king had no jurisdiction in cases between two citizens, rather than against the crown.
     Before DNA, many a man learned that defense against the charge of rape is difficult. As an additional difficulty, medieval law did not allow the accused to give evidence on his own behalf.
     It may look like the man is given a hard time in such a case. But wait. You haven't heard what's demanded of the woman to get recognition in a court of law.

Now to look at Chaucer himself

Here I am, back on the job. Took a brief hiatus for cataract surgery. What a wonder the result is! It's time, now, to begin our next topic--Geoffrey Chaucer, the man and also the character who is on pilgrimage in the Canterbury Tales. So let's return to expanding our point of view regarding Chaucer and his words.

Most fourteenth-century commoners, as Chaucer was, lived and died without a recorded trace. Fortunately, diligent researchers have gathered together an assortment of entries from which we know, or can make solid assumptions, about Chaucer's fortunes and how he spent his days.
     We'll consider ideas in the Tales that provide personal information about Chaucer-the-man by way of remarks about his pilgrim image. But first we'll look at the factual entries.
     During work being done at Westminster Abbey in the late 1800s, Chaucer's bones (which rest in the Poet's Corner in the Abbey) were exposed, and we learned that he was about five-foot-six.
     At nineteen he joined the army during what we now call the Hundred Years War. As a young soldier, Chaucer was captured, and held prisoner in Flanders, but eventually ransomed by his king.
     In the subsequent peace negotiations in the summer of 1360, Chaucer received his first recorded assignment as an envoy of the English crown, carrying official letters from England to Calais. From that small beginning as messenger just across the channel, he went on to serve in  positions of increasing trust. Diplomatic missions--some of them secret--took him to Spain, Italy, Flanders, and other areas of France.
     At thirty-four he became Controller of Customs, and later Controller of Petty Customs, as well. His duties entailed collecting taxes on wool, hides, and other commodities.
     No life is all roses. When he was forty, a charge of "raptus" was brought against the poet, a charge often optimistically explained as "abduction." It seems almost impossible for Chaucer-lovers to admit that this poet, with his head among the stars, could have had moments when his feet were in the mire. Raptus also means rape, plain and simple. A helpful and dedicated twentieth-century lawyer gave us an accurate analysis of the intent of fourteenth-century legal terms and procedures. We'll get into that after a bit.
     John Lydgate, the poet's contemporary, says Chaucer "made many a fresh ditty" that "excelled all other in our English tongue." Before you get too eager to read them, sad to say, they have not been preserved.
     We know that Chaucer's last residence was on the grounds of Westminster Abbey. It has been provokingly speculated that Chaucer's motive for living on the grounds of the Abbey could have been to gain the protection of sanctuary. And there is the "mystery" of his original manuscripts . . . Ah, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.