Sophie Gee

The king who takes over from Edward III is Richard II.

Richard II is deposed.

He gets fired as a king by Henry of Bolingbroke, Henry IV.

So basically over the course of Chaucer's lifetime, we're in a moment of

really profound political upheaval in England.

And we'll talk about the pivotal historical events in a second, but just to get the King sorted out.

I also just wanted to add a footnote about kind of what it would have meant to be a successful Vintner wine merchant in London when Chaucer was growing up.

One thing to say is that Chaucer would have lived in a section of the city called the Vintry Ward, so that London of the medieval period was divided into wards.

And they were a much tighter way of organising cities than we have now.

So generally speaking, everyone who belonged to a particular profession would live in their particular part of the city.

So the significance of the Vintry Ward is that it would have been right near the river.

It was actually on the north bank of the Thames, right opposite Southwark.

which is where the Canterbury Tales starts out from, the Chaucer's lived in a house on what's now Upper Thames Street.

And that area of London near the Thames would have been very cosmopolitan, maybe not cosmopolitan, but very international.

So Chaucer would have been hearing people speaking in a lot of different languages.

There would have been a lot of kind of wheeling and dealing going on, a lot of international trading.

So he would have really been in the sort of heartland of a very global society.

marketplace by way of his father.

And actually, at a certain point in his childhood, the family relocated to Southampton briefly because John Chaucer, his father, was the merchant handling a Bordeaux shipment for the king, Edward III.

So, I mean, selling wine now doesn't seem particularly fancy or amazing.