Sophie Gee

But spare a thought for the fact that back then they didn't know how to purify water.

So actually, these alcoholic drinks were a crucial way for people to kind of get their liquid intake.

And a lot more wine was drunk.

Yeah, it's so interesting.

So I actually read a bit about his international travel because it's always been something that really interests me about Chaucer.

So apparently between 1359, when he was in his late teens and working for Ulster, and 1387, which is around about the time that he is basically given a major appointment within London, he's appointed captain.

clerk of the King's Works shortly after this.

But in those years, apparently he made 14 trips overseas.

I mean, most people now wouldn't make 14 trips overseas in that number of years.

It's absolutely extraordinary.

And as you say, he's been continually put in the company of major literary figures, people like Petrarch.

And the other thing to say is obviously that the really big Italian texts like Dante or

Boccaccio, the Decameron or Petrarch's sonnets, all these things that were completely changing world literature, you couldn't just kind of go down to the bookshop and buy a copy.

We are pre-printing press.

So Chaucer would have been seeing these works in the countries where they were produced in some kind of manuscript form.

So his life, I think the key thing about Chaucer's life is that it's extremely unusual.

I mean, not only is his job not being a writer,

That was his kind of side hustle.

His work as a very highly pleased diplomat, civil servant, fixer for two monarchs, Edward III and Richard II, it was a very unusual job, even within the courtly world of the late medieval period.

So we're looking at a really, really, really extraordinary kind of mind at work.