174 chess
the court of EDWARD III, whom he followed in his
campaigns in FRANCE. Taken prisoner in France in
1359, he was ransomed by the king. After his return to
ENGLAND, he resumed his service at Edward’s court under
the patronage of JOHN OFGAUNTin various capacities,
especially diplomatic missions. He served in minor posts
under RICHARDII. His greatest work, The Canterbury
Tales,written in English between 1386 and 1390, gave
him only posthumous fame. It consisted of stories
suggesting a realistic representation of English life in the
second half of the century and focusing on a pilgrimage
to Saint THOMASBECKET’s shrine at CANTERBURY. On the
way typical representatives of various classes met and
told stories. The Talesemphasized a new lay spirit of the
times and constituted a mild criticism of clericalism. He
wrote several other important literary works including:
The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Parlia-
ment of Fowls, Legend of Good Women,and Troilus and
Criseyde.He died on October 25, 1400.
Further reading: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside
Chaucer,3d ed., ed. L. D. Benson (Boston: Houghton Mif-
flin, 1987); Geoffrey Chaucer Troilus and Criseyde,trans.
Nevill Coghill (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970);
Donald Howard, The Idea of theCanterbury Tales (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1976); V. A. Kolve,
Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First FiveCan-
terbury Tales (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
1984); Derek Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1992); D. W. Robertson, Jr., A Preface
to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives(Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962); Paul Strohm,
Social Chaucer(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1989).
chess SeeGAMES, TOYS, PASTIMES, AND GAMBLING.
children and childhood In the western Middle Ages
there were interest in and concern for children as children.
Despite the preconceptions and ideas of some modern
scholars, children were not generally considered to be or
treated as small and deficient adults. Scholars have found
much evidence of care and love for offspring. However,
considerable evidence has simultaneously been found that
infanticide, neglect, and abuse took place. Children in the
Middle Ages certainly had different levels of care according
to the resources, social status, and economic activities of
their parents. Childbirth was very dangerous for both the
child and the mother; many children died of disease or
accidents before they reached the age of two.
In theory childhood was divided into three periods,
all with vague boundaries. From birth to the age of two,
the dangerous period of infantia,the child did not speak
and was totally dependent. From two to seven years,
now able to speak and walk, the child was still viewed as
incapable of much reflection on or responsibility for
actions. The third, pueritia,lasted from age seven to 12
years, when the child attained better rationality and
reached the age of reason, or “legitimate age.” In canon
law, girls were permitted to marry at 12 and boys at 14.
At the onset of puberty marking adolescientiaor adoles-
cence, sympathy was often replaced by antagonism
toward a new behavior viewed as troublesome, disre-
spectful, and dangerous.
Some in the Middle Ages, however, were influenced
by AUGUSTINE. For him children were sinful from con-
ception, when the soul was marked by original sin. They
must be baptized or suffer the privation of salvation.
They were infirm beings, comparable to the mentally ill,
who were deprived of reason until they reached a certain
age. For many other people, children at very young ages
might have exceptional positive qualities, above all inno-
cence and even a certain purity. A pure and innocent
child might even function as an intermediary between
God and humankind. All of this might vary by class or
social position.
See alsoAGING; FAMILY AND KINSHIP; GAMES, TOYS,
PASTIMES, AND GAMBLING; MARRIAGE; SCHOOLS AND
UNIVERSITIES.
Further reading: John Boswell, The Kindness of
Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe
from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance(New York: Pan-
theon Books, 1998); Barbara A. Hanawalt, Growing Up in
Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); James Schultz,
The Knowledge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995);
Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages(New
York: Routledge, 1990); Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Not
of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean Birth in
Medieval and Renaissance Culture(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1990); Valerie A. Fildes, Wet Nursing: A
History from Antiquity to the Present(Oxford: Basil Black-
well, 1988); Jacques Gélis, History of Childbirth: Fertility,
Pregnancy, and Birth in Early Modern Europe,trans. Rose-
mary Morris (1984; reprint, Boston: Northeastern Univer-
sity Press, 1991); Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, The Art
and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy(New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999); Nicholas Orme,
Medieval Children(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 2001).chivalry(French, chevalerie;Spanish, caballería;Ital-
ian, cavalleria; German, Rittertum)Medieval chivalry
was a vague code of honor and a manner of life followed
by some in the Middle Ages and long afterward. It perme-
ated the upper levels of society and literature from the
11th through the 15th century, but its meaning was rarely
consistent or clear. Moreover, there have been shifts of
meaning attached to chivalry according to medieval,
regional, and modern usage. The concepts of the later