Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was born about 1343 into a London family of wine merchants. As a boy he entered royal service as a page, and served the crown all his life: he went to war in France, was captured and ransomed by the king; he was sent on many missions to France and Italy, where he probably came to know the works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio; and he was controller of customs for the port of London and clerk of the king's works. Writing his poetry in English, then thought a vulgar tongue, rather than French or Latin, he is honoured as the father of English poetry, and was the first poet to be buried in what became Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.