Chaucer, Geoffrey

Chaucer was probably born some time during the 1340s.  He was well educated and worked as a page for the Earl of Ulster, where he would have learned French.  Around age 25, be became a squire in the court of King Edward III, and he spent the rest of his life as a public servant.  He was twice sent on diplomatic trips to Italy in the 1370s; he was also a customs officer and a justice of the peace.  He died in 1400.

English poet, writer, philospher, bureaucrat and diplomat. Chaucer was known as the Father of English Literature. He was the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular English language.