...I think some of Chaucer belongs to his time and that much of that time is dead, extinct, and never to be made alive again. What was alive in it, lives through him..._ --John Masefield Geoffrey Chaucer¦s world was the Europe of the fourteenth century. It was neither rich or poor, happy nor sad. Rather, it was the intermingling of these, a mixture of splendor and poverty, displaying both worldly desire and spiritual purity. Chaucer¦s travels through it, mostly on ¦the King¦s business,_ or civil service, shaped his writing, offering the ....