Chaucer's tomb in Westminster Abbey

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People Buried or Commemorated - Geoffrey Chaucer

As the author of The Canterbury Tales Chaucer is, next to Shakespeare,
perhaps the most famous English poet, and has been called "The Father
of English Poetry".

He was born between 1340 and 1343, son of John Chaucer, a London
vintner, and Agnes (Copton). Chaucer began his career in the service
of Lionel, third son of King Edward III, and held various offices in
the king's household, travelling abroad on several occasions. His
patron and friend was John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, another son of
the King. On the death of John's first wife Blanche, Chaucer wrote his
poem The Book of the Duchess. Gaunt's third wife Katherine was said to
have been a sister of the poet's wife. Chaucer held the post of Clerk
of the King's Works at the Palace of Westminster for a short time.

Geoffrey married Philippa Roelt (or Roet). Their son Thomas was a
rich, distinguished man and Thomas' daughter Alice became Duchess of
Suffolk.

In December 1399 Chaucer was granted the lease of a tenement in the
garden of the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey, for a term of 53 years
at a yearly rent of fifty three shillings and four pence.

The site of this garden is now covered by the enlarged Lady Chapel
built by Henry VII in the early 16th century. (The lease still
survives in the Abbey archives). However, the poet died on October
25th 1400 and probably because he died in his house so near to the
Abbey and was still in royal favour, he was buried at the entrance to
the chapel of St Benedict, in the South Transept of the Abbey. The
plain slab which marked his grave was apparently sawn up when a
monument to John Dryden the poet was erected there in 1720. On a
pillar nearby hung a lead plate with an inscription on it written,
according to William Caxton, by a poet called Surigonius of Milan.

It was not until 1556 that the present grey Purbeck marble monument
was erected to Chaucer's memory by another poet, Nicholas Brigham. It
is thought that he may have purchased this monument from one of the
churches in the city of London which had been dissolved by order of
Henry VIII. At the back of the monument was once painted a portrait of
Chaucer and in the 18th century traces could also be seen of another
figure, possibly that of Brigham. In 1866 the decayed lettering of the
inscription was discovered and the tomb cleaned. Nearly all the
engraved letters were found and re-painted. The Latin inscription can
be translated as follows:

Of old the bard who struck the noblest strains
Great Geoffrey Chaucer, now this tomb retains.
If for the period of his life you call,
the signs are under that will note you all.
In the year of our Lord 1400, on the 25th day of October.
Death is the repose of cares.
N.Brigham charged himself with these in the name of the Muses
1556

William Camden, in his guide to Westminster Abbey published in 1600,
says that the bones of the poet were transferred to this tomb.
Chaucer's coat of arms is painted twice on the monument ("party per
pale argent and gules, a bend counterchanged", ie. a shield with one
half silver and one half red with a bend across it.)

Around the ledge of the tomb there was said to have been the following
words on a brass strip, translated as "What once I was some fame
perhaps may tell; if not, for earthly glories die away, read this
monument". A stained glass window depicting scenes from The Canterbury
Tales was erected above his monument in 1868 but this was destroyed in
the Second World War.

When Edmund Spenser, the Elizabethan poet who died in 1599, was buried
near to Chaucer, the concept of a "Poets' Corner" in the Abbey was
begun.

Geoffrey's son Thomas died in 1434 and is buried in Ewelme Church in
Oxfordshire with his wife Matilda and their daughter Alice de la Pole,
Duchess of Suffolk (d.1475)

sources:
Derek Brewer: Chaucer and his World (1978) (re-issued 1992)
The Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1908)
see: www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaubib.htm

http://www.westminster-abbey.org/library/burial/chaucer.htm

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