serfs, who possessed nothing, might be anxious to profit in their turn by the grace which insured estates. Wycliffe died peacefully at Lutterworth in 1384. Already, for two years past, his illustrious friend, Geoffrey Chaucer, the first creator of English poetry, had been compelled to quit England, compromised by his attachment to the new ideas; he had retired into Hainault, where he lived in peace, protected by the friendship of the Duke of Lancaster. The first works of Chaucer, _The Court of Love_, the poem of _Troilus and Cresseide, The Temple of Fame_, had been published several years before, and had assured to him a reputation which had largely contributed to his fortune. The English language at this time, still largely intermixed with French, and difficult to understand at the present time, assumed, under the pen of Chaucer, a native grace to which sometimes succeeds an energy which prepared the way for Spenser and Shakespeare. {341} Chaucer again established himself in England when John of Gaunt returned from his expedition to Castile; he lived to an advanced age, and composed in his retreat of Dumington his _Canterbury Tales_, written in the style of the _Decameron_ of Boccaccio, and the only one of his books which is still read at the present day. He died in 1400, the year following the accession of Henry Bolingbroke, the son of his protector. Like Wycliffe, he had seen the commencement of the popular agitations. The poll-tax voted by the Parliament in 1379 was their first opportunity.