[10] A mark was 13_s._ 4_d._ of our money, but the buying power of money was eight or ten times greater than at present. So that, although ten marks was only £6 12_s._ of our currency, it was fully equal to £50. [11] There are entries mentioning Philippa Chaucer in 1366, 1372, and 1374. The former names her as one of the ladies of the bedchamber to Queen Philippa, who conferred the annuity of ten marks in September, 1366. In 1372 John of Gaunt conferred on Philippa Chaucer an annuity of £10 (equal to £100). Her name is mentioned when the grant to Chaucer of a pitcher of wine daily is commuted into money payment, June 13, 1374, by John of Gaunt (again a pension of £10), for good services rendered by the Chaucers to the said Duke, his consort, and his mother the Queen. [12] Green was the favourite colour of the time. [13] _Astrolabe_: a machine used at sea to measure the distances of stars. The quadrant now in use has superseded the astrolabe. [14] Thomas Chaucer was born in or about 1367, and died in 1434. Elizabeth Chaucer’s noviciate was paid for by John of Gaunt in 1381. If Elizabeth Chaucer was about 16 in 1381 she would have been born about 1365; and, therefore, as far as dates are concerned, either Thomas or Elizabeth may well have been elder children of the poet: the chances being that he married in 1361-64. Moreover, John of Gaunt’s interest in both of these persons, Thomas Chaucer and Elizabeth Chaucer, gives this a colour of probability. At the same time Chaucer seems to have been no uncommon name. Chaucer’s exceptional notice of his little son Lewis who must have been born in 1381, the year of Elizabeth’s novitiate, since Chaucer describes him as being ten years old in his treatise on the astrolabe in 1391, may have been due to the appearance of a ‘Benjamin’ rather late in life. [15] On the hypothesis, of course, that Chaucer married a Roet. [16] For many new and curious facts about Chaucer, see my _Chaucer for Schools_, “Chaucer’s Court Life and Position.” [17] In these cases, the sum received on the marriage of the ward was legally a fine on the marriage. [18] See Chambers’s Encyclopædia, ‘Chaucer’. [19] See _Chaucer for Schools_, p. 22, for further details. [20] I have assumed that Thomas Chaucer was Geoffrey Chaucer’s son, as there is no proof to the contrary, and a probability in point of dates that he was. [21] See ‘Notes by the Way,’ p. 103. [22] See _Chaucer for Schools_. [23] Remembering the discussion raised as to the year of Chaucer’s birth, coupled with the tradition of his venerable looks, we may suggest that in those days men were older at sixty than now. The average duration of life was shorter, and the paucity of comforts probably told on appearance. [24] Author of the ‘Testament of Love.’ [25] Alluding to the numerous dialects in use in England at the time. [26] The mother should here read to the child some lines with the proper pronunciation: see Preface, pp. x., xi.