With Anglo-French Chaucer may well have been familiar from an early age, so that the adaptation of the Man of Lawes Tale from the Chronicle by Nicholas Trivet could not have caused him much trouble. But he was also perfectly familiar with the French of the continent, and was under great obligations to Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, and to Guillaume de Machault. He made translations of poems by Guillaume de Deguileville and Oto de Graunson. He was doubtless well acquainted with the writings of Froissart and of Eustace Deschamps. He also quotes from Jean de Vignay, and refers (once only) to the Alexandreid of Philippe Gautier de Chatillon. There is some reason to think that he consulted the Miracles de Notre Dame by Gautier de Coincy; see vol. v. 491. The Nun's Priest's Tale was derived, most likely, from the Roman de Renard, and not from Marie de France, who gives the tale in a briefer form. The Parson's Tale is from a French treatise by Fr[`e]re Lorens. We may also well suppose that Chaucer had seen several of the old romances in a French form; such as the romances relating to Alexander, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Octovien; Sir Bevis, Sir Guy, Libeaus Desconus, Sir Tristram and Sir Percival; though he makes remarkably little use of such material. What was the extent of his knowledge of the Roman de Troie as written by Benoist de Sainte-More, it is not very easy to say; but he probably had read it. Several of the Canterbury Tales seem to have been derived from French Fabliaux or from Latin stories of a similar character. The Squieres Tale reminds us of the romance of Cleomades and of the Travels of Marco Polo. But it is to Latin authors that Chaucer was, on the whole, most indebted for his quotations and illustrations; and especially to the authors of medieval times. Of the great poets of antiquity, he was not acquainted with many; but he read such as he could attain to with great diligence. His chief book was Ovid; and it is almost certain, from the freedom with which he quotes him, that he had a MS. copy of his own among his 'sixty bokes olde and newe' (Leg. G.W.; A. 273). He quotes from the Ars Amatoria, Amores, Epistolae ex Ponto, Fasti, Heroides, Metamorphoses, Remedia Amoris, and Tristia; so that he had read this author rather extensively. His next prime favourites were Vergil and Statius; and he knew something of Lucan and Claudian. We may be sure that his quotations from Horace and Juvenal were taken at second-hand; and that he had never read those authors himself. He glanced at the Prologue to the Satires of Persius, and he was acquainted with the first Elegy of Maximian. He seems to have seen a copy of Valerius Flaccus.