The Chaucer Review

The Chaucer Review 37.2 (2002) 129-144

A Perfect Marriage on the Rocks:
Geoffrey and Philippa Chaucer, and the Franklin's Tale

Craig R. Davis

In the romance of the Franklin's Tale Chaucer imagines the marriage of a lower-born knight to a higher-born lady. This fictional union is not dissimilar, structurally, to the bourgeois poet's own advantageous marriage to Philippa Roet, the daughter of a Flemish knight. In both cases, a socially inferior husband marries up in the world: above his own rank in the case of the knight Arveragus, above his own estate or class in the case of Geoffrey Chaucer. Since the Franklin's Tale has long been received as the most idealized depiction of conjugal love in the Canterbury Tales, ¹ its analogy to the poet's own marital situation might repay some closer scrutiny and social analysis.

The Chaucers ²

Geoffrey Chaucer was from the wealthy, though nouveau, upper reaches of the third estate; his wife Philippa was the daughter of Sir Payne or Paon de Roet, a herald-at-arms in the service of Queen Philippa of Hainault. When Sir Payne returned to the service of the queen's sister Marguerite, empress of Germany, Queen Philippa took charge of her retainer's four children, among whom was her namesake. Philippa Roet may have first met Geoffrey Chaucer in the household of the queen's daughter-in-law Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, where the future poet had been placed, presumably by his parents, as a page. In any case, a "Philippa Pan.," whose abbreviated name is variously explained, appears along with that of Geoffrey Chaucer in an expense account of 1357. If this Philippa is Sir Payne's daughter, she returned to the service of the queen some time after the Countess Elizabeth departed with her husband to Ireland in 1361. [End Page 129]

In 1366 Philippa Chaucer was granted a lifetime annuity of 10 marks as domicella of the queen, perhaps on the occasion of her marriage to Geoffrey Chaucer. ³ The next year, King Edward gave an annuity of 20 marks to the poet himself, possibly at the birth of a child to his former ward and her new husband. ⁴ When the queen died later that year, Philippa went on to the service of Constance of Castile, John of Gaunt's second wife. Philippa's sister Katherine, married to Sir Hugh Swynford, was governess of Gaunt's children, becoming first his mistress, then eventually his third wife.

Further royal annuities followed. On the day after Chaucer was sworn in as Controller of Customs in 1374, John of Gaunt granted the couple another annuity, partly but explicitly in recognition of Philippa's former service to his mother, the old queen, and to the second Countess of Lancaster, Constance. Thomas Chaucer, the Chaucers' son, enjoyed unusual favor and generosity from Gaunt in later years, who paid out 100 pounds for his marriage to Maud, daughter of Sir John Burghersh of Ewelme. Thomas took his father's surname, of course, but kept his mother's Roet coat-of-arms, which we find quartering the Burghersh arms of Thomas's wife Maud on his tomb at Ewelme in 1534. ⁵ Donald Howard comments:

What must be remembered is that Chaucer married well, and the marriage brought him advantages of status, connections, and annuities . . . Precisely what advantages Philippa would have had from the contract must be a matter for earnest conjecture. (Howard's emphasis) ⁶

Of course, it was probably the poet's promise and personal wealth that made him a potential match for Philippa Roet, whose father's real status in the royal household as a dependent "King of Arms" may not have been all that high. ⁷ But the marriage was still a step up for the poet, and the access of Geoffrey and Thomas to the exalted circles in which they moved was largely through Philippa's intimacy with the Lancastrian household. Philippa remained close to her fortunate sister Katherine, often living...