The Reeve’s Tale magazine website
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An article, said to be from
The Byntre & Bawdeswell Magazine dated January 1908 says: Mr Walter Rye,
the learned antiquarian has been able to identify John
Chaucer of Lynn as the poet's father, while his grandfather
Robert Chaucer was known as de Gunthorpe, and a John de
Bawdeswell was Rector of Gunthorpe in 1349 when Chaucer was a young
man. (The latter is not mentioned again in his book.) On reading
Walter Rye's book "Chaucer, A Norfolk Man" which he published In
1915 after a lifetime of researching the poet, one is left with little doubt Chaucer
was well acquainted with Norfolk. His grandfather
was a Customs Officer at Lynn, which was one of the main ports of import for
wine and spirits to England. There is some evidence that the poet himself was
born and schooled in Lynn. His father was an Excise Officer as well and so
was Geoffrey Chaucer in due course. The family was associated with Ipswich,
London and King's Lynn. Various
individuals from Bawdeswell crop up from time to time. Thomas de Baldeswell
who was admitted Freeman of London In 1312 on the same day as William de
Knapton (his sister-in-law was once betrothed to Chaucer's father)... a
remote family acquaintance and a bit before he was born. Another of the
name Thomas de Baldeswell who became a Freeman of Lynn in 1382 and afterwards
an assessor of Taxes at Lynn in 1386. Now that's much more likely - someone
in the same line of business. A third
possibility. It is thought Chaucer might have been at 0xford University.
There was a divinity lecturer there, a Franciscan monk, one Peter de
Haldeswell. Since there is no place In England of that name, this is thought
to be a transcriber's error for Baldeswell. The poet is also
believed to have been a friend of the Countess of Pembroke who was Patron of Bawdeswell
Church Living - sponsoring the local clergyman. How he came to
use the village's name in his story can only be guessed at. A possible
theory is that in his work as a Collector of Revenue in the Eastern Counties
for the King, and through various people connected with the village, he would
know of Bawdeswell and the sound of the name suited the rather bawdy
character of his Reeve. Walter Rye never
turned up any connection between Bawdeswell and Chaucer other than that he
was a Norfolk man and had met and heard of people from Bawdeswell. I throw in the
additional suggestion that Chaucer must have travelled between King's Lynn and
Norwich, Ipswich and London in the course of his work and the route was by
Elmham and Bawdeswell. Bawdeswell was a horse change-over stop. He Just liked
the name of the place or he based his Reeve on one of the people that came
from there - either Thomas de Baldeswell the Tax Assessor whom he would have
met at Lynn in the course of his own work, or the Franciscan monk at Oxford
whom he might have known, or somebody he met whilst passing through. I am indebted to Dr Andrew Macnair for the loan of
'Chaucer A Norfolk Man' by Walter Rye 1915, and to Robert Rickett formerly of
the Norfolk Archaeological Unit for the loan of his notes on Bawdeswell. Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" translated
into modern english by Nevill Coghill is available in the Penguin Classics
Series . From the Reeve'sTale Robin Taylor, Feb. 1998 LINKS
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