the Port of London, for the lucrative imports of wools, skins or
"wool-fells," and tanned hides -- on condition that he should
fulfil the duties of that office in person and not by deputy, and
should write out the accounts with his own hand. We have
what seems evidence of Chaucer's compliance with these terms
in "The House of Fame", where, in the mouth of the eagle, the
poet describes himself, when he has finished his labour and
made his reckonings, as not seeking rest and news in social
intercourse, but going home to his own house, and there, "all so
dumb as any stone," sitting "at another book," until his look is
dazed; and again, in the record that in 1376 he received a grant
of L731, 4s. 6d., the amount of a fine levied on one John Kent,
whom Chaucer's vigilance had frustrated in the attempt to ship a
quantity of wool for Dordrecht without paying the duty. The
seemingly derogatory condition, that the Controller should
write out the accounts or rolls ("rotulos") of his office with his
own hand, appears to have been designed, or treated, as merely
formal; no records in Chaucer's handwriting are known to exist
-- which could hardly be the case if, for the twelve years of his
Controllership (1374-1386), he had duly complied with the
condition; and during that period he was more than once
employed abroad, so that the condition was evidently regarded
as a formality even by those who had imposed it. Also in 1374,
the Duke of Lancaster, whose ambitious views may well have
made him anxious to retain the adhesion of a man so capable
and accomplished as Chaucer, changed into a joint life-annuity
remaining to the survivor, and charged on the revenues of the
Savoy, a pension of L10 which two years before he settled on
the poet's wife -- whose sister was then the governess of the
Duke's two daughters, Philippa and Elizabeth, and the Duke's