Mother of God, and Virgin undefiled,

seems to be correctly described as "Oratio Gallfridi Chaucer"; and in
"Chaucers A. B. C., Called La Priere de Notre Dame," a translation by him
from a French original, we have a long address to the Blessed Virgin in
twenty-three stanzas, each of which begins with one of the letters of the
alphabet arranged in proper succession. Nor, apart from this religious
sentiment, had men yet altogether lost sight of the ideal of true knightly
love, destined though this ideal was to be obscured in the course of time,
until at last the "Mort d'Arthure" was the favourite literary nourishment
of the minions and mistresses of Edward IV's degenerate days. In his
"Book of the Duchess" Chaucer has left us a picture of true knightly love,
together with one of true maiden purity. The lady celebrated in this poem
was loth, merely for the sake of coquetting with their exploits, to send
her knights upon errands of chivalry--

into Walachy,
To Prussia, and to Tartary,
To Alexandria or Turkey.

And doubtless there was many a gentle knight or squire to whom might have
been applied the description given by the heroine of Chaucer's "Troilus
and Cressid" of her lover, and of that which attracted her in him:--

For trust ye well that your estate royal,
Nor vain delight, nor only worthiness
Of you in war or tourney martial,
Nor pomp, array, nobility, riches,
Of these none made me rue on your distress,