word for shoemaker is different now, there is still a slang word
chausseur, meaning a cobbler.

We know nothing at all of Chaucer as a boy, nothing of where he
went to school, nor do we know if he ever went to college. The
first thing we hear of him is that he was a page in the house of
the Princess Elizabeth, the wife of Prince Lionel, who was the
third son of Edward III. So, although Chaucer belonged to the
middle class, he must have had some powerful friend able to get
him a place in a great household.

In those days a boy became a page in a great household very much
as he might now become an office-boy in a large merchant's
office. A page had many duties. He had to wait at table, hold
candles, go messages, and do many other little household
services. Such a post seems strange to us now, yet it was
perhaps quite as interesting as sitting all day long on an office
stool. In time of war it was certainly more exciting, for a page
had often to follow his master to the battlefield. And as a war
with France was begun in 1359, Geoffrey went across the Channel
with his prince.

Of what befell Chaucer in France we know nothing, except that he
was taken prisoner, and that the King, Edward III, himself gave
16 pounds towards his ransom. That sounds a small sum, but it meant
as much as 240 pounds would now. So it would seem that, boy though
he was, Geoffrey Chaucer had already become important. Perhaps he
was already known as a poet and a good story-teller whom the King
was loath to lose. But again for seven years after this we hear
nothing more about him. And when next we do hear of him, he is