salary was anything like all that they received is unbelievable. To
suppose that a man who could fit out a fleet at his own expense and
successfully campaign with it against a powerful pirate, should allow
himself to be annoyed by so paltry an office is absurd. Yet the office
was apparently not farmed, and so it seems likely that the income from
fees was large and attractive. [Footnote: The View of W. D. Chester:
Chronicles of the Custom's Dept., p. 30.] To how great an extent
Chaucer, aside from the ten pounds yearly that he received, shared in
the profits, we do not know. From the fact that the King in giving the
collectors and the controller extra rewards seems to have rated the
latter at about a third of the importance of the former, we might get
some hint of the proportion in which he would share in the fees.

Chaucerian scholars have laid great stress upon the grant of permission
to Chaucer in 1385 to appoint a permanent deputy in his office in the
greater customs. They have even assumed that the L. G. W. was dedicated
to the queen out of gratitude for her supposed intercession with the
king, and the consequent permission, and have used these suppositions as
evidence for dating L. G. W. Surely too much has been made of this
matter. Not only have we no evidence whatever to connect Queen Anne with
the granting of the deputyship; we do not have to assume any
intercession with the king. [Footnote: See forthcoming article: Chaucer
and the Earl of Oxford, in Modern Philology.] We know that esquires who
were granted offices in the customs frequently did have deputies in
their offices; [Footnote: Of. cases of John de Herlyng, Helming Leget,
John Hermesthorpe et al.] probably leave to have a deputy could be had
almost for the asking.

Moreover, the office of controller, if we can judge from the records of
Chaucer's time (cf. Mr. Kirk's print in the Chaucer Society--not yet