Geoffrey Chaucer ...I think some of Chaucer belongs to his time and that much of that time is dead, extinct, and never to be made alive again. What was alive --John Masefield Geoffrey Chaucer¦s world was the Europe of the fourteenth century. It was neither rich or poor, happy nor sad. Rather, it was the intermingling of these, a mixture of splendor and poverty, displaying both worldly desire and spiritual purity. Chaucer¦s travels through it, mostly on ¦the King¦s business,_ or civil service, shaped his writing, offering the readers of today a brief glimpse into the world in which he lived. Chaucer lived from approximately AD 1340 to 1400. The world in which he li