Geoffrey Chaucer Quote
He was an easy man to mete out Penance when a good gift he expected to receive. Forsooth, to donate generously unto a poor Order is a sign that a man is well shriven. For if a man gave, the Friar dared to assert, he knew that the man was repentant. So hard is the heart of many a man that he cannot weep, though he may sorely suffer for his sins. Therefore, in the stead of weeping and praying, men must give silver to the poor Friars.
Geoffrey Chaucer
He was an easy man to mete out Penance when a good gift he expected to receive. Forsooth, to donate generously unto a poor Order is a sign that a man is well shriven. For if a man gave, the Friar dared to assert, he knew that the man was repentant. So hard is the heart of many a man that he cannot weep, though he may sorely suffer for his sins. Therefore, in the stead of weeping and praying, men must give silver to the poor Friars.
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About Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his ten-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in public service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat and member of the Parliament of England, having been elected as shire knight for Kent.
Amongst his other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde, and Parlement of Foules. A prolific writer, Chaucer has been seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. His contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage" (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in English). Almost two thousand English words are first attested in Chaucerian manuscripts.