Chaucer had a high-born wife, Philippa, whom he probably married as early as 1366. Chaucer may also have had a daughter, Elizabeth, and two sons, “little Lewis” (for whom he composed the Astrolabe, a prose work on the use of that instrument of an astronomer) and Thomas.
Chaucer was one of the most learned men of his time. He made numerous translations of prose and verse, including Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, saints’ legends, sermons, French poetry by Machaut and Deschamps, and Latin and Italian poetry by Ovid, Virgil, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. He also shows a wide knowledge of medicine and physiognomy, astronomy and astrology, jurisprudence, alchemy, and early physics. His knowledge of alchemy was so thorough that, even into the seventeenth century, some alchemists themselves considered him a “master” of the science — not a pseudo-science in Chaucer’s time.
According to the legend on his tomb in Westminster Abbey, the poet died on October 25, 1400.
