“Now I beg all those that listen to this little treatise [Canterbury Tales], or read it, that if there be anything in it that pleases them, they thank our Lord Jesus Christ for it, from whom proceeds all understanding and goodness.” Geoffrey Chaucer’s first major poem, Book of the Duchess, was a well-received elegy for Blanche, the late wife of his patron John of Gaunt (who was also patron of Bible translator John Wycliffe). It