Geoffrey Chaucer & the Charge of Raptus May 4th

For many years, there has been a cloud over Geoffrey Chaucer’s name.  Medieval records show that, in 1380, Geoffrey Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne, the daughter of a London baker were involved in a legal case involving the term ‘raptus’.

The term can mean rape or kidnapping.  The May 4, Close Rolls of the English Chancery, releases Chaucer from “all manner of actions related to my raptus” (“omnimodas acciones, tam de raptu meo”). So, we know he was not charged for the offense, but the original records suggest he was accused of it and possibly paid his way out of difficulty.

I attended a lecture about 18 months relating recently discoveries by Euan Roger and Sebastian Sobecki. It shone light on the long misunderstood case, and cleared Chaucer of rape or kidnapping.  The scholars were investigating medieval records which academic opinion thought not worth persuing.  But in the papers they discovered that Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne were on the same side in the legal dispute.

Rather than being a case of Chaucer mistreating Champaigne, the two of them were accused by her former employer, Thomas Staundon, of raptus. The case was caused ultimately by the shortage of labour following the Black Death of 1348. It killed over one third of the population of the UK. With the loss of life, the ruling classes found they were having to pay more for labourers, and goods. So, having control of Parliament, they passed legislation called the Statue of Labourers which insisted that people should work at the same pay rate and conditions as before the Black Death. Labourers had to swear to keep to the old conditions, and drastic consequences, including imprisonment, awaited those who transgressed. It was one of the major causes of the Peasants Revolt of 1381 as the legislation was still in use 30 years later.

So, it would seem that Cecily left her employer to work for Geoffrey Chaucer (presumably at a more realistic higher pay rate). Her former employer pressed charges against her and Chaucer for breaking the financial rules and poaching a worker.

This is a very crude summary of a fascinating piece of historical detective work. To find out more, read The Chaucer Review Volume 57, Number 4, 2022 Penn State University Press or follow this link https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/2/article/867751

For my post of Chaucer and St Valentine’s Day follow this link.

For ‘May the 4th be with you’ see my post here

First posted on May 4th, 2025