2019/04/09 by Keith Briggs · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Medieval Literature and History #Historical Studies of British Isles
paper · doi:10.1093/notesj/gjz004
openalex publication_date 2019/04/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The generally accepted pedigree of Geoffrey Chaucer has an Ipswich great-great-grandfather known as Robert the Taverner alias Malin of London, whose wife was Duce Malin. This assumption goes back to Vincent Redstone,1 was followed by Kern,2 and is accepted by all later authors, notably in the definitive edition of Chaucer’s life-records by Crow and Olson, who also made use of subsequent research in Suffolk archives by Lilian Redstone.3 Matheson also did not question the assumption.4 Vincent Redstone’s conclusions were based solely on evidence obtained from two thirteenth-century rentals of the priory of Holy Trinity in Ipswich. The later of these two rentals survived in the Suffolk Record Office,5 but the earlier rental was lost after the publication of a transcript by Hunt in 1847.6 However, it has now resurfaced and in 2017 was bought by Cambridge University Library.7 A re-examination of the original roll shows that a different conclusion concerning the identity of Malin of London must be drawn.