Note 30 — Chapter XXVII · THE COURTS OF LOVE.

Grave doubts have recently been thrown on the authenticity of this poem. Into these I cannot enter here. But it seems strange that the bearing of the reality or fictitiousness of the ‘courts of love’ on the mooted point should have been entirely overlooked. Chaucer’s visit to France (1359) coincides with the time when amateur judges and juries deciding questions of gallantry were all the rage, and these might very well have suggested to him the symbolical machinery of the poem. But of course the intrinsic probability of Chaucer having written a poem on the ‘Court of Love’ does not amount to much compared with the philological arguments of Mr. Skeat (see ‘Athenæum,’ November 4, 1876). At the same time it seems surprising that neither he nor Mr. Furnivall is apparently acquainted with the historical controversy on the point, in spite of Diez’s admirable work, and of the paper I wrote on the subject in a monthly periodical. If this is true of scholars, what can be expected of the general reader? At this rate the ‘courts of love’ may protract their spurious existence for another century or so—in England at least.