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Yet, notwithstanding all this, we reverence him so deeply and love him so dearly, that we cannot help striving to gain some idea of what he was like. The dates given of Chaucer's birth are very varied, and range from 1328 to 1348. Probably some year midway between these two may be the right one. The accounts of his parentage are just as uncertain.

Two indulgences of Archbishop Melton, one of which is dated 1328, do indeed allude to some "new work" as still unfinished, but this "new work" may have been the repairs necessitated by the violence of the Scots.

At the end of the fifteenth century, the formidable gibbet which dated from 1328, was already very much dilapidated; the beams were wormeaten, the chains rusted, the pillars green with mould; the layers of hewn stone were all cracked at their joints, and grass was growing on that platform which no feet touched.

His earlier biographers, who supposed him to have been born in 1328, had accordingly a fair field open for conjecture and speculation. Here it must suffice to risk the asseveration, that he cannot have accompanied his father to Cologne in 1338, and on that occasion have been first "taken notice of" by king and queen, if he was not born till two or more years afterwards.

It was not then foreseen that they would last so long, and still less that they would bring the King to the block. Hist. de l'Acad. p. 162. Ep. Grot. 1629. p. 575. Ep. 1250. p. 576. Ep. 1271. p. 576. Puffendorf, l. 11. § 60. Ep. 1283. p. 581. Ep. 1311. p. 593. Puffendorf, l. 11. § 78. Ep. 1312. p. 594. Ep. 1313, p. 595. Ep. 1317. p. 596. Ep. 1320. p. 598. Ep. 1319. p. 597. Ep. 1328. p. 601.

The next emperor, Yesun Timour, was fortunate in a peaceful reign, but on his death, in 1328, the troubles of the dynasty accumulated, and its end came clearly into view. In little more than a year, three emperors were proclaimed and died.

It consists of an immense hall, and runs to the length of nearly four miles. In 1328 the papal troops, to save themselves the trouble or risk of penetrating into these recesses after their prey, built up the entrance, and left from four to five hundred Albigenses along with their bishops to perish therein of starvation. Of late years the bones have been collected, removed, and buried.

No authentic Salic law dealt with the question of the succession to the throne, and the bold step of transferring a doctrine of private inheritance to the domain of public law was one of the characteristic feats of the medieval jurist, anxious to heap up at any risk a mass of arguments that might overwhelm his antagonists' case. The barons of 1328 rose superior to legal subtleties.