[SOME difference of opinion exists as to the date at which Chaucer wrote 'The Legend of Good Women.
' Those who would fix that date at a period not long before the poet’s death — who would place the poem, indeed, among his closing labours — support their opinion by the fact that the Prologue recites most of Chaucer’s principal works, and glances, besides, at a long array of other productions, too many to be fully catalogued.
But, on the other hand, it is objected that the 'Legend' makes no mention of 'The Canterbury Tales' as such; while two of those Tales — the Knight’s and the Second Nun’s — are enumerated by the titles which they bore as separate compositions, before they were incorporated in the great collection: 'The Love of Palamon and Arcite,' and 'The Life of Saint Cecile' (see note 1 to the Second Nun’s tale).
Tyrwhitt seems perfectly justified in placing the composition of the poem immediately before that of Chaucer’s magnum opus, and after the marriage of Richard II to his first queen, Anne of Bohemia.
That event took place in 1382; and since it is to Anne that the poet refers when he makes Alcestis bid him give his poem to the queen 'at Eltham or at Sheen,' the 'Legend' could not have been written earlier.
The old editions tell us that 'several ladies in the Court took offence at Chaucer’s large speeches against the untruth of women; therefore the queen enjoin’d him to compile this book in the commendation of sundry maidens and wives, who show’d themselves faithful to faithless men.
This seems to have been written after The Flower and the Leaf. ' Evidently it was, for distinct references to that poem are to be found in the Prologue; but more interesting is the