Mary (Unknown) Chaucer

Born [date unknown] in England

Wife of Robert (Malyn) le Chaucer — married 1305 in London, England

Descendants

Died before 1349 in London, England

Biography

Mary was widow of John Heyron "the Younger," pepperer of London, when she married, before Jan 1305, Robert le Chaucer, vintner of Ipswich and London. After the death of Robert about 1315, she married Richard le Chaucer, citizen and vintner of London; it's unknown how the two Chaucer husbands may have been related.

By her first marriage she had son Thomas Heyron, later citizen and vintner of London. With Robert le Chaucer she had son John le Chaucer, later citizen and vintner of London, through whom she became grandmother of poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Both of her sons were raised by their stepfather Richard.

Mary's origin and parentage are unknown, but a 1305 record indicates she held land in Edmonton, Middlesex that she may have brought into her first marriage. She is named in court records involving the 1324 abduction of son John by his paternal aunt; for this offense, Mary and Robert were awarded £250 in damages by a London jury in 1327. Mary is also named in various rents in the Cordwainer Street Ward where Robert and Richard each held tenements.

The will of Richard le Chaucer, dated Easter Day, 12 Apr 1349, indicates that Mary had predeceased him and provides for the maintenance of her tomb in the church of St Mary Aldermary in London.

Sources

• Vincent B. Redstone, “The Chaucer-Malyn family, Ipswich,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, 12 no. 2 (1905): 184-99; image copy Suffolk Institute. https://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XII%20Part%202%20(1905)_The%20Chaucer-Malyn%20family%20Ipswich%20V%20B%20Redstone_184%20to%20199.pdf : accessed 27 March 2024.
• Kern, Alfred Allan, The ancestry of Chaucer (Baltimore, Md.: The Lord Baltimore Press, 1906), pp. 59-81.
• Manly, John Matthews, “Mary Chaucer's first husband,” Speculum, vol. 9, no. 1 (Jan 1934): pp. 86-8.
• Redstone, Vincent B. and Lillian J. Redstone, “The Heyrons of London: a study in the social origins of Geoffrey Chaucer,” Speculum, vol. 12, no. 2 (Apr 1937): pp. 182-95.
• Threlfall, John Brooks, The ancestry of Reverend Henry Whitfield (1590-1657) and his wife Dorothy Sheafe (159?-1669) of Guilford, Connecticut (Madison, Wis.: the author, 1989), pp. 199-200.
• Matheson, Lister M., “Chaucer's Ancestry: Historical and Philological Re-Assessments,” The Chaucer Review, vol. 25, no. 3 (Winter 1991): pp. 171-89.