Chrétien de Troyes - de Troyes

No. We do not know his parentage. Indeed, though we believe he was from Troyes, we don’t actually know that for sure.

We don't know much about Geoffrey of Monmouth's antecedents either, except that his father may possibly have been named "Arthur" (big fat help that, it was already a very popular name). And since we *do* know that he was a cleric, there's little chance that he left any descendants.

We've got lots more on Sir Thomas Malory, but then he left a long rap sheet behind him - always in and out of trouble, always in and out of jail. (His disreputable record is why alternative authors were sought - Thomas Mallory of Papworth St. Agnes had a relatively clean record, *but* he not only was never knighted, he paid the fee to *get out of* being knighted. Probably didn't want to be confused with That Rapscallion from Newbold Revel.)

There's a lot of conjecture about how Caxton got hold of the manuscript(s) in the first place. One particular favorite theory is that Malory had been put into the keeping of Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers, who was fascinated by chivalric romances and not only had a sizable collection of Arthuriana but had the connections to get loans of other manuscripts. According to this theory Rivers arranged for the publication and the Winchester Manuscript was intended as a presentation copy for him (we'll never know, because the relevant portion of the MS had been lost).

Rivers was a fairly Important Person in the time period, being the brother of Edward IV's Queen. He was also a bit of a poet/author himself, with an extant relationship with Caxton, who published a volume of his verses as one of his earlier commissions in England.

The question is, which king? :-) The Plantagenet Y-DNA signature is thought to be haplogroup G (courtesy of Richard III), but the picture is clouded by those dratted Somersets, who were mainly type R. (*Somebody* wasn't the baby daddy, but nobody knows who or when.)

The *royal* Tudors haven't been typed (serious lack of male *or* female descendants), but the majority of collaterals from earlier have tested as type R.

We've got the Stewarts (another version of type R) but not the Hanovers (there are collaterals but they haven't volunteered). Mountbatten-Windsor (the current royal house) is yet another flavor of R.

Chaucer turns up a lot, never as a direct ancestor, but frequently as an uncle-in-law.

I notice that it's all over the web -- wikipedia et al -- that Chaucer and John of Gaunt were close friends.

What the evidence is for this I do not know.

Certainly John was Chaucer's patron, and certainly he was Chaucer's military commander, and certainly he had a long affair, and later marriage, with Chaucer's sister in law, and certainly he granted him a lifetime annuity.

But the class difference was pretty large.

And that's all the evidence we have. Do we have little notes -- "remember to tell Chaucer that there's a card game tonight"? -- nah.

So, maybe they were buddies and maybe they were not. Apparently the consensus these days is that they were buddies. But no evidence is getting coughed up. Their relationship was certainly cordial. But they weren't necessarily buddies.

But of course, maybe they were.

Whenever we need to bring up John of Gaunt on the True Crime Medieval podcast (the last time was, I think, the Peasants; Revolt), I like to refer to him as "Chaucer's brother in law, whom many people know as John of Gaunt."

I never get tired of that. Lol.

Here’s the project — https://www.geni.com/projects/True-Crime-Medieval/895188

or you can just go to truecrimemedieval.com

Our goal is to tell no lies and enjoy ourselves.

Thank you: you are very kind.

We are indeed enjoying ourselves.

Thanks for the suggestions. Some but not all were on our list. Mabel is a very good addition! The Bal des Ardents, of course, was not a Crime, but a Stupidity. Alas.

If we get big enough to do Patreon, we are thinking about adding episodes outside of our mandate, either in time (the murder of Christopher Marlowe, for instance) or subject (ant the Bal would do well for that).