What did Geoffrey Chaucer John of Gaunt do at Savoy Court?

The Story

# Savoy Court: A Crossroads of Medieval Power and Poetry Standing at Savoy Court, you're standing where the fortunes of nations intersected with the birth of English literature. When Edward, the Black Prince, brought King John II of France here as a captive after his stunning victory at Poitiers in 1356, the Palace of the Savoy became an unlikely stage where a foreign monarch—far from a dungeon—was housed with such courtesy that his eight-year imprisonment read more like an extended royal visit, until his death in 1364. Yet it was John of Gaunt, the Black Prince's younger brother, who transformed these same halls into something even more enduring: a salon where Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet who would revolutionize English literature, dined repeatedly and found the inspiration to compose some of his greatest works. This location mattered not because of battles won or ransoms paid, but because here, in this palace by the Thames, a French king's captivity became an act of chivalric theater, a nobleman's patronage became a writer's crucible, and the rough, dismissed English language became the vehicle for poetry that would echo through the centuries.