page_title: Influence of Italian humanism on Chaucer
section_title: The Clerk's Tale
hierarchical_section_title: Influence of Italian humanism on Chaucer / Influence of Petrarch's and Boccaccio's works / Canterbury Tales / The Clerk's Tale
caption_attribution_description: English: The painting,"Griselda's first Trial of Patience," depicting the kidnapping of the child as ordered by Griseldis' husband is by the English painter Charles West Cope, 1848.
context_page_description: Contact between Geoffrey Chaucer and the Italian humanists Petrarch or Boccaccio has been proposed by scholars for centuries. More recent scholarship tends to discount these earlier speculations because of lack of evidence. As Leonard Koff remarks, the story of their meeting is "a 'tydying' worthy of Chaucer himself".
  One of the reasons for the belief that Chaucer came in contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio is because of Chaucer's many trips to mainland Europe from England. Chaucer happened to be in the same areas at the same time as Petrarch and Boccaccio. Another reason is the influence of Petrarch's and Boccaccio's works on Chaucer's later literary works.
context_section_description: Boccaccio wrote the story of Griselda, which was later translated by Petrarch. Biographers say Chaucer heard it from Petrarch first by word of mouth at Padua. Later he received a Latin copy of it that he used to develop The Clerk's Tale. Many passages of The Clerk's Tale are nearly word for word of Petrarch's Latin version of Griselda.
  In the prologue to The Clerk's Tale,the Clerk suggests that he met Petrarch:
  However, this does not mean necessarily that Chaucer himself met Petrarch.
caption: The Clerk's Tale – story of "Griselda"
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