This DVD covers English author, poet, philosopher, courtier, and diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer's life to middle age, Chaucer's 14th century saw him survive the Black Death as a child, the plague that wiped out a third of the population of the West, and become actively involved, both as a soldier and later a secret agent in the 100 Years War, the war that was to leave England devastated. Despite all these man-made and natural catastrophes, English literature went though a short Renaissance, and the program hints as to why this might have happened, and considers the leading role that Chaucer was to play in it. Terry Jones (Monty Python) stars.