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63-555: The Republic of the Escartons (Italian: Repubblica degli Escartons ; French: République des Écartons ) was a collection of mountain territories located around Mount Viso in the Briançonnais , with territory between Marseille and Turin . It consisted of a set of mountain territories in what is now the French department of Hautes-Alpes , the province of Turin and province of Cuneo . It

126-423: A common medieval form of apprenticeship for boys into knighthood or prestige appointments. The countess was married to Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence , the second surviving son of the king, Edward III , and the position brought the teenage Chaucer into the close court circle, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for

189-502: A consul as its leader. Guigues VII of Viennois conceded the inhabitants of Briançon a charter of liberty in 1244, which was confirmed as a grand charter on 29 May 1343 by his successor Humbert II of Viennois at Beauvoir-en-Royans - he signed it with 18 representatives of the Alpine valleys. This gave birth to the Escartons republic, made up of five separate valleys – Briançonnais, Oulx, Casteldelfino, Val Chisone, and Queyras. The charter

252-537: A copy in his library among other works of Chaucer), with G. K. Chesterton writing, "among the great canonical English authors, Chaucer and Dickens have the most in common." The large number of surviving manuscripts of Chaucer's works is testimony to the enduring interest in his poetry prior to the arrival of the printing press. There are 83 surviving manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (in whole or part) alone, along with sixteen of Troilus and Criseyde , including

315-495: A deposition in the case of Scrope v. Grosvenor . There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife. She is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants , despite the fact that Chaucer knew some of the men executed over the affair quite well. On 12 July 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works , a sort of foreman organising most of

378-584: A general historical trend towards the creation of a vernacular literature , after the example of Dante , in many parts of Europe. A parallel trend in Chaucer's lifetime was underway in Scotland through the work of his slightly earlier contemporary, John Barbour . Barbour's work was likely to have been even more general, as is evidenced by the example of the Pearl Poet in the north of England. Although Chaucer's language

441-433: A lease on a residence within the close of Westminster Abbey on 24 December 1399. Henry IV renewed the grants assigned by Richard, but The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse hints that the grants might not have been paid. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June 1400, when some debts owed to him were repaid. Chaucer died of unknown causes on 25 October 1400, although the only evidence for this date comes from

504-511: A member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de chambre , yeoman , or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment. He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti , daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti , in Milan . Two other literary stars of

567-483: A more ornate tomb, making him the first writer interred in the area now known as Poets' Corner . Chaucer was a close friend of John of Gaunt , the wealthy Duke of Lancaster and father of Henry IV, and he served under Lancaster's patronage. Near the end of their lives, Lancaster and Chaucer became brothers-in-law when Lancaster married Katherine Swynford (de Roet) in 1396; she was the sister of Philippa (de) Roet, whom Chaucer had married in 1366. Chaucer's The Book of

630-687: A noyse gan they make That erthe & eyr & tre & euery lake So ful was that onethe was there space For me to stonde, so ful was al the place. "The language of England, upon which Chaucer was the first to confer celebrity, has amply justified the foresight which led him to disdain all others for its sake, and, in turn, has conferred an enduring celebrity upon him who trusted his reputation to it without reserve." —T. R. Lounsbury. The poet Thomas Hoccleve , who may have met Chaucer and considered him his role model, hailed Chaucer as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage". John Lydgate referred to Chaucer within his own text The Fall of Princes as

693-570: A style which had developed in English literature since around the 12th century as an alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre . Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing the rhyme royal , and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the iambic pentametre , in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him. The arrangement of these five-stress lines into rhyming couplets , first seen in his The Legend of Good Women ,

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756-439: A welle smal, Taketh his first spryngyng and his cours That eastward ay encresseth in his cours To Emele-ward, to Ferare and Venyse; The which a long thyng were to devyse. (Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Clerk's Tale," from The Canterbury Tales ) Chaucer This is an accepted version of this page Geoffrey Chaucer ( / ˈ tʃ ɔː s ər / CHAW -sər ; c.  1343 – 25 October 1400)

819-509: A will dated 3 April 1354 and listed in the City Hustings Roll as "moneyer", said to be a moneyer at the Tower of London . In the City Hustings Roll 110, 5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Chaucer refers to himself as me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie , which translates as: "I, Geoffrey Chaucer, son of the vintner John Chaucer, London". While records concerning

882-401: Is a reference to Lancaster (also called "Loncastel" and "Longcastell"), "walles white" is thought to be an oblique reference to Blanche, "Seynt Johan" was John of Gaunt's name-saint, and "ryche hil" is a reference to Richmond. These references reveal the identity of the grieving black knight of the poem as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Richmond. "White" is the English translation of

945-419: Is attested by the many poets who imitated or responded to his writing. John Lydgate was one of the earliest poets to write continuations of Chaucer's unfinished Tales . At the same time Robert Henryson 's Testament of Cresseid completes the story of Cressida left unfinished in his Troilus and Criseyde . Many of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contain material from these poets, and later appreciations by

1008-459: Is believed that he started The Canterbury Tales in the 1380s. Chaucer also translated Boethius ' Consolation of Philosophy and The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun). Eustache Deschamps called himself a "nettle in Chaucer's garden of poetry". In 1385, Thomas Usk made glowing mention of Chaucer, and John Gower also lauded him. Chaucer's Treatise on

1071-419: Is believed to be in Chaucer's Parlement of Foules (1382), a dream vision portraying a parliament for birds to choose their mates. Honouring the first anniversary of the engagement of fifteen-year-old King Richard II of England to fifteen-year-old Anne of Bohemia : For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make Of euery kynde that men thinke may And that so heuge

1134-451: Is much closer to Modern English than the text of Beowulf , such that (unlike that of Beowulf ) a Modern English speaker with an extensive vocabulary of archaic words may understand it, it differs enough that most publications modernise his idiom. The following is a sample from the prologue of The Summoner's Tale that compares Chaucer's text to a modern translation: The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love

1197-493: Is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer , had an illustrious career as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker of the House of Commons . Thomas's daughter, Alice , married the Duke of Suffolk . Thomas's great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson), John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln , was

1260-460: Is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France, Spain, and Flanders , possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela . Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet . She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault , and a sister of Katherine Swynford , who later ( c.  1396 ) became the third wife of John of Gaunt . It

1323-743: The Guil valley. The northern sector of the group, from the Punta Gastaldi to the Col de la Traversette , is located on the French border. According to the SOIUSA ( International Standardized Mountain Subdivision of the Alps ) the mountain can be classified in the following way: Monte Viso is the location of a neolithic jadeite quarry, at an elevation of 2,000 to 2,400 metres. Its productivity peaked around 5000 BC. The jadeite

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1386-610: The Middle English language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects. This is probably overstated; the influence of the court, chancery and bureaucracy – of which Chaucer was a part – remains a more probable influence on the development of Standard English . Modern English is somewhat distanced from the language of Chaucer's poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift sometime after his death. This change in

1449-471: The Romantic era poets were shaped by their failure to distinguish the later "additions" from the original Chaucer. Writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as John Dryden , admired Chaucer for his stories but not for his rhythm and rhyme, as few critics could then read Middle English and the text had been butchered by printers, leaving a somewhat unadmirable mess. It was not until the late 19th century that

1512-534: The pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of Chaucer difficult for the modern audience. The status of the final -e in Chaucer's verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the period of Chaucer's writing, the final -e was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use was somewhat irregular. It may have been a vestige of the Old English dative singular suffix -e attached to most nouns. Chaucer's versification suggests that

1575-512: The "lodesterre (guiding principle) … off our language". Around two centuries later, Sir Philip Sidney greatly praised Troilus and Criseyde in his own Defence of Poesie . During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Chaucer came to be viewed as a symbol of the nation's poetic heritage. In Charles Dickens ' 1850 novel David Copperfield , the Victorian era author echoed Chaucer's use of Luke 23:34 from Troilus and Criseyde (Dickens held

1638-624: The Astrolabe describes the form and use of the astrolabe in detail and is sometimes cited as the first example of technical writing in the English language. It indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary talents. The equatorie of the planetis is a scientific work similar to the Treatise and sometimes ascribed to Chaucer because of its language and handwriting, an identification which scholars no longer deem tenable. Chaucer wrote in continental accentual-syllabic metre ,

1701-636: The Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat , courtier , diplomat, and member of parliament. Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess , The House of Fame , The Legend of Good Women , and Troilus and Criseyde . He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin . Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "

1764-554: The Duchess (also known as the Deeth of Blaunche the Duchesse ) was written to commemorate Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's first wife. The poem refers to John and Blanche in allegory as the narrator relates the tale of "A long castel with walles white/Be Seynt Johan, on a ryche hil" (1318–1319) who is mourning grievously after the death of his love, "And goode faire White she het/That was my lady name ryght" (948–949). The phrase "long castel"

1827-598: The French word "blanche", implying that the white lady was Blanche of Lancaster. Chaucer's short poem Fortune , believed to have been written in the 1390s, is also thought to refer to Lancaster. "Chaucer as narrator" openly defies Fortune , proclaiming that he has learned who his enemies are through her tyranny and deceit, and declares "my suffisaunce" (15) and that "over himself hath the maystrye" (14). Fortune , in turn, does not understand Chaucer's harsh words to her for she believes that she has been kind to him, claims that he does not know what she has in store for him in

1890-609: The Visconti and Sir John Hawkwood , English condottiere (mercenary leader) in Milan. It has been speculated that it was Hawkwood on whom Chaucer based his character, the Knight, in the Canterbury Tales , for a description matches that of a 14th-century condottiere. A possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for

1953-408: The commissioners of peace for Kent at a time when French invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He also became a member of parliament for Kent in 1386 and attended the ' Wonderful Parliament ' that year. He appears to have been present at most of the 71 days it sat, for which he was paid £24 9s. On 15 October that year, he gave

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2016-403: The dukes of Lancaster, York , and Gloucester , and a portion of line 76 ("as three of you or tweyne") is thought to refer to the ordinance of 1390 which specified that no royal gift could be authorised without the consent of at least two of the three dukes. Most conspicuous in this short poem is the number of references to Chaucer's "beste frend". Fortune states three times in her response to

2079-564: The engraving on his tomb, which was erected more than 100 years after his death. There is some speculation that he was murdered by enemies of Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV, but the case is entirely circumstantial. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as was his right owing to his status as a tenant of the Abbey's close. In 1556, his remains were transferred to

2142-565: The era were in attendance: Jean Froissart and Petrarch . Around this time, Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess in honour of Blanche of Lancaster , the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369 of the plague. Chaucer travelled to Picardy the next year as part of a military expedition; in 1373, he visited Genoa and Florence . Numerous scholars such as Skeat, Boitani, and Rowland suggested that, on this Italian trip, he came into contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio . They introduced him to medieval Italian poetry ,

2205-533: The final -e is sometimes to be vocalised and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is disagreement. Most scholars pronounce it as a schwa when it is vocalised. Besides the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in

2268-568: The firste fyndere of our fair langage " (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in English). Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts. Chaucer was born in London, most likely in the early 1340s (by some accounts, including his monument, he was born in 1343), though the precise date and location remain unknown. The Chaucer family offers an extraordinary example of upward mobility. His great-grandfather

2331-565: The forms and stories of which he would use later. The purposes of a voyage in 1377 are mysterious, as details within the historical record conflict. Later documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a marriage between the future King Richard II and a French princess, thereby ending the Hundred Years' War. If this was the purpose of their trip, they seem to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred. In 1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy (secret dispatch) to

2394-464: The future, but most importantly, "And eek thou hast thy beste frend alyve" (32, 40, 48). Chaucer retorts, "My frend maystow nat reven, blind goddesse" (50) and orders her to take away those who merely pretend to be his friends. Fortune turns her attention to three princes whom she implores to relieve Chaucer of his pain and "Preyeth his beste frend of his noblesse/That to som beter estat he may atteyne" (78–79). The three princes are believed to represent

2457-471: The heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey , Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV 's coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" was written for Lewis. According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court ) at this time. He became

2520-591: The king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the King's Works. In 1359, in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War , Edward III invaded France, and Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the English army . In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims . Edward paid £16 for his ransom, a considerable sum equivalent to £14,557 in 2023, and Chaucer was released. After this, Chaucer's life

2583-468: The king's building projects. No major works were begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace , St. George's Chapel, Windsor , continued building the wharf at the Tower of London and built the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job, but it paid two shillings a day, more than three times his salary as a comptroller. Chaucer was also appointed keeper of

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2646-417: The language at the time, but Chaucer was the earliest extant manuscript source with his ear for common speech. Acceptable , alkali , altercation , amble , angrily , annex , annoyance , approaching , arbitration , armless , army , arrogant , arsenic , arc , artillery and aspect are just some of almost two thousand English words first attested in Chaucer. Widespread knowledge of Chaucer's works

2709-417: The liquid stipend until Richard II came to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on 18 April 1378. Chaucer obtained the very substantial job of comptroller of the customs for the port of London, which he began on 8 June 1374. He must have been suited for the role as he continued in it for twelve years, a long time in such a post at that time. His life goes undocumented for much of

2772-554: The lives of his contemporaries William Langland and the Gawain Poet are practically non-existent, since Chaucer was a public servant, his official life is very well documented, with nearly five hundred written items testifying to his career. The first of the "Chaucer Life Records" appears in 1357, in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh , the Countess of Ulster , when he became the noblewoman's page through his father's connections,

2835-578: The lodge at the King's Park in Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire , which was a largely honorary appointment. In September 1390, records say that Chaucer was robbed and possibly injured while conducting the business, and he stopped working in this capacity on 17 June 1391. He began as Deputy Forester in the royal forest of Petherton Park in North Petherton , Somerset on 22 June. This

2898-496: The mountain in the prologue to the Clerk's Tale in his Canterbury Tales , in a passage adapted from Petrarch's Latin version of his "Tale of Griselda": A prohemie, in which discryveth he, Pemond, and of Saluces the contree, And speketh of Appenyn, the hilles hye, That been the boundes of West Lumbardye, And of Mount Vesulus in special, Wher as the Poo out of

2961-596: The mountain was Alessandra Boarelli (1838–1908) on 16 August 1864. Monte Viso is mentioned by various authors, Italian and non-, including Dante , Petrarch , and Chaucer . Dante mentions the mountain in a long simile in Canto XVI of the Inferno as the source of the Montone River : Come quel fiume c'ha proprio cammino prima dal Monte Viso 'nver' levante, da la sinistra costa d'Apennino Chaucer cites

3024-542: The next ten years, but it is believed that he wrote (or began) most of his famous works during this period. Chaucer's "only surviving handwriting" dates from this period. This is a request for temporary leave from work presented to King Richard II, hitherto believed to be the work of one of his subordinates due to the low level of language. On 16 October 1379, Thomas Staundon filed a legal action against his former servant Cecily Chaumpaigne and Chaucer, accusing Chaucer of unlawfully employing Chaumpaigne before her term of service

3087-415: The official Chaucerian canon, accepted today, was decided upon, largely as a result of Walter William Skeat 's work. Roughly seventy-five years after Chaucer's death, The Canterbury Tales was selected by William Caxton as one of the first books to be printed in England. Chaucer is sometimes considered the source of the English vernacular tradition. His achievement for the language can be seen as part of

3150-647: The personal copy of Henry IV. Given the ravages of time, it is likely that these surviving manuscripts represent hundreds since lost. Chaucer's original audience was a courtly one and would have included women as well as men of the upper social classes. Yet even before his death in 1400, Chaucer's audience had begun to include members of the rising literate, middle and merchant classes. This included many Lollard sympathisers who may well have been inclined to read Chaucer as one of their own. Lollards were particularly attracted to Chaucer's satirical writings about friars, priests, and other church officials. In 1464, John Baron,

3213-631: The plaintiff, "And also, you still have your best friend alive" (32, 40, 48); she also refers to his "beste frend" in the envoy when appealing to his "noblesse" to help Chaucer to a higher estate. The narrator makes a fifth reference when he rails at Fortune that she shall not take his friend from him. Chaucer respected and admired Christians and was one himself, as he wrote in Canterbury Tales , "now I beg all those that listen to this little treatise, or read it, that if there be anything in it that pleases them, they thank our Lord Jesus Christ for it, from whom proceeds all understanding and goodness.", though he

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3276-453: The rest of his life" for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but given on a day of celebration, St George's Day , 1374, when artistic endeavours were traditionally rewarded, it is assumed to have been for another early poetic work. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the reward, but the suggestion of him as a poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets laureate . Chaucer continued to collect

3339-494: The western Italian Alps. It was declared a cross-border UNESCO biosphere reserve in 2013. The longest river of Italy, River Po , is born at the mountain's foot. On the northern slopes of Monte Viso are the headwaters of the Po , the longest Italian river, the so-called Pian del Re (2,020 m). The Monviso group is surrounded by the Valle Po , Valle Varaita and, on the French side,

3402-504: Was a tavern keeper, his grandfather worked as a purveyor of wines, and his father, John Chaucer, rose to become an important wine merchant with a royal appointment. Several previous generations of Geoffrey Chaucer's family had been vintners and merchants in Ipswich . His family name is derived from the French chaucier , once thought to mean 'shoemaker', but now known to mean a maker of hose or leggings . In 1324, his father, John Chaucer,

3465-471: Was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales . He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner , in Westminster Abbey . Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer , composing the scientific A Treatise on

3528-506: Was aware that as in any place some people in the church were venal and corrupt. Chaucer's first major work was The Book of the Duchess , an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster, who died in 1368. Two other early works were Anelida and Arcite and The House of Fame . He wrote many of his major works in a prolific period when he worked as customs comptroller for London (1374 to 1386). His Parlement of Foules , The Legend of Good Women , and Troilus and Criseyde all date from this time. It

3591-741: Was completed, which violated the Statute of Labourers . Though eight court documents dated between October 1379 and July 1380 survive the action, the case was never prosecuted. No details survive about Chaumpaigne's service or how she came to leave Staundon's employ for Chaucer's. It is not known if Chaucer was in the City of London at the time of the Peasants' Revolt , but if he was, he would have seen its leaders pass almost directly under his apartment window at Aldgate . While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent , being appointed as one of

3654-456: Was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the 12-year-old to her daughter in an attempt to keep the property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and fined £250, now equivalent to about £200,000, suggesting that the family was financially secure. John Chaucer married Agnes Copton, who inherited properties in 1349, including 24 shops in London, from her uncle Hamo de Copton, who is described in

3717-629: Was later confirmed by letters patent from all the kings of France from Charles V of France to Louis XVI of France – after the Treaty of Utrecht , this continued until 4 August 1789 for the parts of the Republic which remained French territory. Mount Viso It has been suggested that Monte Viso could be one of the mountains which inspired the Paramount logo. In Italy it is also known as Il Re di Pietra ("The Stone King") because of its prominence within

3780-416: Was named after its capital. Escarton corresponds to an Occitan term for a small region, and in French 'écarter' means 'to divide', specifically 'to divide taxes into quarters'. The republic enjoyed fiscal and political privileges from the French and although not very large, it had more than forty thousand inhabitants. Every year the leaders of various countries forming the Republic met in council to elect

3843-407: Was no sinecure, with maintenance an essential part of the job, although there were many opportunities to derive profit. Richard II granted him an annual pension of 20 pounds in 1394 (equivalent to £22,034 in 2023), and Chaucer's name fades from the historical record not long after Richard's overthrow in 1399. The last few records of his life show his pension renewed by the new king and his taking

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3906-513: Was used in much of his later work and became one of the standard poetic forms in English. His early influence as a satirist is also important, with the common humorous device, the funny accent of a regional dialect , apparently making its first appearance in The Reeve's Tale . The poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardise the London Dialect of

3969-591: Was used to make cult axes , which are found all over western Europe. One such ceremonial axe head was found as far away as a small hill called Tristia in Western Ireland and is on display in the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology , Dublin. In ancient times the mountain was known as Vesulus. Monte Viso was climbed for the first time on August 30, 1861 by William Mathews , Frederick Jacomb , Jean-Baptiste Croz and Michel Croz . The first woman to summit

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