God hath swich favour sent hire of his grace
That it ne semed nat by liklynesse
That she was born and fed in rudenesse,
As in a cote or in an oxe-stalle,
But norissed in an emperoures halle.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Clerk’s Tale. With Griselda losing her pauper’s clothes for Walter’s bejeweled and splendid wedding outfit, the Clerk comments that God had sent her such grace she seemed not likely to have been born and fed in a peasant’s hut, but nourished in an emperor’s hall.