Aureate terms are defined by J. C. Mendenhall in his thesis of that name as “those new words, chiefly Romance or Latinical in origin, continually sought under authority of criticism and the best writers, for a rich and expressive style in English, from about 1350 to about 1530.” Mendenhall sketches the history of “flourished words” before Chaucer's day but reminds the reader that “All this development was in a sense merely preliminary. It was Chaucer, who, according to the universal opinion of his age, really gave us a stylistic vocabulary.” In other words, he admits that whatever may have been the ultimate background of the fifteenth century's enthusiasm for ornate diction, its actual inception is traceable directly to Chaucer. His most essential assertion is that Chaucer followed the accepted rules and traditions of rhetorical art, but that his vocabulary was, nevertheless, distinctly choice and unusual.