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Updated: June 16, 2025
Yet it was in this courtyard, and before this very inn, that Chaucer and his nine-and-twenty pilgrims stood in picturesque confusion in the early dawn of that spring morning, long, long ago; and agreed for their common amusement on the road each one of them should tell at least one tale in going to, and another in returning from Canterbury; the best story teller to be treated to a supper by his fellow travelers on their return to the Tabard Inn.
Her tale is to show what a woman likes best, which, according to her, is to bear rule over her husband and household. The prioress is conventional and weak, aping courtly manners. The wife of the host of the Tabard inn is a vixen and shrew, who calls her husband a milksop, and is so formidable with both her tongue and her hands that he is glad to make his escape from her whenever he can.
The ancient man drew closer to Ralph and looked at him up and down and all about; for those two turned him about as if he had been a joint of flesh on the roasting-jack; and at last he said: "His beard is sprouting, else might ye have taken him for a maid of theirs, one of those of whom we wot. But to say sooth I seem to know the fashion of his gear, even as Duke Jacob knew Joseph's tabard.
There is one other personage upon whom indeed the whole pilgrimage depended of whom Chaucer says next to nothing, but we should do wrong to forget him: I mean the "blissful martyr" himself St Thomas of Canterbury. In old days, certainly in Chaucer's, we should have been reminded of him more than once on our way e'er we gained the Tabard.
At the Tabard Inn twenty-nine "of sundry folk," besides Chaucer himself, were gathered. They were all strangers to each other, but they were all bound on the same errand. Every one was willing to be friendly with his neighbor, and Chaucer in his cheery way had soon made friends with them all. "And shortly when the sun was to rest, So had I spoke with them every one."
When I determined to set out once more to traverse and to possess England of my heart, it was part of my desire first of all to follow, as far as might be, in the footsteps of Chaucer's pilgrims. Therefore I sought the Tabard Inn in Southwark.
Dost thou not know that the shower to-day has left in my dominions neither man nor beast alive that was exposed to it? And thereupon, behold, a Knight on a black horse appeared, clothed in jet-black velvet, and with a tabard of black linen about him. And we charged each other, and, as the onset was furious, it was not long before I was overthrown.
The metropolis, it will be seen, has no end of attractions, and for the traveller's accommodation the ancient inns are rapidly giving place to modern hotels. Among London's famous hostelries is the "Old Tabard Inn" in the Borough, which will probably soon be swept away.
Of a sudden the King said something over his shoulder to Sir William de Pakyngton the herald, who advanced and stood by the royal chair. He was a tall and noble-featured man, with long grizzled beard which rippled down to the gold-linked belt girdling his many-colored tabard.
There, high above the heads of the mounted guards and the assembled spectators, rose the scaffold, hung with black. Egmont, wearing a crimson tabard, a short black cloak embroidered with gold, and a hat ornamented with black and white plumes, stood in a haughty attitude, as if facing the square and the people.
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