PILGRIMS’ INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS
Inns, or guest-houses for the proper lodging and entertainment of travellers bent on pilgrimage, were among the earliest forms of hostelries; and those great bournes of religious pilgrimage in mediæval times—the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, the tomb of Edward the Second in Gloucester Cathedral, the relics of St. Dunstan at Glastonbury, and the more or less holy objects of superstitious reverence at Walsingham, St. Albans, and indeed, in most of our great abbeys, attracting thousands of sinners anxious to clear off old scores and begin afresh—were full of inns for the entertainment of every class of itinerating sinner; from the Abbot’s guest-house, at the service of the great, to the hostels for the middle classes, and the barns and outhouses where the common folk appropriately herded.
The Abbots and other dignified ecclesiastics were thus among the earliest innkeepers, but they conducted their business on lines that would be impossible to the modern hotel-keeper, for they commonly boarded and lodged their guests free of charge, confident, in the religious spirit of the time, that the offerings to be made at the shrines, which were the objects of those old-time painful journeys, would amply repay the costs and charges of their entertaining, and leave a very handsome surplus for the good of the Abbey.
Chaucer’s description of pilgrimages made to Canterbury gives us a very good idea of the varied character of the crowds setting forth upon their journey to that most popular of shrines; and we learn from him and from many other contemporary sources that the bearing of these crowds was scarce what we should expect of miserable sinners, not only conscious of their sins, but humbly seeking that spiritual spring-clean—absolution. They were gay and light-hearted, reckless, and exceedingly improper, and rarely failed to deeply scandalise the innkeepers along the roads.
The “Tabard,” whence Chaucer’s pilgrims set out on that April morning in 1383, has long been a thing of the past. It was in 1307, one hundred and thirty-seven years after Becket’s martyrdom, that the Abbot of Hyde, at Winchester, built the first house, which seems to have been in two portions: one a guest-house for the brethren of Hyde and other clergy coming to London to wait upon that mighty political and religious personage, my Lord Bishop of Winchester, whose London palace stood close by, on Bankside; the other a more or less commercially conducted inn. When Chaucer conferred immortality upon the “Tabard,” in 1383, the lessee of that hostelry was the “Harry Bailly” of The Canterbury Tales, a real person, and probably an intimate friend whom Chaucer thus delighted to honour.
This was no mere red-nosed and fat-paunched purveyor of sack and other quaint liquors of that time, but one who had been Member of Parliament for Southwark in 1376 and again in 1379,[12] and was a person not only of considerable property, but a dignified and well-mannered man—better-mannered and of cleaner speech, we may suspect, than Chaucer’s pilgrims themselves:
A seemly man our hostè was withal
For to have been a marshal in a hall.
A largè man was he, with eyen steep,
A fairer burgess is there none in Chepe;
Bold of his speech, and wise, and well ytaught;
And of manhóod lackèd righte nought,
Eke thereto he was right a merry man.
Such a host, and no less a person, could have sat at supper with his guests, even with such gentles as the Knight and his son, the Squire, and the Lady Abbess; and thus only is he able to take charge of, and to assume leadership over, the party of twenty-nine on the long four days’ pilgrimage to Canterbury, and to reprove or praise each and all, according to his mind.
The “Tabard” derived its name from the sleeveless ceremonial heraldic coat, tricked out with gold and colours, worn by heralds. At a comparatively early date, however, the “science of fools,” as heraldry has severely been called, grew neglected, and “tabards” became little understood by common people. The sign of the house was accordingly changed to the “Talbot” about 1599; but even that has grown mysterious, and only folk with very special knowledge now know what a “talbot” was. In those days the meaning was well understood, and especially at inns, for it was the name of a fierce breed of dog—the old English hound, something between a mastiff and a bull-dog—kept chiefly by packmen to mount guard over their pack-horses and goods.
Both “Tabard” and “Talbot” are now nothing more substantial than memories. Little could have been left of the historic house in 1676, when the great fire of Southwark swept away many of the old inns. A newer “Talbot” then arose on the site, and stood until 1870: itself of so venerable an appearance that it was not difficult to persuade people of its being the veritable house whence Chaucer’s pilgrims set forth those many centuries ago.