that Chaucer and his company met at the Tabard.
St. Thomas of Canterbury was murdered in the year 1170, by four knights, instigated thereto by a passionate exclamation of King Henry II., who was at feud with him relative to the respective rights of Monarchy and the church, and his shrine during the intervening years had become one of the most popular in the kingdom; the Saxon people, down-trodden by their Norman lords, looking upon him as a sort of clerical Robin Hood, the defender of the rights of the poor against Regal and Baronial oppression, and in process of time it had become resplendant with precious metals and gems, the offerings of pious devotees. Says Chaucer —
"Befell that in that season, on a day,
In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I lay,
Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury, with devout courage,
At night was come unto that hostelry;
With nine and twenty in a company,
Of sundry folk by aventure yfall
In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all,