There are trades tokens extant of the Child-coat, in Whitecross Street, probably a shop where children’s apparel was sold. Randle Holme, in his heraldic Omnium Gatherum, b. iii., ch. i, p. 18, gives a representation of a child’s coat, which is very similar to the “Knickerbocker” suit of the present day, with a short kilt added to it. He adds the following explanation:—“A boy’s coat is the last coat used for boys, after which they are put into breeches. If it has hanging sleeves, they would term it a child’s coat.” In the same manner as the child’s coat, the Minister’s Gown figured at the door of the shop where this article was sold. There is a shopbill of such a one in Booksellers’ Row, St Paul’s Churchyard, among the Bagford bills.
The Tabard was the well-known inn in Southwark whence Chaucer and the other pilgrims started on their way to Canterbury. Mr Edmund Ollier has recently contributed a very interesting paper on this old inn to All the Year Round, and several paragraphs have appeared in other journals upon the same subject. A very few words, therefore, will be sufficient for the present purpose. Originally, it was the property of the Abbot of Hyde, near Winchester, who had his town residence within the inn-yard. The earliest record relating to this property is in 33d Edw. I., (1304,) when the Abbot and convent of Hyde purchased of William of Lategareshall two houses in Southwark, held by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the annual rent of 5s. 112d., and suit to his court in Southwark, and 1d. a year for a purpresture of one foot wide on the king’s highway; £4 per annum to John de Tymberhutts, and 3s. to the Prior and convent of St Mary Overie, in Southwark; value clear, 40s.
It is a fact on record that Henry Bayley, the hosteller of the Tabard, was one of the burgesses who represented the borough of Southwark in the Parliament held in Westminster in the 50th Edw. III., (1376;) and he was again returned to the Parliament held at Gloucester in the 2d Richard II., in 1378.[590] The tavern itself is named, at the very period when Chaucer’s poem is supposed to have been written, in one of the rolls of Parliament, where, 5th Richard II., (1381,) in a list of malefactors who had participated in the rebellion of Jack Cade, occurs the name of “Joh’es Brewersman, manens apud le Tabbard, London.” Stow thus notices the old inn:—
“From thence to London, on the same side, be many fair inns for receipt of travellers, by their signs—the Spurre, Christopher, Bull, Queen’s Head, Tabarde, George, Hart, King’s Head, &c. Amongst the which the most ancient is the Tabard; so called of the sign, which, as we now term it, is a jacket or sleeveless coat, whole before, open on both sides, with a square collar, winged at the shoulders, a stately garment of old time, commonly worn of noblemen and others, both at home and abroad in the wars, but then, (to wit, in the wars,) their arms embroidered or otherwise depict upon them, that any man by his coat of arms might be known from others; but now these tabardes are only worn by the heralds, and be called their coate of armes in service.”—Stow, p. 154.
Formerly there stood in the road, in front of the Tabard, a beam laid crosswise upon two uprights, upon which was the following inscription:—“This is the Inne where Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay in their journey to Canterbury, anno 1583.” Over this the sign was hung, but that disappeared with the rest of them in 1766. The writing of this inscription seemed ancient, yet Tyrwhitt is of opinion that it was not older than the seventeenth century, since Speght, who describes the Tabard in his edition of Chaucer 1602, does not mention it. Perhaps it was put up after the fire of 1676, when the Tabard changed its name into the Talbot.
At the present day the inn is known by the name of the Talbot; and although the building is by no means the same that sheltered Chaucer and his merry pilgrims, yet it is full of traditionary lore concerning them. In the centre of the gallery there was a picture, said to be by Blake, and well painted, representing the Canterbury Pilgrimage, almost invisible from dirt, age, and smoke. Behind this picture was a door opening into a lofty passage, with rooms on either side, one of which, on the right hand, was still designated as the Pilgrims’ Room. The house was repaired in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and from that period, probably, dated the fireplace, carved oak panels, and other parts spared by the fire of 1676, which were still to be seen in the beginning of this century.
As leather breeches were much used for riding in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the occupations of breeches-maker and glover were frequently combined; hence the sign of the Breeches and Glove on old London Bridge, the shop of “Walter Watkins, Breeches-maker, Leather-seller, and Glover.” But what made a Cornish publican of the present day, (at Camelford,) choose the sign of the Cotton Breeches, is more than we can pretend to explain.
Stockings or Legs are of constant occurrence in the seventeenth century trades tokens, as the signs of hosiers—frequently real, not painted, stockings were suspended at the door.
“On hosier’s poles depending stockings ty’d,
Flag with the slacken’d gale from side to side.”—Gay’s Trivia.
Boots and shoes occur in greater variety and abundance than any other article of dress. The Boot is a very common inn sign, either owing to the thirsty reputation of cobblers, or from the premises where they are found having been at one time occupied by shoemakers. The Boot and Slipper may be seen at Smethwick, near Birmingham; the Golden Slipper at Goodrange, in West Riding; the Hand and Slippers was a sign in Long Lane, Smithfield, in 1750. The Shoe and Slap occurs in the following handbill:—