Day 6 - Tabard Inn

The Tabard Inn, demolished in the 19th century, was mentioned by Chaucer in the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales as the starting point of Chaucer's pilgrims. Before we visited this place, I was very excited to see where it was and what it looked like. I had spent almost an entire semester reading the Canterbury Tales and analyzing Chaucer's work. I was anxiously waiting to actually be in the place that was the foundation for their pilgrimage. Before the pilgrims set off, they assembled by chance at this inn. "Befell that, in that season, on a day / In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I lay / Ready to start upon my pilgrimage..." ( I. 19-21). Over supper, the inn's host Harry Bailly proposes tha they hold a "story-telling" competition to pass the time en route: each pilgrim is to tell two tales on the way and two more on the journey home and the best wins a free supper. While I was at the Inn, I pictured all of the pilgrims I had recently read about eating, drinking, and journeying down the streets that we walked down as well. The taverns location is an appropriate entryway into Chaucer's world for a number of reasons. First off, it is a hospitable place where men and women of a variety of classes can congregate. In the middle ages, it was not uncommon for people of different social classes to join together as pilgrims as they would not elsewhere in life. Overall, I especially enjoyed this experience because I got a sense for where all of Chaucer's pilgrims met before their pilgrimage - and it was almost as if we could have been that group, but heading to The Globe instead!