Identifier: historicbywayshi00andr (find matches)
Title: Historic byways and highways of Old England
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Andrews, William, 1848-1908
Subjects: England -- Social life and customs
Publisher: London : W. Andrews & Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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in Chaucers time, when he tells usthat it befell on a certain April day In Southwerke at the Tabard as I lay.Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage,To Canterbury with ful devout courage,At night was come into that hostelrye,Wei nine and twenty in a compagnye. In imagination it is not difficult to picture suchan ancient inn. Although few of the type nowexist in London, we have yet numerous examplesscattered up and down the country in our oldtowns. Built around a courtyard, with whichthe guest chambers communicated, and havingwooden oralleries on three or four sides, thesebeing approached from below by flights of steps.Hither came not only travellers and pilgrims, butalso all that motley assemblage of characters whowere from time to time allowed within itsprecincts. Morris-dancers, mummers, jugglers,musicians, and ballad-singers might be seen therein the evening ; all hopeful of gathering largessefrom the guests. And the sound of the bagpipe,timbrel, tabor, dulcimer, and pipe might be heard.
Text Appearing After Image:
o a■J o £ 9^t,^<f^fm*i Cbaucer an^ tbe /iDeMa^val 5nn. 67 For travellers and pilgrims in mediaeval timeswere not a doleful folk. On the contrary, mostof the last-named in the fourteenth centuryappear to have endeavoured to make theirjourneys as agreeable, and as much like a holiday,as possible. The Tabard, demolished only a few years ago,was a house of the character just described.Perhaps it was not exactly Chaucers ownTabard, but it certainly was the legitimate suc-cessor of the more antique structure, taken downin the seventeenth century. John Stow des-cribed the Tabard of his day as the most ancienthostelry south of London Bridge. There untilas it were but yesterday the wayfarer—so inclined—miofht still obtain a drauojht of that famous ale,of which Chaucers Cooh was such an excellentjudge. The inn was a fine half-timbered house,with a gallery and courtyard, where there wasample space for such a company as rode fromthence on that memorable morn five centuriesaofo. The hist

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