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.