From the immortal company of pilgrims which left the Tabard Inn, High Street, Southwark, on the 2nd day of April in, or about, the year 1380, it remains for me to show what pilgrims and pilgrimage meant in the fourteenth century. This company met by appointment the night before the day of departure. They did not agree with each other, but they met by chance. At present, when a party starts for Palestine or for a voyage round the Mediterranean, the members do not agree to meet: they find out that a party will start on such a date from such a place, and they join it. Part of the business of the Tabard, and of other inns of Southwark, was to organise and to conduct such a party to Canterbury and back. As the ships licensed to carry pilgrims charged so much for the voyage there and back, including the visit to the shrine, so the Host of the Tabard charged so much for conducting and entertaining the party there and back again. That the company was collected in this manner and not by personal agreement, is shown by their mixed character; and the ready way in which they all journeyed together, travelled together, and talked together shows that society of the fourteenth century was no respecter of persons, or that pilgrimage was a great leveller of rank.
The following is a list of the company:--
1.--A Knight, his Son, and an attendant Yeoman. 2.--A Prioress: an attendant Nun: and three Priests. 3.--A Monk and a Friar. 4.--A Merchant. 5.--A Clerk of Oxford. 6.--A Serjeant at Law. 7.--A Franklin. 8.--A Haberdasher, a Carpenter, a Weaver, a Dyer, and a Tapestry Maker, all clad in the livery of a Fraternity. 9.--A Sailor and a Cook. 10.--A Physician, 11.--The Wife of Bath. 12.--A Town Parson and a Ploughman. 13.--A Reeve, a Miller, a Sompnour, a Pardoner, a Maunciple, and the Poet himself.
With them all went the Host of the Tabard. It is generally supposed that they rode the whole way to Canterbury, which is sixty-six miles, in a single day. Their resting places have, however, been found by Professor Skeat. Allow them sixteen hours for the journey. This means more than four miles an hour without any halt. But so large a company must needs go slowly and stop often. We cannot believe that in the fourteenth century such a company would travel sixty-six miles a day over such roads as then existed, and at a time of year when the winter mud had not yet had time to dry.