least as early as the most ancient hostelries of the city itself. To
which, however, the prize of seniority is to be awarded can never be
known. Yet on one matter there can be no dispute. Pride of place
among the inns of Southwark belongs unquestionably to the Tabard.
Not that it is the most ancient, or has played the most conspicuous
part in the social or political life of the borough, but because the
hand of the poet has lifted it from the realm of the actual and
given it an enduring niche in the world of imagination.

No evidence is available to establish the actual date when the
Tabard was built; Stow speaks of it as among the "most ancient" of
the locality; but the nearest approach to definite dating assigns
the inn to the early fourteenth century. One antiquary indeed fixes
the earliest distinct record of the site of the inn in 1304, soon
after which the Abbot of Hyde, whose abbey was in the neighbourhood
of Winchester, here built himself a town mansion and probably at the
same time a hostelry for travellers. Three years later the Abbot
secured a license to erect a chapel close by the inn. It seems
likely, then, that the Tabard had its origin as an adjunct of the
town house of a Hampshire ecclesiastic.

But in the early history of the hostelry no fact stands out so
clearly as that it was chosen by Chaucer as the starting-point for
his immortal Canterbury pilgrims. More than two centuries had passed
since Thomas à Becket had fallen before the altar of St. Benedict in
the minster of Canterbury, pierced with many swords as his reward
for contesting the supremacy of the Church against Henry II.

"What a parcel of fools and dastards have I nourished in my house,"
cried the monarch when the struggle had reached an acute stage,