VI. ON SOME OF THE ANCIENT INNS OF BY GEORGE R. CORNER, Esq., F.S.A. READ AT THE GENERAL MEETING HELD IN SOUTHWARK, 12TH MAY, 1858. "Shall I not take my ease in mine Inn?” Henry IV., Part I., act 3, sc. 3. THE borough of Southwark, more especially the Highstreet, having for so many ages been the only entrance into London from Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, and the chief road to and from France, and the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, to which, in times before the Reformation, pilgrims resorted by thousands every year, it is not surprising that the Borough became celebrated for its inns, which, from the accommodation they afforded to travellers, brought no inconsiderable profit to the inhabitants of this part of the metropolis. Honest John Stow, in his "Survey of London" (first published in 1598), says: "From thence (the Marshalsea) towards London-bridge, on the same side, be many fair inns for receipt of travellers, by these signs :-the Spurre, Christopher, Bull, Queen's Head, Tabard, George, Hart, King's Head, &c." Of these inns mentioned by the old chronicler, the Spur, the Queen's Head, the Tabard (now called the Talbot), the George, the White Hart, and the King's Head still exist as inns for travellers; and it is of three of those hostelries, and of a few others in this borough, that I propose to give some account: and first, as the most celebrated, although not now maintaining its ancient character, I will tell you what I have been able to collect about THE TABARD INN, SOUTHWARK. So much has been written of this celebrated hostelry, that the subject may be supposed to have been exhausted, and it may be considered presumptuous to attempt to tell anything, not already known, of the inn renowned in Chaucer's verse, as the place where he and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims met, and agreed to enliven their pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, by reciting tales to shorten the way. Nevertheless, the subject is so interesting, that a collection of facts relating to "The Tabard" and its jovial host, whom Chaucer represents as not only merry himself, but the cause of mirth in others, may not be unacceptable; especially as some few particulars, not yet in print, have been discovered, and will add something to the general interest of the subject. The date of the Canterbury Pilgrimage is generally supposed to have been the year 1383; and Chaucer, after describing the season of Spring, says : And wel we weren esed atte beste, And shortly, whan the sonne was gon to reste, And made for word erly for to rise, To take oure way ther as I you devise." Lines 19 to 29. "The Tabard" is again mentioned in the following lines: "In Southwerk at this gentil hostelrie, Lines 720, 721. "The Tabard” was the property of the Abbot of Hyde, near Winchester, who had his town residence within the inn-yard; and the earliest record that I have been able to meet with relating to the property is in the 33rd Edward I., A.D. 1304;1 when the Abbot and Convent of Hyde purchased of William de Lategareshall two houses in Southwark, held of the Archbishop of Canterbury, by the annual rent of 5s. 1d., and suit to his court in Southwark, and 1d. a year for a purpresture of one foot wide on the king's highway; £4 per annum to John de Tymberhuth, and 3s. to the prior and convent of St. Mary Overie, in Southwark. Value clear, 40s.2 On the 6th August, 1307, the Abbot of Hyde had a licence from the Bishop of Winchester for a chapel at his hospitium, in the parish of St. Margaret, Southwark." 1 Two tenements will appear to have been conveyed by William de Ludegarsale to the Abbot, &c., de Hida juxta Winton in 1306, and which are described in a former conveyance, therein recited, as extending in length" a communi fossato de Suthwerke versus orientem, usque Regiam viam de Suthwerke versus occidentem.”—Registrum de Hyde, MS. Harl. 1761, fo. 166-173. 2 Esc.' 33 Ed. I. n. 227; 34 Ed. I. n. 127. 3 Register Winton, 64a. The jovial host of "The Tabard," who proposed that each of the pilgrims should tell a tale on the journey to Canterbury, is thus described by Chaucer : "A semely man our hoste was with alle, A fairer burgeis is ther non in Chepe; Lines 753 to 759. And we have the host's name in the Prologue to the Cook's Tale, to whom "Our hoste answerd, and sayde, 'I grant it thee: Now tell on, gentil Roger, by thy name, 999 Lines 4342 to 4358. Henry Bailly, the host of "The Tabard," was not improbably a descendant of Henry Fitz Martin, of the borough of Southwark, to whom King Henry III., by letters-patent dated 30th September in the 50th year of his reign, at the instance of William de la Zouch, granted the customs of the town of Southwark during the king's pleasure, he paying to the exchequer the annual fee-farm rent of £10 for the same. By that grant Henry Fitz Martin was constituted bailiff of Southwark, and he would thereby acquire the name of Henry the Bailiff, or le Bailly. But be this as it may, it is a fact, on record, that Henry Bailly, the hosteller of "The Tabard," was one of the burgesses who represented the borough of Southwark, in the parliament held at Westminster, in the 50th Edward III., A.D. 1376; and he was again returned to the parliament held at Gloucester, in the 2nd Richard II., A.D. 1378. We cannot read Chaucer's description of the host without acknowledging the likelihood of his being a popular man among his fellow-townsmen, and one likely to be selected for his fitness to represent them in parliament. His identity is further corroborated by the following extract from the Subsidy Roll of 4th Richard II., 1380, dorso, Henr' Bayliff, Ostyler, Xpian, Ux'. eius ...... ijs. from which record it appears that Henry Bayliff, hosteller, and Christian his wife, were assessed to the subsidy at two shillings. Of the wife of our host, Chaucer has given us a very unfavourable character, in the words of her lord; unless they are to be understood as said in jest, rather than in sober truth; for after the Merchant's tale, which is of a bad wife, he makes the host to say, "I have a wif, though that she poure be ; |