|
 haucer has
his pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, a disreputable area
across the Thames from London. There actually was a Tabard Inn in
Chaucer's
day, and its innkeeper was Harry Baily, who is named in Canterbury
Tales.
And just as there was a real Harry Baily, so too was the character of
the
cook, Hodge of Ware, an actual person. A London cook named Roger Ware
(Hodge
is a nickname of Roger) was known at that time, and Chaucer obviously
intended
for some of his London readers to recognize Baily, Ware, and perhaps
even
others.Southwark was the normal
starting point for all pilgrimages, and
although it is uncertain how individuals and small groups were
organized
into suitable companies, it seems certain that the Church also played
the
role of travel agency. A Canterbury pilgrimage was so popular and
common
that the route held few curiosities for Englishmen, and a written
account
of such a journey did not need descriptions of places or sights.
Chaucer
only mentions his pilgrims and their discussions; along the trip he
barely
names the towns they passed or where they stopped.
After leaving the Tabard he
throws in an occasional poetic signpost,
enough to maintain the illusion of a journey. He has the pilgrims stop
at a site called the Watering of St. Thomas (an unidentifiable
location),
but other spots are barely mentioned, and when they are, merely in
passing: "Lo
Greenwich, there many a shrewe is inne." Chaucer does not even
write
of Blackheath, or Dartford, the place where most pilgrims spent their
first
night out. In the Monk's prologue the town of Rochester (about 30 miles
from London) is mentioned, Sittingbourne is cited in the Wife of Bath's
prologue, and the Blean Forest is where the Canon's Yeoman joins the
group.
At Boughton-under-Blee there
were two approaches to Canterbury, and
Chaucer has his company stop to decide which path to take. It is here,
no more than a mile from their destination, that Chaucer ends his poem,
and the pilgrims end their fictional journey, the arrival in the city
eternally
postponed. In the final reference to their progress, Chaucer does not
even
clarify which route the pilgrims would have taken:
"Woot ye nat where ther stant a litel toun
Hodge of Ware INTRO | PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | BIBLIOGRAPHY |
Pilgrims Passing To and Fro © James L. Matterer
Please visit The Gode Cookery Bookshop
