Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/147

Rh enjoined by the Church, was a pilgrimage undertaken only by the most sincere, for the journey took three months, and the discomforts of the way were great.

Sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, journeyed the medieval pilgrim. Twenty miles a day was the ordinary rate of progression, but much time was spent in the taverns by the way, and in changing horses at roadside inns. For Canterbury they started from the famous Tabard Inn in Southwark, paying twelvepence to Rochester and another twelvepence for a horse to Canterbury. Chaucer, in his well-known "Canterbury Tales" gives us the whole atmosphere of the fourteenth century pilgrimage with graphic candour. We see the "verray perfight gentil knight" in cassock and coat of mail, with his curly-headed squire beside him, fresh as the May morning, and behind them the brown-faced yeoman in his coat and hood of green, with the good bow in his hand. A group of ecclesiastics light up for us the medieval Church—the brawny, hunt-loving monk, whose bridle jingles as loud and clear as the chapel-bell; the wanton friar, first among the beggars and harpers of the country side; the poor parson, threadbare, learned and devout; the summoner, with his fiery