Jun 22, 2020
For the entirety of
Shakespeare’s life, the Tabard Inn was a well established public
inn on the mainstreet of Southwark, leading to London Bridge, and
it was famous because Chaucer had set the opening scene of The
Canterbury Tales there, but according to a 27 page hand written
document once owned by famous antiquary David Laing, the Tabard Inn
served as a frequent meeting place for William Shakespeare, who
gathered there with famous friends like Richard Burbage, Ben
Jonson, and other “roystering associates” of the 16th century, all
of whom carved their names into the wooden panels of this iconic
public house in an act of graffiti that turns out to be a key piece
of history.
This
paper record was left unnoticed for decades inside the Edinburgh
University Library until a reference to it was rediscovered by
Martha Carlin in 2013. Martha is Professor of history at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and she joins us today to share
with us her fantastic discovery, the history of the Tabard Inn, why
Shakespeare and his friends were writing on the walls there in the
late 16th century.