What was the image on the Tabard Inn sign?
Chaucer does not describe the sign at the Tabard Inn in his Canterbury Tales. However, it is safe to assume that it had one at the time his story is set. A sign, featuring a clearly recognizable image was a common feature of inns throughout the middle ages. Since illiteracy rates were high, an inn needed to be easily identifiable by way of an image. In this sense, the sign's image functioned as a logo for the inn.
The sixteenth-century English historian, John Stow, does, in fact, describe the Tabard Inn in his survey of London. While this survey was made nearly three hundred years after Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, it provides useful information about the inn. Stow mentions that the Tabard Inn displayed an image of a tabard itself on a sign. A tabard was a sleeveless coat, open on both sides. Tabards of various qualities and design were worn by all classes of Englishmen. It is possible that the Tabard Inn chose this as its symbol because it was welcoming to the various different types of people that Chaucer met there. Anyone in Southwark could have easily found the inn by looking for a sign displaying this familiar piece of clothing.
https://books.google.com.ni/books?id=CS8ag9qIaMcC&pg=PA327&lpg=PA327&dq=tabard+inn+sign+chaucer&source=bl&ots=iLGbmHf7VC&sig=4X1fUnimekXkAwUkUUn2GG2WeTQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdiePfyYHaAhUPuVkKHYgqAJU4FBDoAQg2MAM
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol6/pp76-89
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