Canterbury Tales Visitor Attraction

The poet Geoffrey Chaucer is widely acknowledged as one of the foremost figures in English literature. His best known work, “The Canterbury Tales” was published in 1476 (probably the first book ever to be printed in England) making it a best seller for over 600 years. Chaucer wove his tales around the central premise that each was told by a pilgrim travelling from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London (where the story begins) to the shrine of Saint Thomas in Canterbury Cathedral, one of the most popular sites of pilgrimage in Medieval Europe. Pilgrims did actually gather at this inn to make the perilous journey in groups, before proceeding at a leisurely pace along what ...

I am almost certain that those of you reading this will have heard of Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the well known Canterbury Tales. These are a collection of stories told by a fictional group of pilgrims, on their way to Canterbury in the fourteenth century to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket. Becket of course was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been murdered in Canterbury Cathedral at the end of the twelfth century, for standing up for the rights of Church. Though if you ask me, and I studied this a couple of years ago, it was sheer bloody-mindedness which led to his death. Nonetheless, pilgrims immediately flocked to Canterbury in huge numbers after his ...