In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer based each character off all the various kinds of people from the Middle Ages. He makes most of the pilgrims very true to what they were stereotyped as at the time, but he also gave each one of them very distinct personalities and idiosyncrasies, such as the knight having a rust stain on his undergarment. Chaucer’s version of a Middle-Age innkeeper, Harry Bailly, was very accurate to what a good innkeeper would have been like at the time, as was his inn, The Tabard.
In the Middle Ages, the period roughly between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the Renaissance, 476-1400 BC, (Middle), owning an inn was a very lucrative business (“Medieval”). This is largely because at this time, many inhabited places …show more content…
Harry didn’t do anything wrong, unlike one of the most famous innkeepers in the (relatively) modern day, Monsieur Thénardier from the musical Les Misérables. Monsieur Thénardier embodies everything that could and would go wrong if someone stayed at a bad inn. In his first song of the play, “Master of the House”, Monsieur Thénardier openly admits how awfully he treats the tenants of his inn. Some of his actions include watering the wine, pick-pocketing them, charging them “for the lice, extra for the mice, two per cent for looking in the mirror twice,” and grinding up horse kidney and cat liver and calling it beef or sausage (“Master”). Publicly, however, he seems to be an incredibly friendly and welcoming person, so all the people he is stealing from love him. This is a vicious contrast to what could occur in The Tabard. The narrator described what would could expect at The Tabard in the prologue: “Our Host gave us great welcome…he served the finest victuals you could think, the wine was strong and we were glad to drink.” Though Harry may occasionally show a quick temper, making him seem like a less gracious host than Monsieur Thénardier, when it comes down to it, Harry’s inn is the better place to stay at than Monsieur Thénardier’s. Harry may not seem as friendly on occasion, but no one has to worry about drinking their wine and tasting urine
In the Middle Ages, the period roughly between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the Renaissance, 476-1400 BC, (Middle), owning an inn was a very lucrative business (“Medieval”). This is largely because at this time, many inhabited places …show more content…
Harry didn’t do anything wrong, unlike one of the most famous innkeepers in the (relatively) modern day, Monsieur Thénardier from the musical Les Misérables. Monsieur Thénardier embodies everything that could and would go wrong if someone stayed at a bad inn. In his first song of the play, “Master of the House”, Monsieur Thénardier openly admits how awfully he treats the tenants of his inn. Some of his actions include watering the wine, pick-pocketing them, charging them “for the lice, extra for the mice, two per cent for looking in the mirror twice,” and grinding up horse kidney and cat liver and calling it beef or sausage (“Master”). Publicly, however, he seems to be an incredibly friendly and welcoming person, so all the people he is stealing from love him. This is a vicious contrast to what could occur in The Tabard. The narrator described what would could expect at The Tabard in the prologue: “Our Host gave us great welcome…he served the finest victuals you could think, the wine was strong and we were glad to drink.” Though Harry may occasionally show a quick temper, making him seem like a less gracious host than Monsieur Thénardier, when it comes down to it, Harry’s inn is the better place to stay at than Monsieur Thénardier’s. Harry may not seem as friendly on occasion, but no one has to worry about drinking their wine and tasting urine