He was a considerable person, this host. He was a Member of Parliament, and his name is an index of his importance, for Bailiff of Southwark his ancestor, Henry Tite, or Martin, had been made in 1231, and himself held the position through so long a line of grandfathers and great-grandfathers that their name had become merged in that of his civic office. So Chaucer's description we know to be very truth, so far as his worth and position are concerned:-- A seemly man our hoste was withal For to have been a marshal in a hall. A large man was he, with eyen steep, A fairer burgess is there none in Chepe; Bold of his speech, and wise, and well ytaught; And of manhood lacked righte nought, Eke thereto he was right a merry man. This explains the host's sitting at supper with his guests, even with such gentlefolk as the knight and his son, the squire, and with the Lady Abbess. Thus is he able to take charge of and assume leadership over his party on the road to Canterbury, and to reprove or praise each and all, according to his mind. The "Tabard" is, of course, only a memory now, and, indeed, so often had it been patched and repaired, that but little of the original could have been standing when the great fire of Southwark, in 1676, swept away many of the old inns. But the "Talbot," as it was called in later times, stood until 1870 on the site of the older building, and was itself so venerable that many good folks were used to believe it to have been the veritable house where those old-time pilgrims lay before setting out on their journey.