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.