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Tavern Signs
OTEL is a French term, derived from hostil, a lordly house, a palace. The designation And Public House, signifying a house of public resort for refreshment and conviviality, is a modern substitute for Tavern, founded upon the Anglo- Sazon tab, a cup, and arn, a place, and also for Inn, or rather, as originally written, Inne, which expressed the Anglo-Saxon for a mansion. here we may at once observe that by far the majority of our mediæval inns and Hostelries [see HOTEL] grew out of the mansions of the nobility during the prolonged absence of their owners. At such times the privilege of utilizing the mansion for his own profit naturally fell to the family's most trustworthy dependent, viz., the head gamekeeper, whose green costume gave existence to the sign of The Green Man, when, after quitting the family's service, he set up an inn on his own account either in connection with his own cottage or abutting on the public highway. Nevertheless, this sign had nothing in common with that of the The Green Man and Still, expressive of a herbalist bringing his herbs to a distillery, and which was doubtless the sign of a herbalist turned innkeeper.
As the family arms always occupied a prominent position on the front of the mansion these soon became known far and wide, though scarcely in accordance with their full heraldic significance.
Briefly, the most conspicuous object in them sufficed to impress itself upon the minds of travellers as the distinguishing sign of the establishment; so that, instead of speaking of lions gules and lions azure, &c., they simplified matters by referring to red and blue lions, &c. Such was the origin, then, of The Red Lion, The Blue Lion, and many another familiar sign of this character. Moreover, as a variation of the same device entered into the arms of different families, it happened that the most conspicuous object in them became popular in different parts of the country at the same time. Another fruitful source of the rapid multiplication of a particular sign throughout the same county, and even upon the same estate, was the fact that as often as a retired dependent of a nobleman's family turned innkeeper, he was pretty certain to name his establishment in accordance with the popular description of the original inn or mansion. If it chanced, however, that that sign had already been appropriated by another innkeeper in the immediate vicinity, the full cognizance of the ground landlord was adopted.
Thus, in the Midland Counties there is no sign so common as The Bear and Ragged Staff, which was the cognizance of the Earl of Warwick, the King Maker. Similarly, The Boar's Head was the cognizance of the Gordons; The Black Bull, Tavern Signs. that of the House of Clare; and The Talbot, that of the House of Shrewsbury. Another oft-to-be-metwith sign is The Chequers, which comprised the arms of the Earls of Fitzwarren who, in the time of the Plantagenets, held the right of granting the vintners their licences, Later in our history the same cognizance was adopted by the Stuarts. As every one is aware, The Red Rose was the recognized badge of the Lancastrians, and The White Rose that of the Yorkists. It may be assumed that these two signs were naturally more popular throughout the country at large during the Wars of the Roses than at any subsequent period.
During that turbulent period of English history, too, the devices of the several adherents of the rival houses were not unfrequently chosen in commemoration of a particular event; as, for example, after the Battle of Barnet, when The Star, the badge of the Earl of Oxford who decided the fate of that day, sprang up as an inn-sign in all directions, except, of course, upon Yorkist ground.