A tavern is, loosely, a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and, more than likely, also be served food, though not licenced to put up guests. The word derives from the Latin taberna and the Greek Ταβέρνα whose original meaning was a shed or workshop. The distinction of a tavern from an inn, bar or pub varies by location, in some places being identical and in others being distinguished by traditions or by legal license.
Gathering in a tavern to drink beer or other alcoholic drinks is a longstanding social tradition dating at least to Sumer (3500 BC); in Sumer the tavern keeper was traditionally a woman but in other places and times women could be completely excluded from tavern culture.
They have existed in England from as early as the 13th Century and were often kept by women usually known as Ale-wives. In the mid-14th century there were only three in London. An act of 1552 allowed forty in London, eight in York, six in Bristol and many more in towns all across England.
By the 19th century the word tavern had developed an archaic flavour, the current term being public house (pub).
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