Part 2

In that part are the sumpter horses, powerful and spirited; here costly chargers elegant of form, noble of stature, with ears quickly tremulous, necks lifted, haunches plump. In their stepping the buyers first try for the gentler, then for the quicker pace, which is by the fore and the hind feet moving in pairs together. When a race is ready for such thunderers, and perhaps for others of like kind, powerful to carry, quick to run, a shout is raised, orders are given that the common horses stand apart. The boys who mount the wing-footed, by twos or threes, according to the match, prepare themselves for contest; skilled to rule horses, they restrain the mouths of the untrained with bitted bridles. For this chiefly they care, that no one should get before another in the course. The horses rise too in their own way to the struggle of the race; their limbs tremble, impatient of delay they cannot keep still in their place; at the sign given their limbs are stretched, they hurry on their course, are borne with stubborn speed. The riders contend for the love of praise and hope of victory, plunge spurs into the loose-reined horses, and urge them none the less with whips and shouts. You would think with Heraclitus everything to be in motion, and the opinion to be wholly false of Zeno, who said that there was no motion and no goal to be reached. In another part of the field stand by themselves the goods proper to rustics, implements of husbandry, swine with long flanks, cows with full udders, oxen of bulk immense, and woolly flocks. There stand the mares fit for plough, dray and cart, some big with foal, and others with their young colts closely following.

William Fitzstephen, _Description of the Most Noble City of London_, prefixed to his _Life of Thomas à Becket_. (Translation by H. Morley, prefatory to his edition of Stow's _Survey of London_.)

[4] "Prance high, and rear their supple necks."

From Virgil's _Georgics_.

SPECIAL PRIVILEGES.

In some cases the king gave his special protection to markets and fairs.

1133. _Charter of Henry I. to the Priory of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield._

I give my firm peace to those who come to the fair which is wont to be held on the feast of St. Bartholomew in that place (Smithfield), and to those who go thence; and I command that no royal servant implead them, nor exact from those who come customs, without the consent of the canons, on these three days, on the eve of the feast, on the feastday, and on its morrow.

Printed in Dugdale, _Monasticon_, VI. 296.

_Charter of Henry II. to the burghers of Nottingham._

... Moreover all who come to the market of Nottingham shall not suffer distraint, from Friday evening until Sunday evening, except for the king's farm.

Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 167.

PIED POUDRE COURTS.

The term "Pied Poudre" or "Pie Poudre" is generally held to be derived from the French _pieds poudrés_, that is, dusty feet, and perhaps arose from the fact that the courts so called were frequented by chapmen with dusty feet, or less probably from the celerity of the judgments which were pronounced while the dust was on the feet of the litigants. The existence of such courts, in connection with fairs, was common to England and the continent. It is possible that in some cases and in an early period the business of fairs was not transacted in a special court. On the other hand, the distinctive feature of Pied Poudre Courts, the method of trial by the persons best qualified to judge, the merchants, was akin to the spirit of English law. Therefore it is probable that they were very early introduced into England.

_Definition of Pied Poudre Courts._

Divers fairs be holden and kept in this realm, some by prescription allowed before justices in eyre, and some by the grant of our lord the king that now is, and some by the grant of his progenitors and predecessors;

And to every of the same fairs is of right pertaining courts of pipowders, to minister in the same due justice in his behalf;

In which court it hath been all times accustomed, that every person coming to the same fairs, should have lawful remedy of all manner of contracts, trespasses, covenants, debts, and other deeds made or done within any of the same fair, and within the jurisdiction of the same, and to be tried by merchants being of the same fair.

_Statute, 17 Edward IV._, cap. 2.

The manner of holding a Pied Poudre Court, sometimes called _riding the fair_.

1277. _Award between the barons of the (Cinque) Ports and the men of Great Yarmouth._

With regard to the claim of the said barons to have at Yarmouth royal justice and the keeping of the king's peace in time of the fair lasting for forty days, they are to have the keeping of the king's peace and to do royal justice, namely during the fair they are to have four serjeants, of whom one shall carry the king's banner, and another sound a horn to assemble the people and to be better heard, and two shall carry wands for keeping the king's peace, and this office they shall do on horse-back if they so wish. The bailiffs of the Ports together with the provost of Yarmouth are to make attachments and plead pleas and determine plaints during the fair, according to law merchant, and the amercements and the profits of the people of the Ports are to remain to the barons of the Ports, at the time of the fair, and the profits and amercements of all others who are not of the Ports to remain to the king by the bailiffs of Yarmouth. The aforesaid bailiffs of the barons of the Ports together with the provost of Yarmouth are to have the keeping of the prison of Yarmouth during the fair, and if any prisoner be taken for so grave a trespass that it cannot be determined by them in time of fair, by merchant law, nor the prisons delivered, such persons to remain in the prison of Yarmouth until the coming of the justices.

_Cal. of Pat._, 1272-81, 203.

The court of Pied Poudre is specified in later grants of fairs.

1462. _Charter of Edward IV. to the city of London._

We have ... granted to the ... mayor and commonalty and citizens, and their successors for ever, that they shall and may have yearly one fair in the town aforesaid (Southwark) for three days, that is to say the seventh, eighth and ninth days of September; to be holden together with a court of pie-powder, and with all liberties and free customs to such fair appertaining; and that they may have and hold there at their said courts, before their said ministers or deputy, the said three days, from day to day and hour to hour, from time to time, all occasions, plaints and pleas of a court of pie-powder, together with all summons, attachments, arrests, issues, fines, redemptions and commodities, and other rights whatsoever, to the same court of pie-powder any way pertaining.

Birch, _Charters of City of London_, 82.

The Londoners could hold their own Pied Poudre Courts in all fairs of England.

1327. _Charter of Edward III. to the city of London._

And forasmuch as the citizens, in all good fairs of England, were wont to have among themselves keepers to hold the pleas touching the citizens of the said city assembling at the said fairs: we will and grant, as much as in us is, that the same citizens may have suchlike keepers, to hold such pleas of their covenants, as of ancient time they had, except the pleas of land and crown.

Birch, _Charters of City of London_, 55.

1298. To all stewards, bailiffs, and officers of the fair of St. Botolph and other faithful of Christ to whom the present letters shall come, Henry le Galeys, mayor of the city of London, as well as the whole commune send greeting. Know ye that we have made and constituted our beloved in Christ Elyas Russel, John de Armenters, William de Paris and William de Mareys, our wardens and attorneys at the present fair of St. Botolph, to demand and claim and exact all our citizens who are for any cause arrested or impleaded in any of your courts, and for executing full justice in all plaints against them according to the law merchant, ratifying and holding good anything they or any one of them may do in the premises, and in all other things which they or any one of them shall deem to affect in any way the liberties of the city and our citizens. In witness whereof we have set our common seal to these presents.

London, Sunday the Feast of St. Margaret the Virgin, 26 Edward I.

Sharpe, _Cal. Letter Books of Corporation_, B. 219.

PROFITS.

Besides fines the _tolls_ were the most general source of profit. They were duties which the tenant of a market might exact on goods brought into the market and sold there.

1275. _Statute against exorbitant tolls._

Touching them that take outrageous toll, contrary to the common custom of the realm, in market towns, it is provided that if any do so in the king's town, which is let in fee-farm, the king shall seize into his own hand the franchise of the market; and if it be another's town, and the same be done by the lord of the town, the king shall do in like manner; and if it be done by a bailiff or any mean officer, without the commandment of his lord, he shall restore to the plaintiff as much more for the outrageous taking as he had of him, if he had carried away his toll, and shall have forty days' imprisonment.

_Statute, 3 Edward I._, cap. 31.

Tolls were not necessarily levied. In later mediæval times it was held illegal for the holder of a market to exact them unless he could prove his prescriptive right to do so, or unless, in the case of a market erected by a charter, such right had been explicitly granted.

1233. Because it has been certified to the king, by an enquiry made in accordance with his precept, that in the fair of Shalford, which is held there every year on the feast of the Assumption of Blessed Mary, it has never been customary to take toll or custom, except at the time when John of Gatesden was sheriff of Surrey, who of his own will ruled that toll should there be taken: therefore the sheriff of Surrey is commanded that he take no custom in that fair nor suffer it to be taken, and that he cause public proclamation and prohibition to be made, that in future none take toll on the occasion of that fair.

_Cal. of Close_, 1231-5, 245.

Stallkeepers made payments called _stallage_ for the sites they occupied to the holder of the market or fair.

1331. The profits of the bailey of Lincoln, to wit of vacant plots..., and stallage in the said vacant plots in the times of fairs and markets.

_Cal. of Close_, 1330-3, 255.

The analogous payment of _piccage_ was for the breaking of the ground in order to erect stalls.

1550. _Grant of Southwark Fair to the city of London._

... The mayor and commonalty and citizens, and their successors, shall and may, from henceforth for ever, have, hold, enjoy and use ... tolls, stallages, piccages.

Birch, _Charters of City of London_, 122.

A duty called _scavage_ or _shewage_ was exacted from strangers who sold in the fairs.

I have heard also that our townsmen (of Oxford) in their fair, which they keep at Allhallowtide, do exact of strangers a custom for opening and shewing their wares, vendible, &c., which is called scavage or shewage.

Oxford Historical Society, _Charter of Henry II. to the citizens of Oxford._, II. 2 (from Twyne's MSS. in the Bodleian).

In 1503 it was rendered illegal, except in the case of London, to take scavage from denizens, otherwise from subjects of the king who were of alien birth, so long as they sold goods on which due customs had already been paid.

1503. Be it therefore ordained ... that if any mayor, sheriff, bailiff, or other officer in any city, borough or town within this realm, take or levy any custom called Scavage, otherwise called Shewage, of any merchant denizen, or of any other of the King's subjects denizens, of or for any manner of merchandise to our Sovereign lord the King before truly customed, that is brought or conveyed by land or water, to be uttered and sold in any city, borough, or town in this land, ... that then every mayor, sheriff, bailiff, or other officer, distraining, levying, or taking any such Scavage, shall forfeit for every time he so offendeth £20, the one moiety thereof to our Sovereign lord the King, and the other moiety thereof to the party in that behalf aggrieved, or to any other that first sueth in that party by action of debt in any shire within this realm to be sued.... Provided always that the mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of the city of London, and every of them, shall have and take all such sums of money for the said Scavage, and of every person denizen, as by our Sovereign lord the King and his honourable council shall be determined to be the right and title of the said mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of the said city of London, or any of them.

_Statute, 19 Henry VII._, cap. 8.

Certain citizens and burghers, who had the privilege of free trade in England or throughout the king's dominions, were exempt from paying tolls or other customs.

_Charter of Henry I. to the citizens of London._

... Let all the men of London be quit and free, and their goods, both throughout England and in the seaports, of toll and passage[5] and lastage[6] and all other customs.

Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 108.

[5] Passage was probably the due payable for the use of ferries.

[6] The most probable explanation of lastage is that it was the due payable for the right of freely carrying away goods bought in a market.

1384. The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London to the Abbot and Bailiffs and Good Folk of the Town of Colchester.

Desiring them to restore to William Dykeman, Roger Streit, William Fromond, and Henry Loughton, citizens of London, the distress they had taken from their merchandise for piccage at Colchester fair; and to cease in future to take custom of citizens of London, inasmuch as they are and ought to be quit of piccage, and of all manner of custom throughout the King's dominion, by charter granted to them by the King's ancestors. The Lord have them ever in his keeping.

London. 8th June, 38 Edward III.

Sharpe, _Cal. Letters of City of London_, 105.

_Charter of Henry II. to the citizens of Oxford._

... I have granted to them moreover that they be quit of toll and passage and every custom throughout England and Normandy, on earth, on water and on the seashore, by land and by strand.

Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 167.

1190. _Charter of Richard I. to the citizens of Winchester._

... This also we have granted that the citizens of Winchester of the Merchant Gild be quit of toll and lastage and pontage[7] in fairs and outside them, and in the seaports of all our lands, on this side the seas and beyond them.

Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 266.

[7] Pontage was a due payable for crossing bridges.

1194. _Charter of Richard I. to the citizens of Lincoln._

... This too we have granted that all citizens of Lincoln be quit of toll and lastage throughout all England and in the seaports.

Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 266.

1200. _Charter of John to the citizens of York confirming a grant by Richard I._

... Know moreover that we have granted and by this charter have confirmed to our citizens of York quittance of any toll, lastage, wrec,[8] pontage, passage, or trespass, and of all customs, throughout England and Normandy and Aquitaine and Anjou and Poitou. Wherefore we will and straitly command that they be thereof quit, and we forbid that any disturb them in the matter, on pain of the forfeiture of £10, as is reasonably testified in the charter of our brother Richard.

Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 312.

[8] The liability of shipwrecked goods to be forfeit to the king, or the local holder, other than the king, of the right of wreck.

_The Great Value of the Market of Retford._

1329. THE KING TO THE JUSTICES IN EYRE IN COUNTY NOTTINGHAM.

Order not to molest or aggrieve the men of the town of Retford before them in eyre for holding a market on Saturday in every week in that town, as the king has granted that they may hold a market there every week on the said day during the eyre aforesaid, notwithstanding the proclamation made by the justices according to custom that no market shall be held in the county during the eyre, the men having shewn to the king that they hold the town of him at fee-ferm, and he has assigned the ferm to Queen Isabella for her life, and the greatest aid they have towards levying the ferm comes from the profit of the said market, and they have prayed the king that they may hold the fair notwithstanding the said proclamation, and the king accedes to their supplication for the reason aforesaid, and because of the distance of the town of Nottingham.

_Cal. of Close_, 1327-30, 585.

PRE-EMPTION AND PRISAGE.

The king exercised certain rights of pre-emption, of buying articles before they were offered for sale in the open market, and of prisage, of taking from the sellers without payment certain articles for his own use.

1207. THE KING TO THE SHERIFF OF LINCOLN.

We command you that you acquit in the fair of St. Botolph all the great falcons which Henry de Hauvill and Hugh de Hauvill bought for our use in that fair, ... and moreover five hawks which they bought there for our use.

_Cal. Rot. Lit. Claus._ (Rec. Com.), I. 85.

1218. THE KING TO THE MAYOR OF LYNN GREETING.

We command you that you satisfy the merchants of the fair of Lynn as to the merchandise, namely, wax and pepper and cumin, which our bailiffs took in that fair for our use, and we shall cause payment to be made to you in London after the close of the said fair.

_Cal. Rot. Lit. Claus._ (Rec. Com.), I. 365.

1237. It was provided at Kennington before the king and his council, and granted by the king, that his bailiffs who are sent to fairs and elsewhere to buy wine and cloths and other merchandise for the king's use, shall take for his use no more than he have need of, and no more than shall be stated in the king's letters made for them as to the matter, nor anything for which they have not as warrant a royal brief. And when they come to fairs they shall take the wares and merchandise for which they have been sent at once and without long delay, lest any merchants be unjustly burdened by them, as formerly they have been burdened. And such bailiffs shall have letters so that four legal merchants of each fair, in the faith which binds them to God and the king, reasonably impose prices on the merchandise, in accordance with the diverse kinds of merchandise which the bailiffs have to buy.

_Cal. of Close_, 1234-7, 522.

1257. _Petition of the barons in the parliament at Oxford._

The earls and barons petition ... as to the prises of the lord king in fairs and markets and cities, that those who are assigned to take the said prises take them reasonably, as much, that is to say, as pertains to the uses of the lord king; in which matter they complain that the said takers seize twice or thrice the amount which they deliver to the king's uses, and keep the rest, forsooth, for their own needs and the needs of their friends, and sell thereof a portion.

Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 385.

1417. A Court of our Lord the King, holden before Henry Bartone, Mayor, and the Aldermen, in the Guild-hall of London, on Tuesday, the 16th day of February....

William Redhede of Barnet was taken and attached, for that when one Hugh Morys, maltman, on Monday the 15th day of February, ... brought here to the city of London four bushels of wheat, and exposed them for sale in common and open market, at the market of Graschurch (Gracechurch) in the parish of St. Benedict Graschurch in the city aforesaid, the said William there falsely and fraudulently pretended that he was a taker and purveyor of such victuals, as well for the household of our said lord the king as for the victualling of his town of Harfleur; and so, under feigned colour of his alleged office, would have had the wheat aforesaid taken and carried away, had he not been warily prevented from so doing by the constables and reputable men of the parish aforesaid, and other persons then in the market; in contempt of our lord the king, and to the grievous loss and in deceit of the commonalty of the city aforesaid; and especially of the said market and of other markets in the city, seeing that poor persons, who bring wheat and other victuals to the city aforesaid, do not dare to come, by land or by water, through fear of the multitude of pretended purveyors and takers who resort thither from every side.

... And thereupon, by the said mayor and aldermen, to the end that others might in future have a dread of committing such crimes, it was adjudged that the same William Redhede should, upon the three market days then next ensuing, be taken each day from the prison of Newgate to the market called Le Cornmarket opposite to the Friars Minors (Greyfriars, whose house was on the site of Christ's Hospital), and there the course of the judgement aforesaid was to be proclaimed; and after that he was to be taken through the middle of the high street of Cheap to the pillory on Cornhill, and upon that he was to be placed on each of those three days, there to stand for one hour each day, the reason for such sentence being then and there publicly proclaimed. And after that he was to be taken from thence through the middle of the high street of Cornhill to the market of Graschurch aforesaid, where like proclamation was to be made, and from thence back again to prison.

Riley, _Memorials of London_, 645.

MARKET HOUSES.

Already in the early thirteenth century the greater markets and fairs were held partly under cover.

1222. THE KING TO THE SHERIFF OF GLOUCESTER GREETING.

We command you that you do not suffer the market which hitherto has been held at Maurice de Gant's manor of Randwick, and which is to the injury of our town and market of Bristol, and of other neighbouring markets, as we have surely learnt. And that you cause the houses built there on account of the market to be removed without delay. So that neither ships come thither nor a market is there held otherwise than was done in the time of the Lord John, King, our father.

_Cal. Rot. Lit. Claus._ (Rec. Com.), I. 499.

1303. TO THE BAILIFF OF SANDWICH.

Order to cause a house of the king in that town constructed for the king's fair there ... to be repaired by the view and testimony of John de Hoo and Thomas de Shelvyng.

_Cal. of Close_, 1302-7, 55.

1345. At a congregation of the mayor and aldermen, holden on the Friday next before the feast of St. George the Martyr in the 19th year of the reign of King Edward III., it was ordered for the common advantage of all the citizens dwelling in the city (of London), and of others resorting to the same ... that all foreign[9] poulterers bringing poultry to the city should take it to the Leaden Hall, and sell it there, between Matins and the hour of Prime, to the reputable men of the city and their servants for their own eating; and after the hour of Prime the rest of their poultry that should remain unsold they might sell to cooks, regratresses (retail saleswomen), and such other persons as they might please; it being understood that they were to take no portion of their poultry out of the market to their hostels (lodgings) on pain of losing the same.

Riley, _Memorials of London_, 221.

[9] Poulterers other than Londoners.

ENFORCEMENT OF REGULARITY.

1233. Mandate to the sheriff of Hampshire that he cause strict proclamation and prohibition to be made in the town of Winchester, that no merchant of wool, cloths, and hides, do any business in wool, hides and cloths in the said town of Winchester, after the established term beyond which the fair of St. Giles is not wont to last.

_Cal. of Close_, 1231-4, 253.