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Strict laws were also made against the practices of forestalling, engrossing, or regrating of provisions, i.e., buying them in such quantities or at such times as to control a future market; for there seems to have been an idea-not perhaps altogether irrational-in the minds of our ancestors that it was something unseemly to manipulate the market in the case of commodities of such universal consumption as articles of food. Nor were the laws against these practices finally removed from the Statute Book till towards the end of the eighteenth century.2

§ 87. The Great Fairs.

Now, besides the weekly markets there were held annually in various parts of the kingdom large fairs, which often lasted many days, and which form a most important and interesting economic feature of the time. They were necessary for several reasons, since the ordinary trader could not and did not exist in the small villages, in which it must be remembered most of the population lived, nor could he even find sufficient customers in a town of that time, for very few contained over 5000 inhabitants; and because the inhabitants of the villages and towns could find in the fairs a wider market for their goods, and more variety for their purchases. Moreover, as has been well remarked, since the stream of commerce was too weak in those days to penetrate constantly to all parts of the country, this occasional concentration of trade in fairs was distinctly advantageous for industry. The result was that these fairs were frequented by all classes of the population, from the noble and prelate to the villein, and hardly a family in England did not at one time of the year or another send a representative, or at least give a commission to a friend, to get goods at some celebrated fair. They afforded an opportunity for commercial intercourse between inhabitants of all parts of England, and with traders from all parts of

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1 Cf. the Statute De Pistoribus, of 51 Hen. III. (or perhaps 13 Ed. I.) till the 5 and 6 Ed. VI., c. 14 and 15.

2 12 Geo. III., c. 71. 3 W. Roscher, Engl. Volkswirthschaftlehre, 133. 4 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 148.

Europe. They were, moreover, a necessity arising from the economic conditions of a time when transit of goods was comparatively slow, and when ordinary people disliked travelling frequently or far beyond the limits of their own district. The spirit of isolation which is so marked a feature of the medieval town or village encouraged this feeling, and except the trading class few people travelled about, and those who did so were regarded with suspicion. Till the epoch of modern railways, in fact, fairs were a necessity, though now the rapidity of locomotion and the facility with which goods can be ordered and despatched, have annihilated their utility and rendered their relics a nuisance. But even in the present day there are plenty of people to be found in rural districts who have rarely, and sometimes never, been a dozen miles from their native village. As late as the eighteenth century several fairs of great importance were still in full vigour, as we may see from a list given by that ingenious compiler, Malachy Postlethwaite. He mentions-" (1) Stourbridge Fair near Cambridge, beyond all comparison the greatest in Britain, perhaps in the world; (2) Bristol, two fairs, very near as great as that of Stourbridge; (3) Exeter; (4) West Chester; (5) Edinburgh; also several marts, as: Lynn, Boston, Beverley, Gainsborough, Howden, &c.; (6) Weyhill Fair, and (7) Burford Fair, for sheep; (8) Pancrass Fair in Staffordshire, for saddle horses; (9) Bartholomew Fair in London, for lean and Welsh black cattle; (10) St Faith's in Norfolk, for Scots runts; (11) Yarmouth fishing fair for herrings, the only fishing fair in Great Britain, or that I have heard of in the world, except the fishing for pearl oysters near Ceylon in the West Indies; (12) Ipswich butter fair; (13) Woodborough Hill near Blandford in Dorset, famous for West country manufactures, Devonshire kersies, Wiltshire druggets, &c.; (14) two cheese fairs at Atherstone and Chipping Norton; with innumerable other fairs, besides weekly markets for all sorts of goods, as well our own as of foreign growth."

1 Rogers, Econ. Interp., p. 283.

* Postlethwaite, Dict. of Trade and Commerce (ed. 1774), s. v. Fair,

§ 88. The Fairs of Winchester and Stourbridge.

Fairs were held in every part of the country at various times of the year. Thus there was a fair at Leeds,1 which for several centuries served as a centre where the woolgrowers of Yorkshire and Lancashire met English and foreign merchants from Hull and other eastern ports, and sold them the raw material that was to be worked up in the looms of Flanders. But there were a few great fairs that eclipsed all others in magnitude and importance, and of these two deserve special mention, those at Winchester and Stourbridge. (1.) That at Winchester was founded in the reign of William Rufus, who granted the Bishop of Winchester leave to hold a fair on St Giles' Hill for one day in the year.2 Henry II., however, granted a charter for a fair of sixteen days. It was mainly, though by no means entirely, for wool and woollen goods. During this time the great common was covered with booths and tents, and divided into streets called after the name of the goods sold therein, as, e.g., "The Drapery," "The Pottery,” “The Spicery." Tolls were levied on every bridge and roadway to the fair, and brought in a large revenue to the Bishop. The fair was of importance till the fourteenth century, for in the Vision of Peres the Plowman, Covetousness tells how

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"To Wye and to Winchester I went to the fair.” 4

But it declined from the time of Edward III., chiefly owing to the fact that the woollen trade of Norwich and other eastern towns had become far more important, while on the other hand Southampton was found to be a more convenient spot for the Venetian5 traders' fleet to do business.

(2.) Stourbridge Fair.-But the greatest of all English fairs, and that which kept its reputation and importance

1 Bourne, Romance of Trade, p. 62.

2 Kitchin, Winchester (Historic Towns), pp. 63, 161, and Ashley, Econ. Hist., I. ii. p. 100.

* Probably Weyhill in Hampshire.

4 For a very full account of the Fair see Warton's long note on this line in his History of English Poetry, § viii.

"Below, p. 225.

the longest, was the Fair of Stourbridge, near Cambridge.1 It was of European renown, and lasted three weeks, being opened on the 18th of September. Its importance was due to the fact that it was within easy reach of the ports of the east coast, such as Lynn, Colchester, and Blakeney, which at that time were very accessible and much frequented. Hither came the Venetian and Genoese merchants, with stores of Eastern produce-silks and velvets, cotton, and precious stones. The Flemish merchants brought the fine linens and cloths of Bruges, Liège, Ghent, and other manufacturing towns. Frenchmen and Spaniards were present with their wines; Norwegian sailors with tar and pitch; and the mighty traders of the Hansa towns exposed for sale furs and amber for the rich, iron and copper for the farmers, and flax for the housewives, while homely fustian, buckram, wax, herrings, and canvas mingled incongruously in their booths with strange far-off Eastern spices and ornaments. And in return the English farmers -or traders on their behalf-carried to the fair hundreds of huge wool-sacks, wherewith to clothe the nations of Europe, or barley for the Flemish breweries, with corn and horses and cattle also. Lead was brought from the mines of Derbyshire, and tin from Cornwall; even some iron from Sussex, but this was accounted inferior to the imported metal. All these wares were, as at Winchester, exposed in stalls and tents in long streets, some named after the various nations that congregated there, and others after the kind of goods on sale. This vast fair lasted down to the eighteenth century in unabated vigour, and was at that time described by Daniel Defoe, in a work now easily accessible to all, which contains a most interesting descrip

1 This Stourbridge or Sturbridge is now almost in Cambridge itself, the relics of the fair being held in a field near Barnwell, about a mile and a half from the city. In ancient times it was very easy for merchants to come up the river Ouse in barges or light boats, as water-transport was much more used then than now, and even the sea-going ships were very light craft. Probably a Flemish merchant would find no difficulty in sailing all the way from Antwerp to Cambridge in a light ship.

3 The description which follows is based on Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 141-143. 3 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 124.

4 In his Tour through the Eastern Counties (1722); Tour, i. 91, or p. 164 in Cassell's National Library Edition.

tion of all the proceedings of this busy month. It is not much more than a hundred years ago that the Lancashire merchants alone used to send their goods to Stourbridge upon a thousand pack horses,1 but now the pack-horses and fairs have gone and the telegraph and railway have taken their place.

§ 89. English Mediaval Ports.

In the last paragraph mention was made of the east coast having ports of great prominence in this period. It will be convenient here to notice what were the chief ports of England, and to remark how few of them have retained their old importance. The chief port was of course London, which has always held an exceptional position, and the other principal ports were on the east and south coast.2 Southampton was from early times the chief southern harbour, and next to it Dartmouth, Plymouth, Sandwich, and Winchelsea, Weymouth, Shoreham, Dover, and Margate. They were connected with the trade in French and Spanish goods. On the western coast Bristol was almost the only port much frequented, being the centre and harbour for the western fisheries, and also a place of export for hides and the cloth manufactures of the western towns. In the fifteenth century Bristol fishermen penetrated through the Hebrides to the Shetland and Orkney Islands and to the northern fisheries, where they found that the Scarborough men had preceded them. On the eastern coast, indeed, Scarborough was one of the most enterprising ports.1 Boston, Hull, Lynn, Harwich, Yarmouth, and Colchester were also very flourishing, and were concerned in the Flemish and Baltic trade.5 Further north Newcastle was the centre for the coasting trade in coal, and Berwick was a fisherman's harbour. But the southern and eastern ports were the most frequented, as being suitable to the light and shallow

1Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 55.

2 Cf. Cunningham, i. 258; Rogers, Six Centuries, 122.

3 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 124.

* For the making of a pier there, cf. Statute 37 Hen. VIII., c. 14.

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Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 124.

6 lb.

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