Cornelius Walford

“ If it is a Diversion worthy of a Book to treat of Trifles, such as the Gayety of Bury Fair, it cannot be very unpleasant, especially to the Trading part of the World, to say something of this Fair, which is not only the greatest in the whole Nation, but in the World; nor, if I may believe those who have seen them all, is the Fair at Leipsick in Saxony, the Mart at Frankfort on the Main, or the Fairs at Nuremberg or Ausburg, any way to compare to this Fair at Sturbridge. ”

“ Trade in the fair was forgotten while the patriot was hanged, but not to death; cut down, yet breathing, and disembowelled, mummers and merchants saw the bowels burnt before the dying hero’s face, then saw the executioner strike off his head, quarter his body, and dispatch from the ground five basket-loads of quivering flesh, destined for London, Berwick, Newcastle, Aberdeen and Perth. ”

“ When I first resolved upon the writing these memoirs, I knew simply that Bartholomew fair was an unwritten portion of the story of the people. Bound once to the life of the nation by the three ties of Religion, Trade and Pleasure, first came a time when the tie of Religion was unloosened from it; then it was a place of Trade and Pleasure. A few more generations having lived and worked, Trade was no longer bound to it. The nation still grew, and at last broke from it even as a pleasure fair. ”

“ Beyond the stone buildings of the bazaar commence the rows of wooden booths in which the motley Siberian and Tartar tribes establish themselves with their furs and peltry; the most remarkable to a European eye, though not the least common of their wares, being the dark mouse-coloured hide of the wild horse, with black mane and streak along the back, much prized by the Bashkirs and other tribes for its warmth as well as beauty.
The wine trade has never constituted a great feature of the fair, although wine skins from the Caucasus may be seen ”

“ The modern growth of Russia is greater than that of any other European country. Its fairs have done much to facilitate that growth. It seems as if its people were passing through those stages of commercial building up which the other nationalities have long left in the dim vista of the past. The greatest fair held in Europe at the present time is that of Nijni Novgorod; yet that is not greater, relatively, than was Sturbridge in England, or those of Lyons, or of Bari (Italy) , or of Bruges, in Flanders. ”

“ There is a further element of conflict, of a far more pertinacious character than the preceding, running almost entirely through our six centuries of record—and this is with the University, as distinguished from the Town, of Cambridge. It was the custom to grant to University towns very large powers regarding the food supplies, i.e. the control of the markets; as also, and necessarily, the control of the morals, and therefore the amusements, of the scholars. Such a fair as that of Sturbridge affected alike the food supplies, and the moral discipline of the students ”

“ The real mainsprings of our commerce seem in fact very generally to have escaped them. The greatest commercial nation of the world has found no historian willing to record the true causes of its greatness. The intrigues of sovereigns, the machinations of ecclesiastics; the trickeries of statesmen and diplomatists, have alone commanded their attention and absorbed their limited energies. The Statute-book, the one great storehouse of our national history, has escaped their observation. ”

“ In the case of London two merchants of the Commonalty should be chosen that should swear compliance with this law.
And by a charter of the following year granted to foreign merchants then resident in England, it was ordained, “that one weight shall be kept in every fair and town; that the weigher shall show the buyer and seller that the beam and scales are fair, and that there shall be only one weight and measure in our dominions, and that they be stamped with our standard mark.” All students of history, know how well this ordinance has been observed! ”

“ First then, a valuable actor must sleep in the pit, and wake early to sweep the theatre, and throw fresh sawdust into the boxes; he must shake out the dresses, and wind up and dust the motion-jacks; he must teach the dull ones how to act, rout up the idlers from the straw, and redeem those that happen to get into the watch-house. Then, sir, when the fair begins, he should sometimes walk about the stage grandly and show his dress: sometimes he should dance with his fellows ”

“ Again, a man may have a right to hold a fair or market, or to keep a boat for the ferrying of passengers; and this either by royal grant or by prescription, from which a royal grant may be presumed to have been at some time conferred. But (unless under an Act of Parliament) no other title than these will suffice; for no fair, market, or ferry can be lawfully set up without license from the Crown. On the other hand, a man may, under such titles, lawfully claim to be lord of a fair or market, though he be not the owner of the soil on which it is held. ”

“ The Church has always been keenly alive to its temporal interests. And while it was one of its principal functions to administer hospitality to the needy and decrepit, there was justice in drawing contributions from those who too soon might have to rely upon its bounty. Certain it is that nearly all the early charters which I shall have to notice in the progress of this work were shaped in view of granting tolls and revenue to the purposes of religion and charity.
The signification of the word Fair (French foire) is in the Latin forum a market-place, or feriæ holidays. ”

“ Even at this hour, when the fair itself is extinct, there are in the street called Cloth Fair, on the site of the old mart, one or two considerable shops of Cloth-merchants, who seem there to have buried themselves out of sight, and to be feeding upon the traditions of the fair.”
Cloth Trade.—It is in connection with the woollen cloth trade that Bartholomew Fair most linked itself with commerce. It was not simply the great metropolitan cloth fair, but it was the greatest fair for woollen cloths held in England. For centuries wool had been the great staple of this country. ”

“ The conditions on which the shops and stores built by Government are let to merchants and dealers are exceedingly liberal, and this rent is the sole profit made by Government on the transactions of the fair. No imposts of any kind are levied in the shape of licences or duties. Shops are let to the first applicant, the sole reservation being that the occupier of the previous year has a prior claim. In order to promote competition, each row of buildings is devoted to a certain kind of merchandise, thus obliging the merchants to endeavour to undersell one another. ”

“ Every man burgess of the town of Cambridge, may freely have one booth in the fair of Stirbridge, without rendering any thing therefore to the mayor and bailiffs for the time being, whether he occupy it or let it to farm. ”

“ The Common Council of London, in order to oblige the people to resort to the City for their purchases, had made an ordinance that no citizen should carry goods for sale to any fair or market out of the city. ”

“ Bartholomew, the first day of the fair in the year 1305, the traders and pleasure-seekers, the friars and the jesters, clothiers, tumblers, walkers upon stilts, hurried across the grass of Smithfield from the side on which the fair was being held, to the Gallows under the Elms, where officers of state and a great concourse of men awaited a most welcome spectacle. ”

“ On 28th Aug. the Corporation of Cambridge made orders that none but freemen should, in time of Sturbridge Fair, sell and deliver fish in any hut or vessel on the water, until the fish booths in the water-fair were let, and then to make composition with the bailiff of the ward. And that all except freemen, who brought pitch and tar to the fair to be sold, should pay 2s. per last for grinding to the bailiff of the ward; and that if any suit or controversy at law should arise about executing the premises, the charges should be borne by a levy to be assessed upon the burgesses. ”

“ Most of the streets of the fair have elegant light arcades on each side, supported in front by cast-iron columns, where purchasers can walk about, well sheltered in all kinds of weather. The stalls are generally very handsome, and in some instances extend from street to street, so as to leave two fronts. They present nothing of the confusion of an ordinary fair; the goods of every kind are as neatly [298] ranged as in the shops of a city. ”

“ Therefore, say the old writers, that Bartholomew Fair was frequented by “the clothiers of England and the drapers of London.” Mercers especially frequented fairs and markets, where their standings were gay with haberdashery, toys, and even drugs and spices, the small articles of traffic on which they throve. Mercers attending the French fairs towards the close of the thirteenth century paid only half-toll when they were not stall keepers, but exposed their wares on the ground. They, and the class of pedlers to which they were allied, may have enjoyed a like privilege in England. ”

“ The priory was indeed built on the site of the gallows; but in that suburban gathering-place of the people—place of executions, place of tournaments, place of markets, place of daily sport, place of the great annual fair—one gallows-tree was not enough to satisfy a justice that loved vengeance and had slight regard for life. ”

“ The tea trade of the fair has shown a tendency to decrease.
Outskirts of the Fair.—To the casual visitor the outskirts of the fair are almost more interesting than its centre, for observation and study. The constant succession of carts in long strings; the crowds of labourers; the knots of earnest-looking traders with long beards; the itinerant vendors of liquid refreshments and white rabbit-skins; the greasy slovenly monk collecting kopecks of those who fear to withhold their charity lest their transactions be influenced by the Evil One ”

“ Bartholomew the Great and West Smithfield, London, and the streets, lanes and places adjoining, is now to be held a Fair for this day and the two days following, to which all people may freely resort and buy and sell according to the Liberties and Privileges of the said Fair, and may depart without disturbance, paying their duties. And all persons are strictly charged and commanded in His Majesty’s name, to help the peace, and to do nothing in the disturbance of the said Fair, as they will answer the contrary at their peril ”

“ The mode of estimating the number of persons attending the fair is peculiarly ingenious. The bakers are required to make daily returns of the quantity of bread they sell, and in this manner an approximation is arrived at. Of those present at the fair, only about one in a hundred are female.
It may be remarked that there is an excellent restaurant under the governor’s house in the fair. Some of the refreshment booths in the fair present a remarkable sight, and, we may fairly add, smell! The “Armenian kitchen” is one of the sights. ”

“ Martin’s-le-Grand, the religious house to which William the Conqueror had given with its charter the adjacent moorland, and within whose walls there was a sanctuary for loose people, stilled the hum of the crowd at nightfall, and the Fair lay dark under the starlight.
Change produces change; and so other events followed at this period. For instance, the disputations of the scholars in the Mulberry Garden at the time of the Fair ceased after the suppression of the Monastery. ”

“ To the provident men, the venerable and honorable Mayor and Citizens of London, or their vicegerents, or one of them, Peter de Fremville, knight, and Robert de Champagne, keepers of the fairs of Champagne and Brie, continual increase of sincere affection with greeting. Whereas we, by our letters patent sealed with the seal of the said fairs, have many times (pluries) prayed and requested you to compel and cause to be compelled the burgess Fouberti, citizen of Florence and horse-dealer by seizure of his body and goods, and also by the sale of the goods of Guido Fouberti &c. ”

“ Dieppe.—This is a free fair of comparatively modern date, said to be the last authorized in France, having been founded by letters patent in 1696. It was first opened on 1st December that year. It continues for fifteen days. All foreigners are at liberty freely to trade here, and goods declared to be for the fair are not liable to seizure while the fair lasts; nor were they liable to inspection by the wardens—a relaxation of practice apparently not quite in the interest of the buyers. ”

“ There was published this year for R. Hine near the Royal Exchange, “A Walk to Smithfield, or a True Description of the Humours of Bartholomew Fair, with the very comical Intrigues and Frolics that are acted in every particular Booth in the Fair, by persons of all ages and sexes, from the Court Gallant to the Country Clown. With the Old Droll-Players’ Lamentation for the loss of their Yearly Revenues: being very Pleasing and Diverting.” ”

“ The chief trade of the fairs is in grain, wine, honey, wax, leather, and horses and cattle; while cotton and silk goods, glass-ware, hardware, salt, fish, and beetroot sugar are becoming of increasing importance. The value of the goods sold is estimated at £800,000; the Jews are the chief purchasers. At the principal horse fair there is sometimes a show of 40,000 horses. The nobles of the country with their families attend the fairs, and remain encamped in the neighbourhood of the town during the three weeks they last. ”

“ Whereas among other liberties and quittances granted to our beloved in Christ the Prior and Convent of the church of Saint Bartholomew of Smethefelde, London, by charters of our progenitors, former Kings of England, which we have confirmed, it is granted to the same—That they may have all manner of freedom for ever, and that the church aforesaid shall be as free as any church in the whole of England that is most free, and as free as our demesne chapel, which church also our said progenitors granted to will, maintain and defend in manner like as our very crown ”