Edwin A. Pratt

“ England was, indeed, in those days, little more than a collection of isolated communities in which the various householders, more especially in villages at a distance from any main road or navigable river, had to provide for their own requirements to a great extent. Of retail shops, such as are now found in the most remote villages, there were none at all at a period when the replenishing of stocks would have been impossible by reason of difficulties in transport ”

“ Down to the end of the fourteenth century England was purely an agricultural country, and her agricultural products were exclusively for home, if not for local or even domestic consumption, with the one exception of wool, which was exported in considerable quantities to Flanders and other lands then dependent mainly on England for the raw materials of their cloth manufactures. In our own country manufactures had made but little advance, and they mainly supplied the requirements, in each instance, of a very limited area. ”

“ As to the jurisdiction, the cause of action for contract, slander, &c., must arise in the fair or market, and not before at any former fair, nor after the fair; it is to be for some matter concerning the same fair or market; and must be done, complained of, heard and determined the same day. Also the plaintiff must make oath that the contract, &c., was within the jurisdiction and time of the fair.... The steward before whom the court is held, is the judge, and the trial is by merchants and traders in the fair. ”

“ The general trade of the country in the Middle Ages was conducted mainly through markets and fairs.
Every town had its market and fixed market day, and such market served the purpose of bringing in the surplus produce of the surrounding agricultural district, the area of supply depending, no doubt, on the distance for which the state of the roads and the facilities for transport on them would allow of commodities being brought. ”

“ Fairs were essentially the outcome of defective means of communication. Going back in their origin to the days of ancient Greece, they have been found in most countries in the earlier stages of society, or under conditions which have not allowed of (1) a ready distribution of commodities, (2) sufficiently advanced manufactures, or (3) the subdivision of trade over an adequately wide area. Fairs in England began to decay in exact proportion as communications and manufactures improved and retail trade expanded ”

“ In course of time the fairs became, as shown by Giles Jacob, in his "Law Dictionary" (4th edition, 1809) , "a matter of universal concern to the commonwealth," as well as a valuable monetary consideration to those who had the right to collect the tolls; and they were, in consequence, subjected to close regulation. No person could hold a fair "unless by grant from the King, or by prescription which supposes such grant" ”

“ In the Middle Ages everyone rode except the very poor, and they had to be content to trudge along on foot. Kings and nobles, princes and princesses, gentlemen and ladies, merchants and bagmen all travelled on horseback. Women either rode astride until the introduction of side-saddles, in the fourteenth century, or else rode in pillion fashion. ”

“ The land occupied might be that of the lord of the manor, but the fairs still continued to be held chiefly on Saints' days or on the occasion of Church festivals, the actual dates being generally so fixed as to allow of the foreign or other traders attending them to arrange a circuit. The time of year preferred for the holding of fairs was either the autumn, when people whose wants were not wholly met by pedlar or chapman would be providing against the stoppage of all traffic along the roads during the winter ”

“ In Britain itself the commemoration of saints' days by the monasteries, the dedication festivals of churches or cathedrals, and the visitation of shrines by pilgrims brought together crowds of people whose assembling offered good opportunities for the opening up with them of a trade in commodities which they, in turn, might otherwise have some difficulty in procuring. ”

“ Held, as a rule, annually or half-yearly, fairs assumed much more important proportions than the (generally) weekly local markets. It was to the fairs that traders both from distant counties and from foreign countries brought wares and products not otherwise obtainable; and it was at the fairs that the foreign merchants, more especially, bought up the large quantities of wool which were to form their return cargoes. ”

“ It was, indeed, to the advantage of the Church to offer or to encourage the offering of such facilities, not only because there would thus be a greater inducement to people to come to the festivals or to visit the shrines, but also because when the fair was held on land belonging to the Church or connected with religious buildings there might be a substantial revenue gained from the tolls and charges paid by the traders. At one time the fairs were even held in churchyards ”

“ Such monopoly they claimed against other traders in the same town who had not entered into the combination, and still more so against traders in other towns. The latter they regarded as "foreigners" equally with the traders from Flanders and elsewhere.
The merchant guilds were found in all considerable towns in the eleventh century, and they were followed, a century later, by craft guilds which aimed, in turn, at securing a monopoly of employment for their own particular members. ”

“ The main exception to riding on horseback, in the case of ladies or of the sick or infirm, was the use of litters attached to shafts to which two horses, one in front and one behind the litter, were harnessed. ”

“ Most of the meat likely to be required would be killed off in the late autumn and salted down—salt being one of the few absolute necessities for which the mediæval household was dependent on the outside world; while families which could not afford to kill for themselves would purchase an animal in common and share the meat. ”

“ On the other hand every encouragement was offered to traders to attend the fairs. "Any citizen of London," says Jacob, "may carry his goods or merchandise to any fair or market at his pleasure." Mounted guards were, in some instances, provided on the main routes leading to the fair, in order to protect the traders from attack by robbers. Tolls were to be paid to the lord of the manor or other owner of the land on which a fair was held under a special grant ”

“ Such courts were as ancient as the fairs themselves, and they ensured a speedy administration of justice in accordance with what was recognised as merchants' law long before any common law was established. ”

“ Traders sending wool or other commodities by the same route were in the habit of making up companies in order to secure mutual protection against robbers, and they armed themselves and their servants as if going to battle. Like precautions were taken by merchants from the north when they started on their annual business journeys to London—journeys so full of peril that they were not begun until the merchant had made his will and earnestly commended himself to the protection both of St. ”

“ In these conditions many a village or hamlet became isolated until the roads were again available for traffic, and rural households prepared for the winter as they would have taken precautions against an impending siege. ”