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.

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.

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.

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.