Origin of Fairs—Charter Fairs at Winchester and Chester—Croydon Fairs—Fairs in the Metropolis—Origin of Bartholomew Fair—Disputes between the Priors and the Corporation—The Westminster Fairs—Southwark Fair—Stepney Fair—Ceremonies observed in opening Fairs—Walking the Fair at Wolverhampton—The Key of the Fair at Croydon—Proclamation of Bartholomew Fair. There can be no doubt that the practice of holding annual fairs for the sale of various descriptions of merchandise is of very great antiquity. The necessity of periodical gatherings at certain places for the interchange of the various products of industry must have been felt as soon as our ancestors became sufficiently advanced in civilisation to desire One of the most ancient, as well as the most important, of the fairs of this country was that held on St. Giles’s Hill, near Winchester. It was chartered by William I., who granted the tolls to his cousin, William Walkelyn, Bishop of Winchester. Its duration was originally limited to one day, but William II. extended it to three days, Henry I. to eight, Stephen to fourteen, and Henry II. (according to Milner, or Henry III., as some This fair was attended by merchants from all parts of England, and even from France and Flanders. Streets were formed for the sale of different commodities, and distinguished by them, as the drapery, the pottery, the spicery, the The description of this fair will serve, in a great measure, for all the fairs of the middle ages. Some of them were famous marts for certain descriptions of produce, as, for examples, Abingdon and Hemel Hempstead for wool, Newbury and Royston for cheese, Guildford and Maidstone for hops, Croydon and Kingston summer fairs for cherries; others for manufactured goods of particular kinds, as St. Bartholomew’s, in the metropolis, for cloth (hence the local name of Cloth Fair), and Buntingford for hardwares. More usually, the fair was an annual market, to which the farmers of the district took their cattle, and the merchants of the great towns their woollen and linen goods, their hardwares and “One cried ribs of beef, and many a pie; Of equal antiquity with the great fair at Winchester were the Chester fairs, held on the festivals of St. John and St. Werburgh, the tolls of which were granted to the abbey of St. Werburgh by Hugh Lupus, second Earl of Chester and nephew of William I. There was a curious provision in this grant, that thieves and other offenders should enjoy immunity from arrest within the city during the three days that the fair lasted. Frequent disputes arose out of this grant between the abbots of St. Werburgh and the mayor and corporation of the city. In the reign of Edward IV., the abbot claimed to have the fair of St. John held before the gates of the abbey, and that no Croydon Fair dated from 1276, when the interest of Archbishop Kilwardby obtained for the town the right of holding a fair during nine days, beginning on the vigil of St. Botolph, that is, on the 16th of May. In 1314, Archbishop Reynolds obtained for the town a similar grant for a fair on the vigil and morrow of St. Matthew’s day; and in 1343, Archbishop Stratford obtained a grant of a fair on the feast of St. John the Baptist. The earliest of these fairs was the first to sink into insignificance; but the others survived to a very recent period in the sheep and cattle fair, held in latter times on the 2nd of October and the two following days, and the cherry fair, held on the 5th The first fair established in the metropolis was that which, originally held within the precincts of the priory of St. Bartholomew, soon grew beyond its original limits, and at length came to be held on the spacious area of West Smithfield. The origin of the fair is not related by Maitland, Entick, Northouck, and other historians of the metropolis, who seem to have thought a fair too light a matter for their grave consideration; and more recent writers, who have made it the subject of special research, do not agree in their accounts of Nearly twenty years after this report was made, and when the fair had ceased to exist, Mr. Henry Morley, searching among the Guildhall archives for information on the subject, found that the fair It was admitted by the report of 1840 that documents in the office of the City solicitor afforded evidence of conflicting opinions on the subject in former times; and it seems probable that the belief in the two charters attributed to Henry II. and the dual character of the fair had its origin in the disputes which arose from time to time, during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, between the civic and monastic authorities In 1295 a dispute arose between the prior of St. Bartholomew’s and Ralph Sandwich, custos of the City, the former maintaining that, as the privileges of the City had become forfeited to the Crown, the tolls of the fair should be paid into the Exchequer. Edward I., who was then at Durham, ordered that the matter should be referred to his treasurer and the barons of the Exchequer; but, while the matter was pending, the disputants grew so warm that the City authorities arrested some of the monks, and confined them in the Tun prison, in Cornhill. They were released by command of the King, but thereupon nine citizens forced the Tun, and released all the other prisoners, by way of resenting the royal interference. The rioters were imprisoned in their turn The right of the City to the rents and tolls of the portion of the fair held beyond the precincts of the priory was finally decided in 1445, when the Court of Aldermen appointed four persons as keepers of the fair, and of the Court of Pie-powder, a tribunal instituted for the summary settlement of all disputes arising in the fair, and deriving its name, it is supposed, from pieds poudres, because the litigants had their causes tried with the dust of the fair on their feet. At the dissolution of monasteries, in the reign of Henry VIII., the tolls which had been payable to the priory of St. Bartholomew were sold to Sir John Rich, then Attorney-General; and the right to hold the fair was held by his descendants until 1830, when it was purchased of Lord Kensington by the Corporation of London, and held thereafter by the City chamberlain and the town clerk in trust, thus vesting the rights and interests in both fairs in the same body. Westminster Fair, locally termed Magdalen’s, was The three days to which it was originally limited, were extended by Edward III. to thirty-one; but the fair was never so well attended as St. Bartholomew’s, and fell into disuse soon afterwards. There was another fair held in the adjoining parish of St. James, the following amusing notice of which in Machyn’s diary is the earliest I have been able to find:— “The xxv. day of June [1560], Saint James fayer by Westminster was so great that a man could not have a pygg for money; and the bear wiffes had nother meate nor drink before iiij of cloke in the same day. And the chese went very well away for 1d. q. the pounde. Besides the great and mighti armie of beggares and bandes that were there.” Beyond the fact that it was postponed in 1603 on account of the plague, nothing more is recorded concerning this fair until 1664, in which year it was suppressed, “as considered to tend rather to the advantage of looseness and irregularity than to the substantial promoting of any good, common and beneficial to the people.” “We have also granted to the said Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens, and their successors for ever, that they shall and may have yearly one fair in the town aforesaid, for three days, that is to say, the 7th, 8th, 9th days of September, to be holden, together with a Court of Pie-Powders, and with all the liberties to such fairs appertaining: And that they may have and hold there at their said Courts, before their said Minister or deputy, during the said three days, from day to day, hour to hour, and from time to time, all occasions, plaints, and pleas of a Court of Pie-Powders, together with all summons, attachments, arrests, issues, fines, redemptions, and commodities, and other rights whatsoever, to the said Court of Pie-Powders in any way pertaining, without any impediment, let, or hindrance of Us, our heirs or successors, or other our officers and ministers soever.” This charter has sometimes been referred to as granting to the Corporation the right to hold a fair in West Smithfield, in addition to the fair the tolls of which were received by the priory of St. Bartholomew; but that “the town aforesaid” was Southwark The origin of Camberwell Fair is lost in the mist of ages. In the evidence adduced before a petty sessions held at Union Hall in 1823, on the subject of its suppression, it was said that the custom of holding it was mentioned in the ‘Domesday Book,’ but the statement seems to have been made upon insufficient grounds. It commenced on the 9th of August, and continued three weeks, ending on St. Giles’s day; but, in modern times, was limited, like most other fairs, to three days. It seems to have been originally held in the parish churchyard, but this practice was terminated by a clause in the Statute of Winchester, passed in the thirteenth year of the reign of Edward I. It was then removed to the green, where it was held until its suppression. Peckham Fair seems to have been Stepney Fair was of less ancient date. In 1664 Charles II., at the instance of the Earl of Cleveland, then lord of the manor of Stepney, granted a patent for a weekly market at Ratcliff Cross, and an annual fair on Michaelmas day at Mile End Green, or any other places within the manor of Stepney. The keeping of the market and fair, with all the revenues arising from tolls, etc., was given by the same grant, at the Earl of Cleveland’s request, to Sir William Smith and his heirs for ever. The right continued to vest in the baronet’s descendants for several years, but long before the suppression of the fair it passed to the lord of the manor, which, in 1720, was sold by the representatives of Lady Wentworth to John Wicker, Esquire, of Horsham, in Sussex, whose son alienated it in 1754. It is now possessed by the Colebrooke family. The ceremonies observed in opening fairs evince the importance which attached to them. On the eve of the “great fair” of Wolverhampton, held on the 9th of July, there was a procession of men in armour, preceded by musicians playing what was known as the “fair tune,” and followed by the steward of the deanery manor and the peace-officers The October fair at Croydon was opened as soon as midnight had sounded by the town clock, or, in earlier times, by that of the parish church; the ceremony consisting in the carrying of a key, called “the key of the fair,” through its principal avenues. The booth-keepers were then at liberty to serve refreshments to such customers as might present themselves, generally the idlers who followed the bearer of the key; and long before daylight the field resounded with the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, the barking of dogs, and the shouting of shepherds and drovers. The metropolitan fair of St. Bartholomew was opened by a proclamation, which used to be read at the gate leading into Cloth Fair by the Lord Mayor’s attorney, and repeated after him by a sheriff’s officer, in the presence of the Lord Mayor, |