THE TWELFTH TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.
_First Charter_, 1133. The Prior obtained from the King a Charter,
wherein, after providing for an independent election of a new prior
by the monks in the event of Rahere’s death, and after confirming the
privileges and possessions of the Priory, it was declared “I grant also
my firm peace to all persons coming to and returning from the fair, which
is wont to be celebrated in that place at the Feast of St. Bartholomew;
and I forbid any of the Royal Servants to implead any of their persons,
or without the consent of the Canons, on those three days, to wit the eve
of the feast, the feast itself, and the day following, to levy dues upon
those going thither. And let all people in my whole kingdom know that I
will maintain and defend this Church, even as my crown; and if any one
shall presume to contravene this our Royal privilege, or shall offend
the prior, the canons, clergy or laity of that place, he, and all who
are his, and everything that belongs to him, shall come into the King’s
power.”
In addition to the King’s “firm peace,” and the usual privileges, it came
to be believed that there were special miracles in store for those who
braved the perils of distant travel in making pilgrimage to the Festival
and Fair of St. Bartholomew. In Mr. Morley’s book will be found a long
enumeration of these. “What wonder (he asks) if to see the miracles
worked at the celebration of the Feast of St. Bartholomew, in the first
years after the foundation of his Priory in Smithfield, the people came
from far and near, and were to be found ‘shouldering each other’ as well
as ‘dancing and rejoicing’ in a concourse at the fair”?
1154-86. We have it on the authority of Stow that Henry II. granted to
the Priory the privilege of a fair to be kept yearly at Bartholomew tide
for three days, to wit the eve, the day, and next morrow; to which the
clothiers of all England and drapers of London repaired, and had their
booths and standings within the Church Yard of this Priory, closed in
with walls and gates, locked every night, and watched for safety of men’s
goods and wares. A Court of Piepowder was daily during the fair holden
for debts and contracts. But he adds a note in regard to the time of
the fair—“that forrens [foreigners] were licensed for three days; the
freedmen so long as they would, which was sixe or seven dayes.” It is
clear that the venerable historian had mixed and confounded various and
distinct events. I do not find other reference to this charter of Henry
II. except by Hone, who says this charter gave the mayor and aldermen
of the City criminal jurisdiction during the fair. The chief articles
of commerce at the fair about this period were cloth, stuffs, leather,
pewter, and live cattle.
1292. The first dispute between the City of London and the Priory of St.
Bartholomew regarding the fair arose this year. It was on the subject of
_Tolls_. The fair as we have already seen had spread beyond the Prior’s
bounds. The Custos of the City—for in 1288 Edward I. upon a quarrel with
the City seized its liberties, and Ralph Sandwich was appointed Custos
to collect the Tolls for the Sovereign—applied for half the tolls. The
Prior claimed the whole on the ground of ancient custom, &c. The King was
at Durham, and the matter coming before him on the approach of the fair,
made the following order:—
_Dominus Rex &c._—The Lord the King hath commanded the Custos and
Sheriffs in these words: Edward by the Grace of God, to the Custos and
Sheriffs of London, greeting. Whereas the Prior of St. Bartholomew, of
Smithfield in the suburbs of London, by the Charters of our progenitors,
Kings of England, claimeth to have a certain Fair there every year,
during three days viz. on the Eve, the Day, and on the morrow of St.
Bartholomew the Apostle, with all Liberties and Free Customs belonging
to the Fair; a contention hath arisen between the said Prior and you
the said Custos, who sue for us concerning the use of the liberties of
the said Fair, and the free Customs belonging to it. And hindrance
being made to the said Prior by you the said Custos, as the said Prior
asserteth, to wit, concerning a Moiety of the Eve and of the whole morrow
aforesaid, concerning this We Will, as well for us as for the aforesaid
Prior, that justice be done as it is fit, before our Treasurer and Barons
of the Exchequer, after Michaelmas day next within a month. We command
you that sufficient security be taken of the said Prior for restoring to
us on the said day the proceeds of the aforesaid fair, coming from the
moiety of the foresaid Eve and from the whole morrow, if the said Prior
cannot then show something for himself, why the said proceeds ought not
to belong to us. We command you that ye permit the same Prior in the
meantime, to receive the foresaid proceeds in form aforesaid; and thereto
you may leave this Brief. Witness myself at Durham the 9th day of Aug. in
the 20th year of our reign.
While the question was thus pending the disputants grew so warm that
the City authorities arrested some of the monks, and confined them in
the Tun prison on 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, and a fine of twenty thousand marks was
imposed upon the City; but the civic authorities proposed a compromise,
and, for a further payment of three thousand marks, Edward consented to
pardon the offenders, and to restore and confirm the privileges of the
City.—_Frost_, pp. 10-11.
The result of the reference above ordered to the Barons of the Exchequer
&c. was unfavourable to the claim of the City, the Charter of the
Hospital was again confirmed. The question of the Tolls was not indeed
finally disposed of; but as it sleeps for a century or so, we must not
now depart from the course of our record—see 1445.
1305. Another and special incident arose at the fair of this year. I
will quote the eloquent description of Mr. Morley. On the eve of St.
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. 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. Under the Elms of which
already mention has been made (Cow Lane now represents their site)—under
the Elms we read in a close roll, so early as the fourth year of Henry
III., gallows were built “where they had stood before.” An execution
during fair time on that ancient exhibition ground, was entertainment
rarely furnished to the public: for the Church forbade, among other work,
fulfilment of the sentence of the law on any holiday of festival; _and
a fair was a Saint’s Holiday_. But on this occasion, law was eager to
assure the execution of its vengeance. The redoubtable Wallace, hero of
the Scottish people, had been taken. The rugged patriot, strong of heart
and strong of hand, had been brought to London in his chains the day
before the fair was opened, and on the day of the opening of the fair was
arraigned and condemned at Westminster as a traitor, and without even a
day’s respite, at once sent on to his death. Under the Elms, therefore,
in Smithfield, stood all the concourse of Bartholomew fair, when William
Wallace was dragged thither in chains at the tails of horses, bruised,
bleeding, and polluted with the filth of London. The days had not yet
come when that first part of the barbarous sentence on high treason was
softened by the placing of a hurdle between the condemned man and the
mud and flint over which he was dragged. 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.
Then, all being over, the stilt-walkers strode back across the field,
the woman again balanced herself head downwards on the points of swords;
there was mirth again round the guitar and tambourine, the clothiers went
back into the Churchyard, and the priest perhaps went through a last
rehearsal with the man who was to be miraculously healed in church on the
succeeding day!—“Memorials of Bartholomew Fair,” pp. 71-2.
1321. In this, the 14th Edward II. there was issued a writ inquiring
by what warrant the Priory held its rights over Bartholomew Fair. This
writ was part of the machinery of a general inquisition into the rights
claimed by subjects, which had in many cases been alienated without
license from the crown, and often gave rise to private oppression of the
people. The Prior pleaded the Royal Charters of his house and testified
upon oath that his predecessors had held such a three-day fair since
times beyond the reach of memory. The justification satisfied the King’s
Exchequer.
1334. In this, the 7th Edward III. a new Charter of the fair was
granted to the Hospital of St. Bartholomew confirming the old rights
and reassuring the King’s firm peace to all persons travelling towards,
staying in, or returning from the fair; also forbidding any servants of a
royal or episcopal court to implead any of their persons “or without the
consent of the prior and canons on those three days ... to exact tolls
either without the City or within it, whether in the passage of roads or
bridges, but let all proceeds that arise according to the usage of fairs
belong to the canons of the aforesaid church.” This latter provision
clearly had reference to the claims of the City. See 1376.
It was a review of these and similar facts which induced Mr. Morley
to remark that in early times, if not from the beginning, there were
practically two fairs held in Smithfield—one within and one without the
Priory bounds. The outer fair, he adds, “was possibly composed of the
mere pleasure givers and pleasure seekers, who attended on the company
of worshippers and traders then attracted to the priory, and whose tents
were pitched in the open market of Smithfield, outside the gates, not [?
but] free from toll to the Church. Within the gates, and in the Priory
churchyard, the substantial Fair was held” (pp. 61-2).
1348. In the preceding century license had been given by Edward I. to the
brethren of the Hospital of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield to cover with
stone and wood the stream running through the midst of the hospital to
Holborn Bridge, “on account of the too great stench proceeding from it.”
The large influx of persons at the Fair must have made matters worse. In
the year 1348 the pestilence broke out in London at the time of the fair,
and ended about fair-time in the following year. During the interval
between fair and fair, so great had been the mortality that, in addition
to the burials in churches and other churchyards, _fifty thousand_ bodies
had been buried in the graveyard of the Carthusians, adjoining the fair
ground. Mr. Morley may well assume that it must have been the great
object of interest and terror to the slender throng of men who hardly
dared assemble; and who—missing from the annual crowd so many familiar
faces—spoke to each other with a feeble hope of the apparent lifting of
the plague. “What mirth was there in that handful of the living camped
so near the silent congregation of the dead?” See 1593.
_New Charter._—Edward III. under date August 1, 1376, granted to
the Prior, &c., the following charter, which has heretofore escaped
observation, probably because in the records of the City it had
been endorsed as a “Writ to proclaim the Fair of the Prior of Saint
Bartholomew in Smethefelde,” whereas it is seen to be a most important
grant or confirmation of previous charters. I give a full translation,
marking certain passages with italics:—Edward by the grace of God King
of England and of France, and Duke of Ireland, to the Mayor and sheriffs
of London and Middlesex, Greeting. 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; and, moreover, _they gave firm peace to
those coming to the Fair that is much frequented at the feast of Saint
Bartholomew_ in the said place of Smethefelde, So that in those three
days’ space, namely, the eve of the feast, or the day itself, or the day
following, from such comers, whether without the City or within, _or in
passing along the ways or over the bridges, no one shall require any
customs_, but that all things which arise out of the right of fairs shall
be to the said church and the Canons serving God there, and that is any
one shall presume in any thing to contravene this Royal privilege, or
shall offend the Prior Canons or laymen of that place, he and his men,
and all that he has, shall devolve into our Royal right: and also lord
Richard, formerly King of England, our progenitor, by his letters ordered
the then sheriffs of London and Middlesex, and all their bailiffs, that
they should neither vex nor allow to be vexed the foresaid Canons of the
church of saint Bartholomew (which is our demesne chapel) concerning
their fair which they have at the feast of the same church, nor require
from those coming to the Fair of saint Bartholomew for the purpose of
selling or buying, whether without the City or within, or also in passing
along the ways or over the bridges, customs or services, or anything
that may diminish the liberty of the said church of saint Bartholomew—as
in the charters, letters and our confirmation aforesaid more fully is
contained: _and now we have understood that some by sinister covin and
conspiracy previously had between them have knavishly designed to hinder
merchants and others who wish to come and have been wont to come to the
said fair with their merchandise, so that they cannot come thither and
do their business therein_, as well to the loss of them the Prior and
Convent and overthrow and weakening of their right as to the manifest
letting and hindrance of our common people: We, duly heeding the fervent
devotion and affection which our foresaid progenitors had towards the
said church, as by the charters and letters aforesaid more fully doth
appear, and willing (as we are bounden) to maintain and defend the said
fair, _which for so long time hath endured_ and was granted by our said
progenitors to the honour of God in subvention of Holy Church, and all
other rights and privileges, lest in our time they perish, have taken
into our special protection and defence the said Prior and Canons, and
their men and servants, and merchants whomsoever and others wishing to
come with their goods and things to the said fair, there tarrying and
therefrom returning whither they will; and so we command you to maintain,
protect and defend the said Prior and Canons, their men and servants,
merchants and others whomsoever coming to the said fair with their goods
and things, there tarrying and therefrom returning, and to permit the
Prior and Convent to hold their said fair in form aforesaid, and to
receive and have freely and without any hindrance, from those coming to
the said fair and returning therefrom, _the customs and all other the
profits which pertain to them in right of the said fair_ according to the
form of the charters, letters and confirmation aforesaid, and as they
ought to hold the same fair and to have and receive the customs and other
things which pertain to that fair, and as they and their predecessors
have until now held that fair and have been wont to have and receive the
customs and other things which to that fair pertain. And, concerning
any pleas or other things to the said fair for the said three days
appertaining, do you in no wise intermeddle, neither requiring any thing
for customs and other things to that fair appertaining, nor hindering,
molesting, nor in any way aggrieving the Prior and Canons of the said
place as to the receiving of the customs and profits aforesaid, nor, as
much in you lies, permitting them to be molested or aggrieved. And if
any shall presume to diminish the customs and rights of the said fair,
then be you in aid to the said Prior and Canons, or their bailiffs of the
said fair, when hereupon you shall be requested by them or any one of
them, by such ways and methods as shall seem to you the more expedient,
to compel and distrain those who would diminish the said customs and
rights to yield and pay the said customs and rights to the said Prior
and Convent: and this do you in no wise omit. And, that those all and
every the premises may come to the knowledge of all, and that no one,
of what state or condition soever he be, under grave forfeiture to us,
and under the peril incumbent thereon, may presume in any manner to
practise any covin or any other acts calculated to disturb in any way
that fair or the profit of the fair, or the merchants or others, so that
they cannot lawfully, without damage and in peace come to that fair with
their merchandise, and do their business there, and return therefrom, do
you cause the same to be publicly proclaimed, observed and held within
your bailiwick and districts, where it shall seem to you most expedient,
as often as and when hereupon by the said Prior and Convent, or any
one of them, you shall on our behalf be requested. Witness Ourself at
Westminster the first day of August in the fiftieth year of our reign of
England, but of our reign of France the thirty-seventh. Faryngton.
¶ This proclamation was made.
_Miracle Plays._—This Fair of St. Bartholomew was long the scene of
“miracle plays.” The Company of Parish Clerks—an incorporated company
or gild who had charge of the records, the burials, and afterwards of
the births in London, during a very long period—played at Skinners’ Well
(near Smithfield) before Richard II. and his Queen and Court, towards the
close of the fourteenth century; and early in the following they played
before Henry IV. at the same place, during eight days, “Matter from the
Creation of the world.” The early plays at this fair are believed to have
been representations of great miracles ascribed to St. Bartholomew. Later
came the “mysteries,” and finally the “moralities,” out of which our
modern drama has been developed. All these in their turns were presented
at this once famous fair.
_Slaves._—In this same Fair of Smithfield, as well before as after the
period upon which I am now writing, men and women—_i.e._, slaves and
captives—were sold among the articles of merchandise. And on a part of
the site over which the fair extended, after the accession of Henry
IV., men and women were burnt alive as heretics. The martyr fires were
usually kindled on that spot of ground outside the Priory gates, over
which the lighter portion of the fair spread—ground occupied by the
holiday makers, and the tumblers, jesters, and dancers by whom they were
entertained.
_Tolls._—1445. At the close of the thirteenth century there had arisen
a dispute between the City of London and the Prior regarding the tolls
of this Fair, which was then decided in favour of the Priory. When the
matter came up for adjudication again does not seem clear. The fair had
continued to grow, and its greatest expansion was in the direction of the
City. Indeed, at this or a later period, it extended down the West side
of Aldersgate nearly as far as St. Martin’s-le-Grand, or to St. Paul’s
itself. On the other side the jurisdiction of the City extended only to
Smithfield Bars. In 1399 Henry IV. had granted to the Citizens of London
the office of gathering tolls in Smithfield. Probably in consequence of
this arrangements were come to between the Priory and the City. Certain
is it that forty-six years later, or in 1445 (23rd Henry VI.), four
persons were appointed by the Court of Aldermen as keepers of Bartholomew
Fair and of the Court of Piepowder. In that Court, therefore, the City
then became represented as joint lord of the Fair with the Priory, the
lordship of the City being founded on its right over the ground beyond
the jurisdiction of the Canons. See 1538 and 1593.
_Dissolution of Monasteries._—1538. This is an eventful year in the
history of the Fair—the Dissolution of the Monastery was declared. The
Fair itself indeed remained—it was the Priory which created it that had
melted away.
Reviewing the fair as it had existed during the four centuries passed
since its origin—but many of the details of which I have necessarily
passed over in the preceding outline—we may adopt the picture thus freely
drawn by Mr. Morley: Thus we have in the most ancient times of the Fair a
church full of worshippers, among whom were the sick and maimed, praying
for health about its altar; a graveyard full of traders, and a place of
jesting and edification, where women and men caroused in the midst of the
throng; where the minstrel and the story-teller and the tumbler gathered
knots about them; where the sheriff caused new laws to be published by
loud proclamation in the gathering places of the people; where the young
men bowled at nine pins, while the clerks and friars peeped at the young
maids; where mounted knights and ladies curvetted and ambled, pedlars
loudly magnified their wares, the scholars met for public wrangle, oxen
lowed, horses neighed, and sheep bleated among their buyers; where great
shouts of laughter answered to the Ho! Ho! of the devil on the stage,
above which flags were flying, and below which a band of pipers and
guitar beaters added music to the din. That stage also—if ever there was
presented on it the story of the Creation—was the first wild-beast show
in the fair: for one of the dramatic effects connected with this play,
as we read in an ancient stage direction, was to represent the creation
of beasts by unloosing and sending among the excited crowd as great a
variety of strange animals as could be brought together; and to create
the birds by sending up a flight of pigeons. Under foot was mud and
filth, but the wall that pent the city in shone sunlit among the trees;
a fresh breeze came over the surrounding fields and brooks, whispering
among the elms that overhung the moor glittering with pools, or from the
Fair’s neighbour, the gallows! Shaven heads looked down on the scene from
the adjacent windows of the buildings bordering the Priory enclosure; and
the poor people whom the friars cherished in their hospital, made holiday
among the rest. The curfew bell of St. 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. John Stow
had witnessed these when a lad, and he furnishes the following account
of the same, and of some events preceding: “As for the meeting of the
schoolmasters on Festival Days at Festival Churches, and the disputing
of the scholars logically, &c., whereof I have before spoken, the same
was long since discontinued; but the arguing of the schoolboys about
the principles of grammar hath been continued even till our time; for
I myself, in my youth, have yearly seen, on the eve of St. Bartholomew
the Apostle, the scholars of divers Grammar schools repair unto the
Churchyard of St. Bartholomew ... where upon a bank boarded about under
a tree, some one scholar hath stepped up, and there hath opposed and
answered till he were by some better scholar overcome and put down; and
then the overcomer taking the place did like as the first. And in the end
the best opposers and answerers had rewards, which I observed not but it
made good schoolmasters and also good scholars diligently against such
times to prepare themselves for the obtaining of this garland. I remember
there repaired to these exercises amongst others, the masters and
scholars of the free schools of St. Paul’s in London, of St. Peter’s at
Westminster, of Thomas Acon’s Hospital, and of St. Anthonie’s Hospital;
whereof the last named commonly presented the best scholars and had the
prize in those days. This priory of St. Bartholomew being surrendered to
Henry the Eighth, those disputations of scholars in that place surceased;
and was again, only for a year or twain, revived in the Cloister of
Christ’s Hospital, where the best scholars, then still of St. Anthonie’s
school, howsoever the same be now fallen both in number and estimation,
were rewarded with bows and arrows of silver, given to them by Sir Martin
Bower, goldsmith. Nevertheless however, the encouragement failed—the
scholars of St. Paul’s meeting with those of St. Anthonie’s would call
them Anthonie’s Pigs, and they again would call the others Pigeons of
Paul’s because many pigeons were bred in St. Paul’s Church, and St.
Anthonie was always figured with a pig following him; and mindful of the
former usage, did for a long season disorderly provoke one another in the
open street with ‘_Salve_ tu quoque, placet mecum disputare?’—‘Placet.’
And so proceeding from this to questions in grammar, they usually fell
from words to blows with their satchels full of books, many times in
great heaps, that they troubled the streets and passengers; so that
finally they were restrained with the decay of St. Anthonie’s school.”
It was during this reign of Henry VIII. that Grotwell (or Cartwell),
himself a common hangman—for there were then many of this occupation, and
plenty of employment—was hanged with two others, for robbing a booth at
the Fair. They were executed in the wrestling place at Clerkenwell.
I may resume the historical narration. When the King had taken the
estates of the greater monasteries, they were put under the management of
a Royal Commission, with Sir Richard Rich—under the style of Chancellor
of the Court of Augmentations—at its head. The Prior’s house became Lord
Rich’s town mansion; and with this mansion in Great St. Bartholomew
there had been assigned to him and his for ever, the Close of the said
late monastery or priory called Great St. Bartholomew Close, and all the
limits and precincts of the said Close; also all those closes, edifices,
called the fermery, the dorter, the frater, the cloisters, the gallery,
the hall, the kitchen, the buttery, the pantry, the old kitchen, the
woodhouse, the garner, and the Prior’s stable, of the said late monastery
and priory belonging; and also all that water and the aqueduct and
water-course coming from the conduit-head of St. Bartholomew in the
manor of Canonbury.
By the same Letters Patent the King farther granted to Sir Richard Rich,
knight, his heirs and assigns, “all that Our Fair and Markets, commonly
named and called Bartholomew Fair, holden and to be holden every year
within the aforesaid Close called Great St. Bartholomew Close, and in
West Smithfield aforesaid to continue yearly for three days,” &c. And
also all the stallage, piccage, toll, and customs of the same Fair and
Markets; and also all our Courts of Piepowders within the same; also the
scrutiny of weights and measures and things exposed to sale, and the
Assize of bread, wine, and ale, and other victuals. This grant included
the tolls of the Cloth Fair, but not, of course, the rights of the City
to the tolls for the fair outside St. Bartholomew’s enclosure.
_Growth of London._—1590. During the reign of Elizabeth various attempts
had been made to stop the growth of London. Proclamations had been issued
forbidding under heavy displeasure the building of new houses. But the
Elizabethan era was an important one in the development of commerce, as
it had been in the fostering of learning; and with the development of
commerce there came a greater influx of strangers into the city. Thus it
came about that more houses in the city were imperative. It was found
that the lines of trade marked at Bartholomew Fair by the standings of
the clothiers and others, would yield more money as streets of houses
than as streets of booths, and so, before the close of the century, as
Stow tells us, “notwithstanding all proclamations of the prince, and also
the act of parliament, in place of booths within the churchyard (only
let out in the fair time and closed up all the year after) be many large
houses built, and the north wall towards Long Lane taken down, and a
number of tenements are there erected for such as will give great rents.”
This last line of trading-houses was substituted for the profitless dead
wall. Parallel with it, through the ground vacant of building north of
the church, which that wall had enclosed, parallel also with one of the
church walls, a street of considerable houses occupied the site and kept
the name of Cloth Fair.
_Plague._—1593 (53rd of Elizabeth). The plague being now prevailing in
the city, the queen issued a proclamation on 6th August, about three
weeks before the usual time of the fair, in substance as follows:—Whereas
there was a general resort of all kinds of people out of every part of
the realm to the said fair; but that (on this occasion) in the usual
place of Smithfield there should be no manner of market for any wares
kept, nor any stalls or booths for any manner of merchandise, or for
victuals, suffered to be set up; but that the open space of the ground
called Smithfield, be only occupied with the sale of horses and cattle,
and of stall wares, as butter, cheese, and such like in gross, and not by
retail, the same to continue for the space of two days only.
And for the vent of woollen cloths, kerseys, and linen cloth, to be all
sold in gross and not by retail; the same should be brought within the
close-yard of St. Bartholomew (afterwards known as the Cloth Fair) where
shops were there continued (_i.e._ not deserted by reason of the plague)
and have gates to shut the same place in the nights, and then such to be
offered to sale, and to be bought in gross and not by retail; the same
market to continue but three days—that is to say Even, the Day of St.
Bartholomew and the Morrow after.
And that the sale and vent of leather be kept in the outside of the ring
of Smithfield, as had been accustomed, without erecting of any shops or
booths for the same, or for any victualler or other occupier of any wares
whatsoever.
And that notice hereof be given to such of H. M.’s good subjects as for
lack of knowledge of this H. M.’s princely ordonnance might resort to
London to sell or buy small wares by retail, and there receive infection,
and carry the same into their countries, H. M. commanded that the Lord
Mayor of London should cause this proclamation to be presently published
in all the usual places in the City, in the time of two or three
market days, and to be also Proclaimed by the Sheriffs of Middlesex,
Kent, Surrey, and Essex, in some places of those Counties near to the
said City, whereby none might resort to the City at this Feast of St.
Bartholomew, by pretence of any Fair, but such as should have cause to
sell or buy the commodities in gross.
Imprisonment, without bail, during the Queen’s pleasure, or further
punishment, was to be the penalty for the infraction of this ordinance.
Mr. Morley, reviewing this proclamation, says the inference to be drawn
from it was that the fair, as a place of wholesale commerce, was not
to be suppressed without more injury to trade than the fear of plague
would force the Queen’s advisers to inflict. But this consideration must
be qualified by the fact that the chief risk came from the throng of
pedlers, hawkers, stall-keepers, showmen, and holiday-makers from the
country round about; and that the soberer resort of merchants to the
fair, while it was certainly in one respect a greater good, was in the
other respect also a lesser evil. Also, there was a wealthy nobleman
at court unwilling to part with a year’s tolls from the Cloth Fair and
the Close, and able to urge actively, from motives of self-interest,
considerations that were, at the same time, not wanting in justice.
1596. A formal agreement was made between Lord Rich and the Corporation
of London, establishing a composition of the tolls of the fair; and, as
to jurisdiction, placing both parties nearly in the relative position
occupied by the Priory and the Corporation in 1445.
_A Foreigner’s View of the Fair._—1598. Paul Hentzner, a German tutor,
travelled this year through Germany, France, Italy, and England, and kept
an “Itinerarum,” of which many editions have been published. I quote the
following description of Bartholomew Fair from the Aungervyle Society’s
translation (1881):—“It is worthy of observation that every year upon
St. Bartholomew’s Day, when a fair is held, it is usual for the Mayor,
attended by the twelve principal Aldermen, to walk in a neighbouring
field dressed in his Scarlet Gown, and about his neck a Golden Chain,
to which is hung a Golden Fleece, and besides that particular ornament,
which distinguished the most noble Order of the Garter ... himself and
they on horseback; upon their arrival at a place appointed for that
purpose, where a tent is pitched, the mob begin to wrestle before them,
two at a time; the conquerors receive rewards from the magistrates. After
this is over, a parcel of live rabbits are turned loose among the crowd,
which are pursued by a number of boys who endeavour to catch them, with
all the noise they can make. While we were at this show, one of our
company, Tobias Salander, Doctor of Physic, had his pocket picked of his
purse, with nine crowns _du soleil_, which without doubt was so cleverly
taken from him by an Englishman who always kept close to him, that the
Doctor did not the least perceive it.”
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