Order to cause proclamation to be made that all persons having fairs by
charters of the king or of his progenitors or otherwise, shall cause
the fairs to be held in the manner and form and on the days and times
according to the tenor of the charters, or as they ought to do
according to the title, to wit from time out of mind, and upon no other
days and times, and to summon all persons claiming to have fairs to be
before the king's council at Westminster.
_Cal. of Close_, 1317-18, 456.
1328. It is established that it shall be commanded to all the sheriffs
of England and elsewhere, where need shall require, to cry and publish
within liberties and without that all lords which have fairs, be it for
yielding certain farm to the king for the same or otherwise, shall hold
the same for the time that they ought to hold them and no longer: that
is to say such as have them by the king's charter granted them, for the
time limited by the said charters; and also they that have them without
charter, for the time that they ought to hold them of right.
And that every lord at the beginning of his fair shall there do, cry
and publish how long the fair shall endure, to the intent that
merchants shall not be at the same fairs over the time so published,
upon pain to be grievously punished before the king. Nor the said lords
shall not hold them over the due time upon pain to seize the fairs into
the king's hands, there to remain until they have made a fine to the
king for the offence, after it be duly found that the lords held the
same fairs longer than they ought, or that the merchants have sitten
above the time so published.
_Statute, 2 Edward III._, cap. 15.
1393. The ordinance underwritten was publicly proclaimed in full market
in Westchepe (Cheapside), and Cornhulle (Cornhill) in London, on
Thursday the 20th day of March in the 16th year.
As from of old it has been the custom to hold in the city on every
feastday two markets, called _Evechepynges_, one in Westchepe and
the other on Cornhulle; that is to say the one in Westchepe between the
corner of the lane called St. Lawrence Lane and a house called the
Cage. So always that the said lane be not obstructed by the people of
the said market, who are not to stand near to the shops there for the
sale of divers wares that in such shops are wont to be sold. And that
too by daylight only, between the first bell rung and the second, for
the said markets ordained. And now on the 10th day of March ... William
Staundone, the mayor, and the aldermen of the said city, have been
given to understand that divers persons at night and by candlelight do
sell in the common hostels there and in other places, in secret, divers
wares that have been larcenously pilfered and some falsely wrought and
some that are old as being new; and that other persons do there
practise the sin of harlotry, under colour of the sale of their said
wares, to the very great damage and scandal of good and honest folks of
the said city.
Therefore the said mayor and aldermen by wise counsel and with good
deliberation between them had, for the honour of the city and in order
to put the said markets under good control and governance, have
ordained that from henceforth on every such market night each of the
said two bells shall be rung by the beadle of the ward where it is
hung, one hour before sunset and then again half an hour after sunset.
At which second ringing all the people shall depart from the market
with their wares, on pain of forfeiture to the chamber of all such
wares as shall, after the second bell rung, be found in the same; as to
the which the beadle if he be acting, or officer by the chamber of the
Guildhall thereunto assigned, shall have twopence in every shilling for
his trouble in taking them. And that no one shall sell in common
hostels any wares that in the said market are wont to be sold, or
anywhere else within the said city or in the suburbs thereof, but only
in their own shops and in the places and at the days and hours
aforesaid, on pain of forfeiture to the use of the said chamber of all
the wares that shall otherwise be sold.
Riley, _Memorials of London_, 532.
1320. Be it remembered that on the Monday next before the feast of St.
Katherine the Virgin in the 14th year, the pork and beef of John Perer,
John Esmar, and Reynald ate Watre, alleged to be foreign[10] butchers,
were seized because that they against the custom of the city (of
London), had exposed the said meat for sale at Les Stokkes (the Stocks
Market on the site of the Mansion House), after curfew rung at St.
Martin's-le-Grand: whereas it is enacted that no foreign butcher
standing with his meat at the stalls aforesaid shall cut any meat after
None rung at St. Paul's; and that as to all the meat which he has cut
before None rung he is to expose the same for sale up to the hour of
Vespers, and to sell it without keeping any back or carrying any away.
Riley, _Memorials of London_, 142.
[10] See previous footnote.