OF FAIRS AND MARKETS.
[1577, Book II., Chapter 11; 1587, Book II., Chapter 18.]
There are (as I take it) few great towns in England that have not their
weekly markets, one or more granted from the prince, in which all manner
of provision for household is to be bought and sold, for ease and benefit
of the country round about. Whereby, as it cometh to pass that no buyer
shall make any great journey in the purveyance of his necessities, so no
occupier shall have occasion to travel far off with his commodities,
except it be to seek for the highest prices, which commonly are near unto
great cities, where round and speediest utterance is always to be had.
And, as these have been in times past erected for the benefit of the
realm, so are they in many places too, too much abused: for the relief and
ease of the buyer is not so much intended in them as the benefit of the
seller. Neither are the magistrates for the most part (as men loath to
displease their neighbours for their one year's dignity) so careful in
their offices as of right and duty they should be. For, in most of these
markets, neither assizes of bread nor orders for goodness and sweetness of
grain and other commodities that are brought thither to be sold are any
whit looked unto, but each one suffered to sell or set up what and how
himself listeth: and this is one evident cause of dearth and scarcity in
time of great abundance.
I could (if I would) exemplify in many, but I will touch no one
particularly, sith it is rare to see in any country town (as I said) the
assize of bread well kept according to the statute; and yet, if any
country baker happen to come in among them on the market day with bread of
better quantity, they find fault by-and-by with one thing or other in his
stuff, whereby the honest poor man (whom the law of nations do commend,
for that he endeavoureth to live by any lawful means) is driven away, and
no more to come there, upon some round penalty, by virtue of their
privileges. Howbeit, though they are so nice in the proportion of their
bread, yet, in lieu of the same, there is such heady ale and beer in most
of them as for the mightiness thereof among such as seek it out is
commonly called "huffcap," "the mad dog," "Father Whoreson," "angels'
food," "dragon's milk," "go-by-the-wall," "stride wide," and "lift leg,"
etc. And this is more to be noted, that when one of late fell by God's
providence into a troubled conscience, after he had considered well of his
reachless life and dangerous estate, another, thinking belike to change
his colour and not his mind, carried him straight away to the strongest
ale, as to the next physician. It is incredible to say how our maltbugs
lug at this liquor, even as pigs should lie in a row lugging at their
dame's teats, till they lie still again and be not able to wag. Neither
did Romulus and Remus suck their she-wolf or shepherd's wife Lupa with
such eager and sharp devotion as these men hale at "huffcap," till they be
red as cocks and little wiser than their combs. But how am I fallen from
the market into the alehouse? In returning therefore unto my purpose, I
find that in corn great abuse is daily suffered, to the great prejudice of
the town and country, especially the poor artificer and householder, which
tilleth no land, but, labouring all the week to buy a bushel or two of
grain on the market day, can there have none for his money: because
bodgers,[91] loaders, and common carriers of corn do not only buy up all,
but give above the price, to be served of great quantities. Shall I go any
further? Well, I will say yet a little more, and somewhat by mine own
experience.
At Michaelmas time poor men must make money of their grain, that they may
pay their rents. So long then as the poor man hath to sell, rich men will
bring out none, but rather buy up that which the poor bring, under
pretence of seed corn or alteration of grain, although they bring none of
their own, because one wheat often sown without change of seed will soon
decay and be converted into darnel. For this cause therefore they must
needs buy in the markets, though they be twenty miles off, and where they
be not known, promising there, if they happen to be espied (which, God
wot, is very seldom), to send so much to their next market, to be
performed I wot not when.
If this shift serve not (neither doth the fox use always one track for
fear of a snare), they will compound with some one of the town where the
market is holden, who for a pot of "huffcap" or "merry-go-down," will not
let to buy it for them, and that in his own name. Or else they wage one
poor man or other to become a bodger, and thereto get him a licence upon
some forged surmise, which being done, they will feed him with money to
buy for them till he hath filled their lofts;[92] and then, if he can do
any good for himself, so it is; if not, they will give him somewhat for
his pains at this time, and reserve him for another year. How many of the
like providers stumble upon blind creeks at the sea coast, I wot not well;
but that some have so done and yet do under other men's wings, the case is
too, too plain. But who dare find fault with them, when they have once a
licence? yes, though it be but to serve a mean gentleman's house with
corn, who hath cast up all his tillage, because he boasteth how he can buy
his grain in the market better cheap than he can sow his land, as the rich
grazier often doth also upon the like device, because grazing requireth a
smaller household and less attendance and charge. If any man come to buy
a bushel or two for his expenses unto the market cross, answer is made:
"Forsooth, here was one even now that bade me money for it, and I hope he
will have it." And to say the truth, these bodgers are fair chapmen; for
there are no more words with them, but "_Let me see it! What shall I give
you? Knit it up! I will have it--go carry it to such a chamber, and if you
bring in twenty_ seme _more in the week-day to such an inn or sollar where
I lay my corn, I will have it, and give you (____) pence or more in every
bushel for six weeks' day of payment than another will_." Thus the bodgers
bear away all, so that the poor artificer and labourer cannot make his
provision in the markets, sith they will hardly nowadays sell by the
bushel, nor break their measure; and so much the rather for that the buyer
will look (as they say) for so much over measure in the bushel as the
bodger will do in a quarter. Nay, the poor man cannot oft get any of the
farmer at home, because he provideth altogether to serve the bodger, or
hath an hope, grounded upon a greedy and insatiable desire of gain, that
the sale will be better in the market, so that he must give twopence or a
groat more in the bushel at his house than the last market craved, or else
go without it, and sleep with a hungry belly. Of the common carriage of
corn over unto the parts beyond the seas I speak not; or at the leastwise,
if I should, I could not touch it alone, but needs must join other
provision withal, whereby not only our friends abroad, but also many of
our adversaries and countrymen, the papists, are abundantly relieved (as
the report goeth); but sith I see it not, I will not so trust mine ears as
to write it for a truth. But to return to our markets again.
By this time the poor occupier hath sold all his crop for need of money,
being ready peradventure to buy again ere long. And now is the whole sale
of corn in the great occupiers' hands, who hitherto have threshed little
or none of their own, but bought up of other men as much as they could
come by. Henceforth also they begin to sell, not by the quarter or load at
the first (for marring the market), but by the bushel or two, or a
horseload at the most, thereby to be seen to keep the cross, either for a
show, or to make men eager to buy, and so, as they may have it for money,
not to regard what they pay. And thus corn waxeth dear; but it will be
dearer the next market day. It is possible also that they mislike the
price in the beginning for the whole year ensuing, as men supposing that
corn will be little worth for this, and of better price the next year. For
they have certain superstitious observations whereby they will give a
guess at the sale of corn for the year following. And our countrymen do
use commonly for barley, where I dwell, to judge after the price at
Baldock upon St. Matthew's day; and for wheat, as it is sold in seed time.
They take in like sort experiment by sight of the first flocks of cranes
that flee southward in winter, the age of the moon in the beginning of
January, and such other apish toys as by laying twelve corns upon the hot
hearth for the twelve months, etc., whereby they shew themselves to be
scant good Christians; but what care they, so that they come by money?
Hereupon also will they thresh out three parts of the old corn, towards
the latter end of the summer, when new cometh apace to hand, and cast the
same in the fourth unthreshed, where it shall lie until the next spring,
or peradventure till it must and putrify. Certes it is not dainty to see
musty corn in many of our great markets of England which these great
occupiers bring forth when they can keep it no longer. But as they are
enforced oftentimes upon this one occasion somewhat to abate the price, so
a plague is not seldom engendered thereby among the poorer sort that of
necessity must buy the same, whereby many thousands of all degrees are
consumed, of whose deaths (in mine opinion) these farmers are not
unguilty. But to proceed. If they lay not up their grain or wheat in this
manner, they have yet another policy, whereby they will seem to have but
small store left in their barns: for else they will gird their sheaves by
the band, and stack it up anew in less room, to the end it may not only
seem less in quantity, but also give place to the corn that is yet to come
into the barn or growing in the field. If there happen to be such plenty
in the market on any market day that they cannot sell at their own price,
then will they set it up in some friend's house, against another on the
third day, and not bring it forth till they like of the sale. If they sell
any at home, beside harder measure, it shall be dearer to the poor man
that buyeth it by twopence or a groat in a bushel than they may sell it in
the market. But, as these things are worthy redress, so I wish that God
would once open their eyes that deal thus to see their own errors: for as
yet some of them little care how many poor men suffer extremity, so that
they fill their purses and carry away the gain.
It is a world also to see how most places of the realm are pestered with
purveyors, who take up eggs, butter, cheese, pigs, capons, hens, chickens,
hogs, bacon, etc., in one market under pretence of their commissions, and
suffer their wives to sell the same in another, or to poulterers of
London. If these chapmen be absent but two or three market days then we
may perfectly see these wares to be more reasonably sold, and thereunto
the crosses sufficiently furnished of all things. In like sort, since the
number of buttermen have so much increased, and since they travel in such
wise that they come to men's houses for their butter faster than they can
make it, it is almost incredible to see how the price of butter is
augmented:[93] whereas when the owners were enforced to bring it to the
market towns, and fewer of these butter buyers were stirring, our butter
was scarcely worth eighteenpence the gallon that now is worth three
shillings fourpence and perhaps five shillings. Whereby also I gather that
the maintenance of a superfluous number of dealers[94] in most trades,
tillage always excepted, is one of the greatest causes why the prices of
things become excessive: for one of them do commonly use to outbid
another. And whilst our country commodities are commonly bought and sold
at our private houses, I never look to see this enormity redressed or the
markets well furnished.
I could say more, but this is even enough, and more peradventure than I
shall be well thanked for: yet true it is, though some think it no
trespass. This moreover is to be lamented, that one general measure is not
in use throughout all England, but every market town hath in manner a
several bushel; and the lesser it be, the more sellers it draweth to
resort unto the same. Such also is the covetousness of many clerks of the
market, that in taking a view of measures they will always so provide that
one and the same bushel shall be either too big or too little at their
next coming, and yet not depart without a fee at the first, so that what
by their mending at one time, and impairing the same at another, the
country is greatly charged, and few just measures to be had in any steed.
It is oft found likewise that divers unconscionable dealers have one
measure to sell by and another to buy withal; the like is also in weights,
and yet all sealed and bronded. Wherefore it were very good that these two
were reduced unto one standard, that is, one bushel, one pound, one
quarter, one hundred, one tale, one number: so should things in time fall
into better order and fewer causes of contention be moved in this land. Of
the complaint of such poor tenants as pay rent corn[95] unto their
landlords, I speak not, who are often dealt withal very hardly. For,
beside that in measuring of ten quarters for the most part they lose one
through the iniquity of the bushel (such is the greediness of the
appointed receivers thereof), fault is found also with the goodness and
cleanness of the grain. Whereby some piece of money must needs pass unto
their purses to stop their mouths withal, or else "My lord will not like
of the corn," "Thou art worthy to lose thy lease," etc. Or, if it be
cheaper in the market than the rate allowed for it is in their rents,
then must they pay money and no corn, which is no small extremity. And
thereby we may see how each one of us endeavoureth to fleece and eat up
another.
Another thing there is in our markets worthy to be looked into, and that
is the recarriage of grain from the same into lofts and cellars, of which
before I gave some intimation; wherefore, if it were ordered that every
seller should make his market by an hour, or else the bailey or clerk of
the said market to make sale thereof, according to his discretion, without
liberty to the farmers to set up their corn in houses and chambers, I am
persuaded that the prices of our grain would soon be abated. Again, if it
were enacted that each one should keep his next market with his grain (and
not to run six, eight, ten, fourteen, or twenty miles from home to sell
his corn where he doth find the highest price, and thereby leaveth his
neighbours unfurnished), I do not think but that our markets would be far
better served than at this present they are. Finally, if men's barns might
be indifferently viewed immediately after harvest, and a note gathered by
an estimate, and kept by some appointed and trusty person for that
purpose, we should have much more plenty of corn in our town crosses than
as yet is commonly seen: because each one hideth and hoardeth what he may,
upon purpose either that it will be dearer, or that he shall have some
privy vein by bodgers, who do accustomably so deal that the sea doth load
away no small part thereof into other countries and our enemies, to the
great hindrance of our commonwealth at home, and more likely yet to be,
except some remedy be found. But what do I talk of these things, or desire
the suppression of bodgers, being a minister? Certes I may speak of them
right well as feeling the harm in that I am a buyer, nevertheless I speak
generally in each of them.
To conclude therefore, in our markets all things are to be sold necessary
for man's use; and there is our provision made commonly for all the week
ensuing. Therefore, as there are no great towns without one weekly market
at least, so there are very few of them that have not one or two fairs or
more within the compass of the year, assigned unto them by the prince.
And albeit that some of them are not much better than Louse fair,[96] or
the common kirkemesses[97] beyond the sea, yet there are divers not
inferior to the greatest marts in Europe, as Stourbridge fair near to
Cambridge, Bristow fair, Bartholomew fair at London, Lynn mart, Cold fair
at Newport pond for cattle, and divers other, all which, or at leastwise
the greatest part of them (to the end I may with the more ease to the
reader and less travel to myself fulfil my task in their recital), I have
set down according to the names of the months wherein they are holden at
the end of this book, where you shall find them at large as I borrowed the
same from J. Stow and the reports of others.