Middlemen in English Business 149 



corn should be sold in the markets to any but the poor until two hours 

 after the market bell had been rung; they reduced the number of 

 badgers who were suspected to be forestallers; and ordered all malt- 

 sters who had engrossed any quantity of grain to serve the market 

 weekly at a reasonable rate.^ In Rutland Sir John Wingfield wrote 

 that he had " taken order that ingrossers of corne should be carefullie 

 seen unto and that there is no Badger licensed to carrye corn out of 

 this countye" and had "refrayned the maullsters from excessive mak- 

 ing of mault and . . . suppressed 20 alehouses. "^ These in- 

 terferences of the government in the corn-markets succeeded in 

 their purpose, namely, to reduce prices. It was an unpopular action 

 in the larger corn-markets, of course. Wycombe, for instance, pro- 

 tested against the low prices gotten by the corn-dealers and farmers, 

 and showed that by reason of these forced losses the farmers ceased 

 setting aside corn for the poor as formerly.^ 



The ingrosser, having once attained to uncommon wealth, exercised 

 a considerable empire over the markets and fairs at which he was a 

 buyer. His purchases were so large that he could practically fix 

 prices at which the others had to buy or lose the chance of buying at 

 all. This dominance would naturally stimulate an inveterate jeal- 

 ousy on the part of the poorer buyer and provoke corn-riots and 

 repeated efforts to revise the Edwardian legislation.^ 



The corn-buyers operated especially at markets and fairs, although, 

 as the laws against forestalling fell into desuetude, they made farm- 

 to-farm canvass of the districts in which they bought, buying directly 

 from the farmers. Especially was this so after they had once estab- 

 lished relations with the farmers by buying from them by samples at 

 the market.'^ Thereafter they would call on the farmer and the latter 

 troubled himself no more to come to the market. Certain markets 

 favorably situated in good corn districts and with good water-com- 

 munications became prominent as corn-markets, and the prices pre- 



1 S. P. Dom. Chas. I, 177, No. 61; V. C. H., Sussex, II, 194. 



- Cal. S. P. Dom., 1629-31, p. 414; V. C. H., Rutland, I. 241. 



3 S. P. Dom. Chas. I, 177, No. 50; V. C. H., Bucks, II, 77. 



* For such an effort at revival see, Edward, Bishop of Durham, Engrossing of 

 Com, 11; ditto, Gent. Mag., 1740: 355. 



5 Defoe,'Com. Eng. Tr., II, 181. The business of the badger in 1587 is shown at 

 South Stoke, Oxford, where an unhcensed badger had bought 40 quarters of barley 

 at £17 the score, and had not paid; another had bought "on the grounde" four 

 acres of winter corn, ten acres of barley, and two acres of pulse, for £20; four acres- 

 in another place for £4, and sixteen acres for £11. S. P. Dom. EHz. CXCVIII, 

 56; V. C. H.. Oxf., II, 194. 



