Middlemen in English Business 201 



ings, and other accommodations. Public beams, scales and weights 

 were provided. The city of London passed Acts of Common 

 Council for settling and well ordering these markets.' 



Another type of retailers were the hucksters who cried out their 

 meats through the city. 



The city of London and the provincial towns regulated the retail 

 butcher business extensively even in very early times. The protec- 

 tion of the denizen dealers against "foreign" dealers, and the assur- 

 ance of having the consumer's wants supplied directly before middle- 

 men could buy, were the pohcies behind the legislation. The fif- 

 teenth century meat markets of London were at the Flesh Shambles 

 of St. Nicholas, near Newgate, and at the stalls under the covered 

 place or market house "Le Stokkes," the Stock Market. The shops 

 were closed at night and sales began at si.\ o'clock. Maximum prices 

 were set on meats; any dealer who refused to sell at the publicly 

 assessed price or withdrew from trade by reason of it, lost his citizen- 

 ship. Foreign butchers were required to sell in the forenoon by retail; 

 after that until vespers they sold by wholesale; they were to sell out 

 their entire stock within this time. All carcasses brought to market 

 had to have their hide or woolfel with them.- Taking Beverley's as 

 illustrative of the fourteenth century provincial meat market regula- 

 tions, one finds that every butcher was required to sell the meat killed 

 by himself in his own shop, and not to send it to another butcher to 

 sell; he was given four days from the time of kilUng to sell his meat, 

 or on the fourth day to put it in salt. These arrangements ehminated 

 the wholesale butcher. The denizen and foreign butchers sold in 

 different markets: the former elected one end of the lord's market 

 and the strange butcher took the other end; the fish market occupied 

 the center. This division was followed each market day.' In the 

 contrast between the London and Beverley market the absence of 

 the carcass butcher in the latter is the most striking fact, and, apart 

 from the prohibitive legislation, was Hkely due to the smallness of 

 the market itself. Wholesaling cannot subsist on small business. 



On the whole, the business of the cutting butcher differed little from 

 that of all retailers. They cut up and sold in parcels the carcasses 

 which they had bought, to somewhat regular customers. 



' Maitland I, 460 et seq. 



- See regulations in Lib. \\h. I, LXXX, 263. 



'Selden, XIV, 29. 



