Middlemen in English Business 203 



Before nine o'clock the foreigners could sell only by retail to con- 

 sumers and not to denizen poulterers. The foreigners dared not 

 lodge with the denizen and had "to bring their poultry into full mar- 

 ket, without selling any poultry out of the market, or in secret." 

 The prices of poultry' were set by public ordinance.' Forestalling 

 was prohibited. The poulterers dealt in rabbits, game, eggs, and 

 poultry. In the fifteenth century these were carried to market in 

 baskets on men's and horses' backs.- They bought fowl in the 

 country villages and advanced them to London for sale. It was 

 sometimes quite impossible to pay high prices in the country and sell 

 within the assizes' prices in the city.^ 



Lincolnshire and the "fens" were the great source of the poulterers' 

 supplies. Suffolk also contributed much. Rabbits were marketed 

 from Suffolk, where during the seventeenth century there were "so 

 many warrens ... in every place which . . . furnish (ed) 

 the next markets and (they were) carried to London with no little 

 reckoning."'* Young reports a warren in Brandon, Suffolk, that yielded 

 more than 40,000 rabbits a year, valued at 10 to I2d. each.-^ This 

 industry afforded a by-product, viz., rabbit-skins, in large enough 

 quantity to give rise to a tradesman or pedlar who hawked them about 

 the country and from whom they were gathered up by the " tawyers."'' 



But poultry was the chief ware handled by the poulterers. The 

 ruffs and rees were caught in the Lincoln fens and fattened at Went- 

 worth for market." During the eighteenth century special carriers of 

 poultry between Lincoln and London arose. They employed a new 

 sort of vehicle built with four stories one above another. These 

 wagons were drawn by horses, two to twelve in number, day and 

 night, and made as much as a hundred miles in two days and one 

 night. "^ These wagons would carry a great number. This method 

 was used "in particular for carrying young Turkeys or Turkey- 

 poults in their season . . . also for live Chicks in the dear 

 Seasons." From Peterborough such wagons were despatched to 

 London twice a week, loaded so heavily that twelve horses were 

 needed. 



1 Lib. Alb. I, 465-6; III, 186-7; Lib. Cus., II, CV. 



2 Ibid., I, LXXXI-LXXXIV. 



» For a case, see Lib. Cus., II, pt. L XCI-XCIII. 



' Reyce, Breviary of Suffolk, 35; V. C. H., Suff. II, 247. 



" Young, Gen. View of .Vgric. of Suff., 220. 



«V. C. H., Lincoln, II, 387. 



' Pococke, I, 67. 



s Defoe, Tour, I, 62-3, 91. 



