338 Tradesman and Merchant — Commercial Population 



on the general proposition that production, manufactures and com- 

 merce only existed for the benefit of the whole community — the "poor 

 commons of the realm." The main object of the regulation of the 

 markets was "to promote fair dealing, and to prevent and punish 

 chicanery."^ It gave publicity of sale and credible witnesses of the 

 transfer of the goods. The hours and places and persons trading 

 were carefully prescribed with this end in view; as were also special 

 pie poudre courts provided. Other less generous ideals moved the 

 legislator, no doubt; for instance, the town dealers were hostile to 

 the intervention of country-buying competitors; and "no trifling 

 part or the town revenue came from fines paid yearly by non- 

 freemen for the privilege of holding a stall in street or market. "- 



But the principle of the prohibition was defective. It did not 

 prevent the rise of speculator merchants on the public market, and it 

 cramped commerce in places where it would have been useful to the 

 pubKc welfare; pressing needs in local parts could not be expeditiously 

 supplied if large supplies carried by a dealer in ready stock could not 

 be shipped directly and not delayed by passing through a public 

 market; besides the very pubUcity of considerable purchases on the 

 market caused a fluctuation of price which the merchant would care 

 to conceal or prevent if he were free to buy in private. 



The occasion and necessity of fairs and markets obtain where agri- 

 culture has progressed but little and population is scattered and 

 sparse. Here continuous trade is impossible and buyers and sellers 

 must arrange a common periodic assemblage. The less frequent 

 assemblages and, at the same time, drawing from a wider area, are 

 fairs. Fairs antedated markets both in origin and decline.^ They 

 presuppose a slighter intercommunication of regions and a greater 

 local and domestic economic self-sufficiency, than are characteristic of 

 conditions when markets prevail. There are fewer people, ha\ang 

 fewer and simpler wants, practically self-sufficing, and separated by 

 want of facilities of transport and travel. Most necessaries of life 

 are produced on the manors; many are l:)Ought from one another; so 



' Rew, 48-9. 



" Green, Town Life, II, 35. 



At times the protective policy of the towns was carried to great extremes. 

 There was a severe curtailment of the privileges enjoyed by markets which existed 

 just outside London's bounds, for instance: "They went so far as at one time to 

 prohibit any one from going out of the city for the purpose of buying com, cattle, 

 or any other merchandise, udth the single exception of timber from Southwark." 

 (Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis, ed. Riley, Rolls Series, I, pp. LII, 273. 

 I 3 Green, Town Life, II, 25-6. 



