JOURNEYS AND MARKETS. 141 



at Ersham is represented as having been worth fifty-one shil- 

 lings for fifteen market days. The advantage gained by the 

 lord led, however, to reciprocal obligations in the maintenance 

 of the market ground, in the supply of exact measures, and 

 in the efficiency of the police kept on days of sale. It was 

 provided by law that a toll should not be unreasonable, under 

 penalty of forfeiting the franchise ; but it is probable that self- 

 interest was a sufficient guide to the owner of a market fran- 

 chise. Excessive toll would have driven away buyers and 

 sellers, and so have defeated its own ends. I do not remember 

 to have met with any instance in which the tenants of any 

 manor were constrained to buy and sell in any lord's market, 

 although it is common to find the obligation to grind at the 

 lord's mill and make malt in the lord's oast. 



More important, however, than markets, were the great 

 annual fairs held at some place of customary resort. These 

 fairs were said to have arisen from the concourse of persons to 

 towns or villages on the feast day of the saint to whom the 

 church or town was dedicated, occasion being taken to graft 

 business transactions on these religious solemnities, and, as a 

 consequence, to make them a source of revenue to the feudal 

 lords who possessed manorial rights in the soil. - 



Of these fairs, the most important for the whole of the east 

 and south of England were, the great fair at Stourbridge, held 

 under the authority and for the profit of the Corporation and 

 city of Cambridge ; the cattle fair of Abingdon ; and a fair at 

 Winchester, chiefly held for the sale of produce and cloth. But 

 the Stourbridge fair was by far the most considerable, and was 

 commenced and concluded with great solemnity. 



This fair was proclaimed on the fourth of September, opened 

 on the eighteenth, and continued for three weeks. It is said, 

 that the origin of the fair was in the casual establishment of 

 a mart for the sale of Kendal cloth, and an idle story is told 

 to this effect by Fuller. The temporary buildings erected for 

 the purposes of the fair were, by custom, commenced on the 

 24th of August ; the builders were allowed to destroy the corn 



