154 TRADE AND MARKETS. 



vol. i. p. 141. It remained the most important mart in Eastern 

 England, and was frequented by the whole of the country for 

 nearly two centuries after the period with which these volumes 

 close. In countries which have made but little progress in 

 the art of agriculture, and in which the population is con- 

 sequently sparse and scattered, continuous trade is improbable, 

 perhaps impossible. It was, I believe, in London only that 

 the market was perpetually open, and that therefore bargains 

 in goods, even though the vendor might have been unlawfully 

 in possession, were, if the purchase were bona fide, held by 

 custom to be valid. But in the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries, the casual purchaser was unknown, and if it were 

 necessary, in consequence of some sudden event, such as the 

 visit of a great personage, to buy some article which fashion 

 required for the important guest, because the stock which the 

 corporation or even the individual possessed in this article was 

 low, the purchaser had to find out and, if he could find out, buy 

 at an exorbitant price what he might need. Hence it will be 

 seen that the price of a spice or condiment is occasionally very 

 high. Generally the cause is to be sought and found in some 

 sudden requirement, and a hard bargain. Thus, in 1411, New 

 College, Oxford, pays four shillings for half-a-pound of pepper. 

 Pepper was very dear in the years 1411-14, as will be seen by 

 referring to the record of purchases. But this price is beyond 

 all parallel. The explanation is in the fact that the College had 

 suddenly to entertain their Visitor, and the natural inference 

 is, that being out of the article, they had to give whatever 

 price the Oxford grocer chose to demand for what he had of a 

 stock, which was at this time exceedingly dear. 



The use of fairs for the supply of annual stock has become 

 extinct only within a generation or two, and almost entirely 

 in consequence of the rapid communication which has been 

 effected by railways. Fifty years ago, a Hampshire gentleman 

 of moderate fortune regularly visited the great fairs in the 

 eastern part of the country, to purchase cloth and cheese for 

 his household from the West of England factories and the 



