No. 149.] 281 



to the present. I shall therefore simply refer to the origin of 

 European Fairs, and hastily note their progress down to our own 

 day. 



Since the christian era, the earliest fairs in Europe of which 

 commercial history informs us, were those of Italy. The successive 

 invasions of the northern hordes had annihilated, under Odovcer, 

 the last remnant of Roman power. In the long period of war 

 and rapine which preceded the reign of Theodoric, commerce had 

 been crushed ; but upon his accession to the throne of Italy a 

 new period dawned upon the world. The sceptre of this benig- 

 nant conqueror was swayed for the good of his vanquished sub- 

 jects. The arts ot peace were encouraged, trade was favored, 

 and the old avenues of commerce which for ages had been closed, 

 were once more opened to the enterprise of Italy. The Jews, 

 those unfailing barometers of public credit, hastened to a coun- 

 try where they might avail themselves of the opportunities pre- 

 sented by the new order of things, and at the close of the fifth 

 century fairs were established by law for the interchange of 

 foreign products with those of Italy. They were small, to be 

 sure, for as yet the ravages of recent war had kept the country 

 in a state but little removed from barbarism. But they were the 

 feeble beginnings of a system destined rapidly to grow in strength, v 

 and ultimately to fix the relative importance of continental states ' 

 in the scale of power. Three centuries later we find the Nether- 

 lands emphatically the land of fairs. Under the reign of Char- 

 lemagne they were established upon a basis calculated to ensure 

 the lasting prosperity of that country, and to this day we use the 

 standard established by them for weighing the precious metals. 

 In the tenth century the manufacture of woolen cloths, then 

 monopolised by the Flemings, furnished the materials for a lucra- 

 tive trade with France in exchange for wine and oil. Free fairs 

 were appointed by government at which goods sold were exempt 

 from all duties. About this time fairs were established in Ger- 

 many and the North, but the principal trade was in captives 

 taken in war, who were sold for slaves. It was not till long after 

 this period that we read of fairs in England. They appear to 

 have been introduced from Flanders in the thirteenth eentury. 

 They were limited as to time, but so popular did they become, 



