70 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
place selling his wares, without possessing house or land, whose part 
in the soil was no more than the dust upon his feet. Dr. Pettingall 
shows that in the " Scotch borough laws " a " dustifute " was " a 
stranger merchant travelling through the country, having no land 
or residence within the sherifdome, hut going from place to place." 
It is therefore clear that the " Pye-powders' Court," for it was 
originally used in the plural number, meant the " Traders' Court." 
Although the powers of these courts were limited, we find a 
statute of 17 Edward IV. * sets forth that private wrong was done 
in their administration, as the commissioners or stewards appointed 
by the lords of the fairs to preside abused their power to their own 
advantage. It was represented that they tried cases which were 
beyond their jurisdiction, and by the connivance of unprincipled 
accomplices persecuted honest traders. This caused a great injury 
to fairs, as it diminished the number of merchants who attended, 
thereby injuring the lords of the fairs and the public who were 
accustomed to obtain their goods there ; and goes on to set on the 
statute-book for the first time a formal recital of the nature of the 
courts and their privileges — ordaining that every plaintiff shall 
swear that the matter occurred in the same fair and during fair 
time ; that the defendant may answer and plead that the matter 
was not within the jurisdiction and time of the fair, in which case, 
or if the plaintiff refused to swear, the case shall be dismissed out 
of the court, when the plaintiff must take his remedy at common 
law. 
Fairs had now become settled institutions throughout the land, 
bound to the life of the people by the three ties of religion, trade, 
and pleasure, although the former began to loosen as the others 
extended. To add to the attractions of a fair, and to induce the 
rich and powerful to resort there with full purses in their pursuit 
of pleasure, amusements were introduced. It was only among the 
tents and booths of fairs, and not in the great cities, that the first 
entertainments were offered to the curious, so that at Frankfort, 
Leipsic, and Bartholomew Fairs there was entertainment good 
enough for royal visitors. As all the early fairs were of ecclesi- 
astical origin, we can understand the amusements provided were 
cast in a religious mould. It is to the fairs that we must look for 
the birth and early development of the drama. It is said the first 
power of the mind revealed in a child is that of mimicry ; nearly 
* 17 Edward IV., c. 2., 1477. " Constitution of Court of Pipowders." 
