Some Old Trading Laws and Customs.
While some of the quaint laws connected with markets and fairs in other parts of the country are unknown in Cumberland and Westmorland, others not less interesting may be found in these counties. The searcher after such old-time lore may find a good deal of it in the standard histories, but still more in those byways of local literature which are too much neglected. In this chapter no attempt can be made to do more than touch the fringe of the subject.
There is in existence in the Dean and Chapter Library at Carlisle a monition probably dated towards the end of the fourteenth century addressed to the clergy of the diocese, requiring them to see the constitution of Otho strictly carried out—all fairs being banished from churchyards and suspended on Sundays and solemn feasts. Churchyard fairs were for the emolument of the churches, and were styled by the name of the saint whose example is inculcated by the church’s name. The late Canon Simpson, one of the most eminent antiquaries in the two counties, proved that, in England at least, no church was ever dedicated literally to a saint. Fairs, especially “pot fairs,” still prevail in church cloisters in Germany.
Meat selling at church doors was common in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and even so late as the time of Charles the Second. The only instance of such a thing occurring in Cumberland of which there is record now was at Wigton. In one of the old local histories appears the following note:—“The Rev. Thomas Warcup, who erected his monument in the churchyard long before his death, was obliged to fly from Wigton on account of his loyalty during the Civil Wars. After the restoration of King Charles he returned to the Vicarage, and tradition says that the butcher market was then held upon the Sunday. The butchers hung up carcases at the church door, to attract the notice of customers as they went in and came out of church, and it was not unusual to see people who made their bargains before prayer began, hang their joints of meat over the backs of the seats, until the pious clergyman had finished the service. The zealous priest, after having long but ineffectually endeavoured to make his congregation sensible of the indecency of such practices, undertook a journey to London on foot, for the purpose of petitioning the King to have the market day established on the Tuesday, and which he had interest enough to obtain.”
Warcup became Vicar of Wigton in 1612, and possibly on the principle that he was the best qualified to write his own epitaph because he knew himself better than was possible for another to know him, he prepared the following, which he had put on a headstone many years before his death:—
“Thomas Warcup prepar’d this stone,
To mind him of his best home.
Little but sin & misery here,
Till we be carried on our bier.
Out of the grave & earth’s dust,
The Lord will raise me up I trust;
To live with Christ eternallie,
Who, me to save, himself did die.”
There was a keen rivalry between Crosthwaite and Cockermouth at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The townsmen sent a petition to Parliament in 1306, stating that owing to the sale of corn, flour, beans, flesh, fish, and other kinds of merchandise at Crosthwaite Church on Sundays, their market was declining so fast that the persons who farmed the tolls from the King were unable to pay the rent. An order was soon afterwards issued stopping the Sunday trading at Crosthwaite. But the fairs and markets in churchyards on week-days were not prohibited by statute for two hundred and eighty years after the Cockermothians sought protection. The orders thus issued were not long recognised, but collectors of scraps of local history in all parts of the county have added to the general knowledge on this point.
The announcing of sales in churchyards was in the early part of this century a common custom. At Crosby Ravensworth the clerk hurried from his desk immediately the service was concluded, followed by the congregation, and mounting the steps he announced when a person’s sale by auction would take place, and read out any notice given to him, for which service he received a fee of fourpence. The custom has long since become obsolete; old William Richardson called the last notice in 1837. It has been asserted, with what amount of truth need not be too closely inquired into, that when this method of advertising public events was forbidden, the attendance of the parishioners at public worship showed a rapid falling-off. The custom of churchyard proclamations prevailed at Orton in the early part of the century, and the inscriptions on certain horizontal tombstones have been obliterated by the hob-nails in the clerk’s boots. While necessarily there must have been a great diversity in the articles announced in the churches or churchyards as likely to be submitted for public competition, it would be difficult to find a parallel for this paragraph, which appeared in the Pacquet for March 8th, 1791:—“A few months ago a person in very good circumstance at no great distance from Ravenglass buried his wife. His son, a few days since, also became a widower, and on Sunday, 27th ult., a sale of their wearing apparel was published at all the neighbouring parish churches! Whether motives of economy suggested the measure, or a wish to remove whatever could remind the disconsolate survivors of their loss, can only be guessed at.”
Among the relics treasured by Lord Hothfield at Appleby Castle, is an article reminding the visitor of the days when free trading was unknown. This is the principal corn measure which was used in the market at Kirkby Stephen more than two hundred years ago; its purpose and record are stated in the raised letters which run around the copper measure a little below the rim:—
“The measure of Thomas, Earle of Thanet Island, Lord Tufton, Lord Clifford, Westmorland, and Vescy, for the use of his Lopps [lordship’s] market at Kirkby Stephen in Westmorland, 1685.”
In the same building are two other corn measures, smaller than the Kirkby Stephen measure just mentioned. One bears only the word “Thanet,” and a coronet. The other measure, of different design, with the monogram, “A. P.” in raised characters, indicates approximately its age, as it was obviously the property of the Countess Anne of Pembroke. The measures, made of bell metal, formerly in use in Sir Richard Musgrave’s manor at Kirkoswald, are still carefully preserved by Mr. John Longrigg, the last steward.
How long the proclamation has been read at the St. Luke’s Fair at Kirkby Stephen is unknown; certainly for a couple of centuries the practice has been observed, and possibly for a much longer period. Although some of the terms have now no effect, nor the cautions any value, the proclamation is still made, the following being the terms of a recent one:—
“O yes, O yes, O yes, The Right Honourable Henry James Baron Hothfield, of Hothfield, Lord Lieutenant of the County of Westmorland, Lord of the Manor of Skipton in Craven, and Lord and Owner of this Fair, Doth strictly Charge and Command in Her Majesty’s name that all persons keep Her Majesty’s Peace, and not to presume to ride or go armed during the time of this Fair to the disturbance of Her Majesty’s Peace, in pain to be punished according to the Statute in that case made and provided; and also that all persons bargain and sell lawful and sound goods and merchandise, and pay their due and accustomed tolls and stallages, use lawful weights and measures, upon pain to forfeit the value of their wares and merchandise; and also that buy, sell, or exchange any horse, mare, or gelding, that the sellers and buyers thereof repair to the Clerk of the Tolls, and there enter their names, surnames, and places of abode of all such persons as shall buy, sell, or exchange any such horse, mare, or gelding, together with the price, marks, and vouchers at their perils; and lastly if any person have any injury or wrong done by reason of any bargain or contract, during the time of this Fair, let them give information thereof, and the same shall be tried by a Court of Pie Poudre, according to law.
“God save the Queen, and the Right Honourable Henry James Baron Hothfield.”
Needless to say, the Court of Pie Poudre has not sat for many years now.
Many curious and interesting customs were once connected with the holding of markets and fairs; a few of these survive, though not in the form once known. The practice a little over a century ago at Ravenglass, where a fair was held on “the eve, day, and morrow of St. James,” has been thus described: “On the first of these days in the morning, the lord’s officer, at proclaiming the fair, is attended by the serjeants of the Lord of Egremont, with the insignia belonging thereto; and all the tenants of the Forest of Copeland owe a customary service to meet the lord’s officer at Ravenglass to proclaim the fair, and abide with him during the continuance thereof; and for sustentation of their horses they have two swaiths of grass in the common field of Ravenglass in a place set out for that purpose. On the third day at noon, the Earl’s officer discharges the fair by proclamation; immediately whereupon the Penningtons and their tenants take possession of the town, and have races and other divertisements during the remainder of that day.”
The laws of the old Corporations at Kendal, Carlisle, and Appleby, and the guilds and societies at other places, were very stringent, and far surpassed the most exacting rules of the trades unions in our own day. This statement may speedily be verified by a reference to the reprinted Kendal “Boke of Recorde.” The “shoddy cloth man” appears to have flourished almost as much three hundred years ago as he does to-day; at any rate he was sufficiently in evidence to cause the Corporation to pass a very stringent order in regard to “Clothe Dightinge.” The excuse for the imposition of the regulation was that “Sundry great complaints have been made in open Court of the insufficient and deceitful dressing and dighting of clothes uttered and sold within the town, as well by the inhabitants as foreigners coming to the same, therefore it is ordered by the Alderman and head burgesses of the borough with the full assent of the most part of the fellowship of Shearmen now dwelling within the borough, that if any person or persons either now resident in the town or shall hereafter be resident here or in the country adjoining, shall from henceforth have or bring any pieces of cloth to sell or utter within this borough to any person, not being well and sufficiently dight and dressed throughout in all points alike, as well one place as another, in cotton, nop, or frieze as it ought to be; the same being so found by the four sworn men of the same occupation from time to time appointed, shall forfeit and lose for every such piece 2s. 4d., the half thereof to the Chamber of this borough, and the other half to the takers of the same.”
A further order provided that if any piece of cloth was not “well, truly, and sufficiently made in all places alike, and all parts thereof of like stuff as it ought to be, or which shall not be clean washed and clean without blemish left in it, upon the like pain of 2s. 4d., to be forwarded by the maker to those before limited for the first fault, and for every fault then after committed and duly proved, the fine and penalty to be doubled.” Factory and workshop inspectors, of a sort, were not unknown three hundred years ago. The Corporation ordered the appointment of four members of the “Company and fellowship of tayllers” to be known as searchers or overseers, having power to have the oversight of all faults, wrongs, and misusages happening or done in the trade. The order did not long remain in force before the Corporation decided to repeal them, but two or three years later they were revived by common consent, and ordered to continue during pleasure. In still later times travelling tailors were a brotherhood, and within the last fifty years when on their journeys levied money on the resident fraternity.
Cordwainers, when the “Boke of Recorde” was compiled, were only allowed to do certain kinds of work, and were forbidden to “spetche,” or patch boots. Tailors, too, could not employ any man who might apply for work, there being a very strict law about the employment of freemen in preference to those not free; nor could the shearmen enjoy any greater liberty in their trading operations. One rule ran: “No countryman or person not free shall be permitted to bargain, buy, exchange, trade, sell, or utter within this borough or the precincts hereof, any clothes for outside as a shearman, save only such as be occupiers now of the same trade, or such as shall purchase their freedom, upon pain to lose ten shillings, whereof to the Chamber 5s., and Company 5s.”
There was a salutary rule about the selling of meat on Sundays: “From henceforth no butcher, or other his servant, or factor shall sell or utter any flesh or other victuals or meat out of any shop or stall within the borough or liberties, or the precincts of the same, or keep any his or their shop or warehouses open or unshut up after the ending of the third peal or bells ringing to morning or evening prayer on any Sunday or other festival day, upon pain to lose to the Chamber of this borough 12d.”
The laws against forestalling, regrating, ingrossing, and otherwise interfering with the due course of trade, were very strict in the markets held under manors and also in those otherwise regulated. The practice was, however, not peculiar to Cumberland and Westmorland. One other rule from Kendal may be mentioned as showing the steps taken for preventing skins being hoarded up, until prices became high: “It shall not be lawful for any butcher or other person dwelling out of this borough or the liberties of the same from henceforth to bring into the borough to be sold, either on the market day or in the week-day any sheepskin (except the same skin—having the ears upon it—be cleaving unto the head or carcase of such flesh where upon it did grow) being so brought to be sold, nor that they nor any of them shall sell, or offer, or put to sale, any such skin on any market day so brought to be sold unto the borough before ten o’clock before noon, upon pain to lose and forfeit as much as 2s.”
The penalty for buying victuals before they arrived at the market was forfeiture, while it was further ordered that “no man or woman shall suffer any corn to be sold or measured in their houses upon pain of 6s. 8d., but that all corn shall be bargained, bought, and measured in open market only.”
An old native of the borough not long ago assured the writer that when he was a boy, in the old coaching days, the suspicion of “poaching” extended even to the lawyers, for, said he, “At the Assizes at Appleby the Bar had all to enter the borough together, or not before a certain hour, lest one individual might secure more than a fair share of the briefs.”
Market-bells are still rung at various places in the two counties. That in St. Andrew’s Church, Penrith, is sounded every Tuesday morning at ten o’clock, before which hour business is supposed to be forbidden. The same rule prevails at Appleby, where the bell hangs in a campanile over the Moot Hall. This, of course, is a survival of the days when forestalling was a very serious offence—and properly so. The archives of the Corporation of Carlisle contain documents bearing on the connection of the bells with trading. Mention of the market-bell appears in the bye-laws of 1561, thus: “Itm that noe outman shall sell any corn to any fore nor to such tym as the market bell be rounge on payn of forfitor.” Happily it is not possible to apply to all the saying used with reference to one old market in West Cumberland—that “it opens at twelve o’clock and closes at noon,” the meaning, of course, being that there is little or no market left. It was recorded by Mr. Green, the noted artist, that at Ambleside the market was crowded by small merchants, “who were called together by the tinkling of a small bell. Then all was bustle and animation; joy beamed in every countenance, for all the traffic was for ready money, and every individual lived upon the produce of his labour.”