[44] The Commonweal (ed. E. Lamond), 21-23, 30.
[45] Manners and Meals, xxiv. Cf. ibid. xxvi. xlv.
[46] See Crossthwaite. Rep. Royal Com. on Markets, 25.
[47] “Feria” or Saint’s day. The place originally held by the fair is illustrated by the ancient custom in Leicester, that when merchants went to the great fairs, when the “fairs were up no plea was holden no more of them that were at home, than of them that were at the fairs;” this was altered by Crouchback’s charter of 1277, so that those who stayed at home might be tried in case of complaint. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 423-4.
[48] The Fair of Wycombe was held on the Day of S. Thomas the Martyr from time out of mind. It had begun to decline by 1527, and the Mayor and Bailiffs bitterly complained that now scarcely any one came to keep up the fair and that the shopkeepers kept their shops and stalls at home in the town as usual. A strict order was made by the Council in 1527 that “no manner of man nor woman” should keep open shop in the town on that day or show their goods in the street, but should “resort unto the Fair there as it is wont to be kept.” Parker’s Hist. of Wycombe, 29.
[49] Rep. Royal Com. on Markets, 1, 7, 9.
[50] Ibid. 19, 25.
[51] The grants of fairs and markets in the thirteenth century were about 3,300; in the fourteenth century about 1,560; in the fifteenth century to 1482 about 100; Report on Markets, 108-131.
[52] Rep. on Markets, 9. On the other hand in Scotland the right of market was one of the ordinary privileges of a trading town. Ibid. 26.
[53] Ibid. 19. Sometimes not till the fifteenth century, as in Norwich.