Fairs, past and present

by Cornelius Walford

1586. The negociations between the University and the Town were renewed this year. The following document shows the position of the negociation, as also that the town were to have the new charter; it also shows the extreme jealousy with which each body viewed the acts and proceedings of the other—it was a genteel manifestation of “Town and Gown” divergencies, which have become historical:

Sturbridge. The towne hath obtained of her majestie a graunt of Sturbridge feyre, to the booke of that graunt the universitie addith a proviso to this effect viz that neither that graunt nor anything therein conteyned should any ways prejudice the universitie of Cambridge, or any member thereof, in such thinges as the universitie enjoyed before the sayd graunt! The towne sayth that that proviso is to large, forasmuch as it may be extended to all thinges which the universitie befor enjoyed, as well within the feyr as els whear, we confesse it is so; and we say it is great reason it should be so, least under the colour and pretense of Sturbridge feyre, they might carry away some other of our commodities wʰ her highness never meant. So shortly we say thus muche; seing our proviso is nothing but a restreint of their book: How farre so ever their book reachith, so farre reachith our proviso and no further.

This is the brief our present difference, &c. &c.

This year was simplified the form of procession made in proceeding to read the Proclamation of the University.

New Charters.—1589. The proceedings already recorded (with some others in 1587 not specifically referred to) ended in the grant of new charters of the fair to the Town and also to the University of Cambridge respectively. The charter to the town passed the Great Seal at Drayton on 15th Aug.; that to the University on 30th Aug.

The charter to the Town commences with a recital that previously to the 30 Henry VIII. the mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses had from time immemorial had and used a fair called Sturbridge Fair held at Barnwell and Sturbridge, in the county of Cambridge and within the liberty of the town, beginning on the Feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, and continuing from thence till the fourteenth day next after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross; which fair, from the advantages of the place, its contiguity to the University, and the fitness of the season, far surpassed the greatest and most celebrated fairs of all England; whence great benefits had resulted to the merchants of the whole kingdom, who resorted thereto, and there quickly sold their wares and merchandises to purchasers coming from all parts of the Realm to buy and provide salt-fish, butter, cheese, honey, salt, flax, hemp, pitch, tar, and all other wares and merchandises, and from the profits of which fair the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses levied the greatest part of their fee-farm, and supported and maintained the town in its ways, streets, ditches [sewers] and other burthens.

Of the Quo Warrant in the 30th Henry VIII. and the subsequent proceedings thereon. The Queen had been requested to grant a charter and had assented “moved thereto by royal pity, by a sense of the utility of the fair to the town and to the merchants of the kingdom, and that the town should be lightened in its burthens, and increased and honoured under her prosperous and peaceful government.” The Queen therefore delivered out of her hands and conferred to the mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses and their successors, the fair in question, with all profits, commodities, courts, profits of courts, authorities and jurisdictions, booths and power of building booths in the accustomed places in the fair.

All rights had or enjoyed by the University, or its officers under any gift, grant, or confirmation from the crown, or any act of parliament, or “used for the greater part of 20 years then last past” were reserved to it.

Power given to Corporation to make rules and statutes for the peaceful and quiet government of the fair; and with respect to the building and removing of booths, and the disposition and assurance thereof by will, gift, surrender or otherwise; and also for placing the several arts, occupations, mysteries, merchants, workmen, and others holding booths in the fair in the places assigned and accustomed to the same arts &c. and especially in that part of the fair called Cheapside. Such Ordinances &c. not to prejudice the right, title, or interest of burgesses holding or possessing booths according to the customs and ordinances of the town, or to derogate from the privileges of the Chancellor, masters, and scholars used during the greater part of twenty years then last past. New rules might be altered and revoked as circumstances should require.