Fairs, past and present

by Cornelius Walford

The origin of Fairs, like that of many other ancient institutions, is involved in much obscurity. The almost universal belief is that they were associated with religious observances; or, as Mr. Morley poetically puts it: “the first fairs were formed by the gathering of worshippers and pilgrims about sacred places, and especially within or about the walls of abbeys and cathedrals, on the Feast days of the Saints enshrined therein.” The sacred building and its surroundings being too small to provide accommodation, tents were pitched; and as the resources of the district would no more suffice to victual than to lodge its throngs of visitors, stalls were set up by provision dealers; and later these were turned to more general purposes of trade. This incidental origin seems, in some cases, hardly sufficient to account for the results which followed; but then it has ever been the genius of commerce to follow close upon the wants of the people.

The establishment of fairs as a source of revenue to religious houses was probably a later development. The Church has always been keenly alive to its temporal interests. And while it was one of its principal functions to administer hospitality to the needy and decrepit, there was justice in drawing contributions from those who too soon might have to rely upon its bounty. Certain it is that nearly all the early charters which I shall have to notice in the progress of this work were shaped in view of granting tolls and revenue to the purposes of religion and charity.

The signification of the word Fair (French foire) is in the Latin forum a market-place, or feriæ holidays. But the German designation Messen seems still more significant, as being a word employed to denote the most solemn part of the Church service—the mass (Latin missa). The association of ideas here implied strengthens with every step of investigation. In the time of Constantine the Great (fourth century of Christian era) Jews, Gentiles, and Christians assembled in great numbers to perform their several rites about a tree reputed to be the oak mambre under which Abraham received the angels. At the same place, adds Zosimus, there came together many traders, both for sale and purchase of their wares. St. Basil, towards the close of the sixth century, complained (De Ascetisis) that his own Church was profaned by the public fairs held at the martyr’s shrines. While Michaud (“History of Crusades,” i., II) records that under the Fatimite Caliphs, in the eleventh century, a fair was held on Mount Calvary on the 15th September every year, in which were exchanged the productions of Europe for those of the East. Gibbon implies an earlier date, in stating that it was promoted by the frequent pilgrimages between the seventh and the eleventh centuries. This Fair was of special importance in the commerce of the Italians with the East. Vide Cunningham’s “Growth of English Industry and Commerce,” 1882, p. 120, n.

These notes are but preliminary and introductory: the inquiry has now to take a wider range.

Greece.—The association of commerce with religious observances seems indeed not to have originated in or with the Christian Church. It is supposed for instance that at the celebrated Greek games, such as those at Olympia, &c., trade was no entirely subordinate object; and this idea gains confirmation from various passages in the ancient classic authors. Cicero expressly states that even so early as the age of Pythagoras, a great number of people attended the religious games for the special purpose of trading. At Delphi, Nemæa, Delos, or the Isthmus of Corinth, a fair was held almost every year. The Amphyctionic fairs were held twice a year. In the time of Chrysostom, these fairs were infamously distinguished for a traffic in slaves, destined for public incontinence.[1] The Amphyctionic spring fair was held at Delphi, and the autumn fair at Thermopylæ: in fact at the same times that the deputies from the States of Greece formed the Amphyctionic Council—another proof that wherever large assemblies of people took place in Greece, for religious or political purposes, advantage was taken to carry on traffic. At the fairs of Thermopylæ medicinal herbs and roots, especially hellebore, were sold in large quantities.

It may be taken for granted that one principal reason why the religious games or the political assemblies of the States were fixed upon to hold the fairs was that during these, all hostilities were suspended: and every person might go with his merchandise in safety to them, even through an enemy’s country. The priests, so far from regarding these fairs as a profanation of the religious ceremonies, encouraged them; and the priests of Jupiter, in particular, advanced large sums on interest to such merchants as had good credit, but had not sufficient money with them, vide Stevenson’s “Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation and Commerce,” vol. 18 of Kerr’s “Travels,” 1824.

Early Eastern Nations.—By reference to “The Books of the Prophets,” we are enabled to realize the importance of the fairs in the ancient commerce of the great city of Tyre (probably B.C. 597-74) “the crowning city whose merchants were princes, whose traffickers the honourable of the earth” (Isaiah xxiii. 8). Thus in Ezekiel xxvii.:—

“12. Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin and lead, they traded in thy fairs....

“14. They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules....