The subject of rivers and river transport will be fully dealt with in later chapters.
The fair has, also, been widely described as the "Stourbridge" fair, a name which seems to associate it, quite wrongly, with the town of Stourbridge, in Worcestershire. I have preferred to follow here the spelling favoured by Defoe and other contemporary writers.
"Staple" was a term applied, in the Middle Ages (1) to a town to which traders were encouraged to send their supplies of some particular commodity—wool, for example—such town becoming the recognised headquarters of the trade concerned, while the arrangement was one that facilitated the collection of the taxes imposed by the King on the traders; and (2) to the commodity sold under these conditions.
The earlier Continental route was by river to Gravesend and thence by road to Dover.
This Act also provided that when the wheels of a waggon were so arranged that those at the back followed in a line with those in front, the two pairs thus running in one and the same groove, only half the usual tolls should be charged.