13. Many and many a priest, clerk, or monk, rose from being a serf or a villein in this way; so many, in fact, that a writer in the twelfth century complains that villeins were attempting "to educate their ignoble offspring". Later still, Piers Plowman complains that "bondsmen's bairns could be made bishops".

14. There was a very sharp line of division between clerks and those who were not clerks, and the privileges which clerks had, led to much squabbling and many disorders.

15. Kings and nobles employed clerks on their business, for the simple reason that they were able men. From the clerks, too, were drawn the men whom we should now call lawyers. We have seen that there was a vast deal of writing to be done in those days in connection with the towns and the manors. Amongst these clerks were good men and bad men; some who loved learning for its own sake; some who found that it paid better than anything else; and others who misused their privileges, did much evil, and brought the name of "clerk" into sad disgrace.

Summary.—The population of England in the Middle Ages was small. At the Conquest it numbered 2,000,000, and in the time of King Henry VII it was only 4,000,000. It was kept down by famine, wars, and death-punishments, as well as by disease.

The population was divided into two great divisions, clerks and those who were not clerks. Religion and learning in early days went together. Clerks were under the rule of the bishop, other folk under the king's rule. "Benefit of clergy" in time was misused. Clerks were needed for the king's business, and to do all sorts of work where learning was required. From them sprang the lawyers. Clerks were drawn from all classes of society, and they were very popular, because it was the only way by which the son of a serf might become a free man. Many of the greatest clerks rose from very humble origin. Many of these clerks greatly misused their privileges, and in time their order, or class, got to be much disliked.

[CHAPTER XXXI]
FAIRS

1. The word "Fair" calls up to our minds all sorts of wonderful sights and sounds—the stalls with their wonderful "fairings" and "goodies"; the shows and the shooting-galleries; the "flying horses" and the "conjurors"; the wonderful caravans and cocoa-nuts; the musical instruments of all sorts, from the mouth-organ and "squeaker" to the steam-organ of the roundabout.

2. Many such fairs are still held in every county, and they connect the present day very closely with the life of bygone days. It is "all the fun of the fair" which draws people to them mostly nowadays, but in some of them there is still important business done; people are attracted to them for trade as well as for pleasure.

3. Some of these fairs are held in big towns, such as Lincoln and Carlisle. At Barnet a great horse fair is held every year in September. But some big fairs are held away from any large town, such as the big sheep fair at Weyhill, in Hampshire. At Stourbridge, in Cambridgeshire, a fair is still held; it is quite an ordinary one now, but in the Middle Ages it was one of the most important fairs, not only in England, but in Europe—a kind of Nijni-Novgorod, where East and West met.