9. Some places had, and still have, more than one market a week. In many places the market has quite died out now, but in the early days one of the first steps of a "tun" towards becoming a "town" was to obtain the right to hold a market. There are many of our modern towns which have grown up in manufacturing districts, near great railway centres, or near docks and railway-stations, which have no market. Nearly all of our old towns, however small they may be, have, or at one time had, the right of holding markets.

10. Nobody can set up a stall in the market as he pleases. On the market-day you will see the beadle going about from stall to stall taking the toll from each stall-holder. In many cases he wears an old-fashioned dress trimmed with gold lace. Now this reminds us of the time when no one except a freeman of the town could trade freely. The stall-holders were outsiders—"foreigners"—and had to pay to the town a toll, or due, for permission to sell in the town. In our day you can go and settle in any town you please, and open a shop just as you like, but you cannot so easily take a stall and sell in the market: you must pay the market toll even now. Such tolls go towards the expenses of the town, and help to keep down the rates.

11. In the market the town and the country meet. In these days, when the produce of the country can be quickly sent into the heart of the largest town, the country provision-markets are not of as much importance as they once were, but they are very useful and very popular still.

12. There are many places where the market beadle rings a bell—in some towns it is a handbell, in others a bell in the clock-tower—to give notice of the opening and closing of the market. In former days, if a man dared to sell anything before the bell was rung in the morning, or after it had rung in the evening, he was very severely punished.

13. There were proper town officers appointed by the mayor and corporation to look after the markets, and to see that goods were sold at the proper market price, and that there was no cheating in weight and measure.

Summary.—Markets in the open are often held on the same spots where they have been held for centuries. In some towns covered markets have been built, and more convenient cattle-markets. Different kinds of provisions are sold still in different parts of the market. In some places the Market Cross is called the Butter Cross. Here public notices were given out, and ill-doers flogged, put in the stocks or pillory, or in the cage. Markets are still very popular, especially on Saturday nights. Stalls in a market have to be paid for, and the tolls are usually paid to the market beadle. Town and country meet in the market, and in olden times they were the chief means for providing the towns with food.

[CHAPTER XXXIII]
SCHOOLS

1. The earliest schools in England were held in the monasteries, and were intended for boys and young men who were to be trained as priests, missionaries, or monks. There were famous schools at Canterbury, York, and Jarrow in the seventh and eighth centuries. In King Alfred's time, at the end of the ninth century, great attention was paid to the teaching of both girls and boys. Later still, in the tenth century, we find the teaching of the young attracting great attention.

2. Latin was taught in these schools, and many of the scholars became famous students and deep thinkers. In the course of time others, besides those intending to become monks and priests, were also taught, and became clerks and found various employments, as we have seen, in civil business.