Extracts Relating to Mediaeval Markets and Fairs in England

by Helen Douglas-Irvine

… The mayor and commonalty and citizens, and their successors, shall and may, from henceforth for ever, have, hold, enjoy and use … tolls, stallages, piccages.

Birch, Charters of City of London, 122.

A duty called scavage or shewage was exacted from strangers who sold in the fairs.

I have heard also that our townsmen (of Oxford) in their fair, which they keep at Allhallowtide, do exact of strangers a custom for opening and shewing their wares, vendible, &c., which is called scavage or shewage.

Oxford Historical Society, Charter of Henry II. to the citizens of Oxford., II. 2 (from Twyne's MSS. in the Bodleian).

In 1503 it was rendered illegal, except in the case of London, to take scavage from denizens, otherwise from subjects of the king who were of alien birth, so long as they sold goods on which due customs had already been paid.

1503. Be it therefore ordained … that if any mayor, sheriff, bailiff, or other officer in any city, borough or town within this realm, take or levy any custom called Scavage, otherwise called Shewage, of any merchant denizen, or of any other of the King's subjects denizens, of or for any manner of merchandise to our Sovereign lord the King before truly customed, that is brought or conveyed by land or water, to be uttered and sold in any city, borough, or town in this land, … that then every mayor, sheriff, bailiff, or other officer, distraining, levying, or taking any such Scavage, shall forfeit for every time he so offendeth £20, the one moiety thereof to our Sovereign lord the King, and the other moiety thereof to the party in that behalf aggrieved, or to any other that first sueth in that party by action of debt in any shire within this realm to be sued…. Provided always that the mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of the city of London, and every of them, shall have and take all such sums of money for the said Scavage, and of every person denizen, as by our Sovereign lord the King and his honourable council shall be determined to be the right and title of the said mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of the said city of London, or any of them.

Statute, 19 Henry VII., cap. 8.

Certain citizens and burghers, who had the privilege of free trade in England or throughout the king's dominions, were exempt from paying tolls or other customs.

Charter of Henry I. to the citizens of London.