The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs. Frost Thomas

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ be let for the display of goods until those of the citizens were occupied for that purpose. Disputes between the abbey and the city concerning the fair of St. Werburgh continued until 1513, when, by an award of Sir Charles Booth, the abbey was deprived of its interest in that fair.

      Croydon Fair dated from 1276, when the interest of Archbishop Kilwardby obtained for the town the right of holding a fair during nine days, beginning on the vigil of St. Botolph, that is, on the 16th of May. In 1314, Archbishop Reynolds obtained for the town a similar grant for a fair on the vigil and morrow of St. Matthew’s day; and in 1343, Archbishop Stratford obtained a grant of a fair on the feast of St. John the Baptist. The earliest of these fairs was the first to sink into insignificance; but the others survived to a very recent period in the sheep and cattle fair, held in latter times on the 2nd of October and the two following days, and the cherry fair, held on the 5th of July and the two following days. Whatever may have been the relative importance of these fairs in former times, the former, though held at the least genial season, was, for at least a century before it was discontinued, the most considerable fair in the neighbourhood of the metropolis; while the July fair lost the advantage of being held in the summer, through the contracted limits within which its component parts were pitched. These were the streets between High Street and Surrey Street, and included the latter, formerly called Butcher Row; and the only space large enough for anything of dimensions exceeding those of a stall for the sale of toys or gingerbread, was that at the back of the Corn Market, on which the cattle-market was formerly held.

      The first fair established in the metropolis was that which, originally held within the precincts of the priory of St. Bartholomew, soon grew beyond its original limits, and at length came to be held on the spacious area of West Smithfield. The origin of the fair is not related by Maitland, Entick, Northouck, and other historians of the metropolis, who seem to have thought a fair too light a matter for their grave consideration; and more recent writers, who have made it the subject of special research, do not agree in their accounts of it. According to the report made by the city solicitor to the Markets Committee in 1840, “at the earliest periods in which history makes mention of this subject, there were two fairs, or markets, held on the spot where Bartholomew Fair is now held, or in its immediate vicinity. These two fairs were originally held for two entire days only, the fairs being proclaimed on the eve of St. Bartholomew, and continued during the day of St. Bartholomew and the next morrow; both these fairs, or markets, were instituted for the purposes of trade; one of them was granted to the prior of the Convent of St. Bartholomew, ‘and was kept for the clothiers of England, and drapers of London, who had their booths and standings within the churchyard of the priory, closed in with walls and gates, and locked every night, and watched, for the safety of their goods and wares.’ The other was granted to the City of London, and consisted of the standing of cattle, and stands and booths for goods, with pickage and stallage, and tolls and profits appertaining to fairs and markets in the field of West Smithfield.”

      Nearly twenty years after this report was made, and when the fair had ceased to exist, Mr. Henry Morley, searching among the Guildhall archives for information on the subject, found that the fair originated at an earlier date than had hitherto been supposed; and that the original charter was granted by Henry I. in 1133 to Prior Rayer, by whom the monastery of St. Bartholomew was founded. Rayer whose name was Latinised into Raherus, and has been Anglicised by modern writers into Rahere, was originally the King’s jester, and a great favourite of his royal master, who, on his becoming an Augustine monk, and, founding the priory of St. Bartholomew, rewarded him with the grant of the rents and tolls arising out of the fair for the benefit of the brotherhood. The prior was so zealous for the good of the monastery that, perhaps also because he retained a hankering after the business of his former profession, he is said to have annually gone into the fair, and exhibited his skill as a juggler, giving the largesses which he received from the spectators to the treasury of the convent.

      It was admitted by the report of 1840 that documents in the office of the City solicitor afforded evidence of conflicting opinions on the subject in former times; and it seems probable that the belief in the two charters attributed to Henry II. and the dual character of the fair had its origin in the disputes which arose from time to time, during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, between the civic and monastic authorities as to the right to the tolls payable on goods carried into that portion of the fair which was held in Smithfield, beyond the precincts of the priory. The latter claimed these, on the ground of the grant of the fair; the City claimed them, on the ground that the land belonged to the corporation. The dispute was a natural one, whether Henry II. had granted the Smithfield tolls to the City or not; and there is evidence on record that it arose again and again, until the dissolution of monasteries at the Reformation finally settled it by disposing of one of the parties.

      In 1295 a dispute arose between the prior of St. Bartholomew’s and Ralph Sandwich, custos of the City, the former maintaining that, as the privileges of the City had become forfeited to the Crown, the tolls of the fair should be paid into the Exchequer. Edward I., who was then at Durham, ordered that the matter should be referred to his treasurer and the barons of the Exchequer; but, while the matter was pending, the disputants grew so warm that the City authorities arrested some of the monks, and confined them in the Tun prison, in Cornhill. They were released by command of the King, but thereupon nine citizens forced the Tun, and released all the other prisoners, by way of resenting the royal interference. The rioters were imprisoned in their turn and a fine of twenty thousand marks was imposed upon the City; but the civic authorities proposed a compromise, and, for a further payment of three thousand marks, Edward consented to pardon the offenders, and to restore and confirm the privileges of the City.

      The right of the City to the rents and tolls of the portion of the fair held beyond the precincts of the priory was finally decided in 1445, when the Court of Aldermen appointed four persons as keepers of the fair, and of the Court of Pie-powder, a tribunal instituted for the summary settlement of all disputes arising in the fair, and deriving its name, it is supposed, from pieds poudres, because the litigants had their causes tried with the dust of the fair on their feet.

      At the dissolution of monasteries, in the reign of Henry VIII., the tolls which had been payable to the priory of St. Bartholomew were sold to Sir John Rich, then Attorney-General; and the right to hold the fair was held by his descendants until 1830, when it was purchased of Lord Kensington by the Corporation of London, and held thereafter by the City chamberlain and the town clerk in trust, thus vesting the rights and interests in both fairs in the same body.

      Westminster Fair, locally termed Magdalen’s, was established in 1257, by a charter granted by Henry III. to the abbot and canons of St. Peter’s, and was held on Tothill Fields, the site of which is now covered by the Westminster House of Correction and some neighbouring streets.

      The three days to which it was originally limited, were extended by Edward III. to thirty-one; but the fair was never so well attended as St. Bartholomew’s, and fell into disuse soon afterwards.

      There was another fair held in the adjoining parish of St. James, the following amusing notice of which in Machyn’s diary is the earliest I have been able to find: —

      “The xxv. day of June [1560], Saint James fayer by Westminster was so great that a man could not have a pygg for money; and the bear wiffes had nother meate nor drink before iiij of cloke in the same day. And the chese went very well away for 1d. q. the pounde. Besides the great and mighti armie of beggares and bandes that were there.” Beyond the fact that it was postponed in 1603 on account of the plague, nothing more is recorded concerning this fair until 1664, in which year it was suppressed, “as considered to tend rather to the advantage of looseness and irregularity than to the substantial promoting of any good, common and beneficial to the people.”

      Southwark Fair, locally known as Lady Fair, was established in 1462 by a charter granted by Edward IV. to the City of London, in the following terms: —

      “We have also granted to the said Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens, and their successors for ever, that they shall and may have yearly СКАЧАТЬ