Markets in the formal sense – that is, a technical concept of institutions
recognized by and subject to the law – came into being slowly and are not really
evidenced until the late twelfth century. The concept of a market assumes: places
designated specifically (though not necessarily exclusively) for the purpose of
buyers and sellers coming together to do business; pre-agreed times when such
events would occur; some consensus on fair and even standardized market
practices/behaviours; and mechanisms for enforcing adherence to fair trading.
Markets probably have their roots in informal and ad hoc gatherings of people
at which exchanges of commodities, sometimes through the medium of coins or other tokens,
took place. This type of socio-economic activity was likely to occur where
people would normally encounter each other, such as at crossroads, along major
transit routes, or in churchyards in the case of local trade, or on estuary banks
or coastal beaches in the case of maritime trade. Over the course of time such events
became more habitual and more popular, then regularized and regulated. Gatherings of local
and regional traders became associated more fixedly with specific locations, such as
a wide stretch of the high street, or an area of open land designated for
weekly assemblies of multiple vendors and consumers; town planning projects often made
provision for such. But even where specific plots were designated as marketplaces,
trading might sometimes spill into adjacent streets. Finally, local and/or seigneurial
authorities gave their stamp of approval to such occurrences and to the places where held.
In other words, markets became formalized, or institutionalized, and the term 'market'
connoted not only the activity but also the place and time of its occurrence and
the associated set of norms and standards. Gatherings attracting foreign traders,
less frequent and more seasonal, known as fairs, became similarly organized and
might be similarly located inside towns, although alternatively outside them.
Like fairs, markets too might attract long-distance traders, particularly those
who had time to spare during their rounds of the fairs. But they were equally
intended to service local and hinterland needs, including for townspeople
to acquire unprocessed foodstuffs and other raw materials and for peasants
to obtain manufactured goods. Rurally-produced raw materials would be brought
to market by residents of the surrounding countryside, or townspeople
would go out into the countryside to acquire them to resell, as-is or
after transformation into a secondary product, in their urban market.
Rural producers might frequent more than one market in their region,
and urban re-purposers could likewise take to external markets
those manufactured goods surplus to local needs. Some of
those external markets were in other towns of the region, but
many sprang up in rural areas. In some of the larger towns there might
be markets dedicated to particular goods, as at Ipswich
and London, and livestock were often kept apart from victuals in a separate market
usually on the outskirts of town.
The timing and reasons for the development of a network
of markets and fairs across England is an important subject, but one still being studied.
There is documentary evidence of only a small number of markets in
the Anglo-Saxon period, most associated with towns and ports, though
the discovery of concentrations of coins at a number of riverside and
coastal sites (some close to where towns would later emerge) suggests
other early markets. In a country whose government and economy had been
disrupted by first the Germanic and later the Scandinavian invasions,
as well as by wars between regionalized kingdoms (even though, of course,
these disruptions were not continuous), communities seem more concerned with
local subsistence than with expanding trade connections. Only a few dozen markets
are identifiable from Domesday, a minority being urban; although its commissioners
were not particularly interested in such facilities, there are no other written sources
that paint a different picture. Similarly, early borough charters of liberties
rarely granted markets – something unnecessary given the long-standing
legal recognition of urban markets – except where borough status was itself
being newly acquired. Yet, as already mentioned, the existence of at least
a rudimentary marketing network incorporating both urban and rural manifestations
is perceptible prior to the thirteenth century, and long-distance commerce
was sufficient to stimulate the growth of some towns, as the
wik phenomenon exemplifies.
By the late Anglo-Saxon period, with the emergence of a central authority,
although still a relatively weak one, some effort was being made to regulate
the economy, with towns as one key tool
in the policy. Nonetheless, the most farmers and artisans do not appear
to have been producing in quantities much exceeding local needs.
During the thirteenth century, and the first half of the following,
the number of markets increased significantly. Part of the reason was that
the great majority were established through grants by the Crown, which had come
to view as a royal franchise the licensing
of markets – seen as mechanisms
for controlling commerce by limiting it to locations more susceptible
to oversight and administration. But kings, and Henry III in particular – being
in need of money to fund his foreign and civil wars and to reward his supporters – were
willing enough to sell such licences to the lords of rural estates, to monastic houses,
and to the lords or communities of towns (in some cases as part of a package of privileges
in borough charters). It might be argued they were rather
too liberal in that regard, setting aside matters of economic need of a region and leaving
it to competitive forces as to whether the markets they licensed took root and prospered;
licence-holders were not necessarily successful at implementing their new rights, and a few
may not even have exploited their opportunity. The king too left markets under his ownership
to stand or fall on their own merits. For example, at the royal manor of Brill in
Buckinghamshire a borough had been established (perhaps in part to supply and service the
king's hunting lodge there) by mid-thirteenth century and furnished with a market and fair;
but by about a century later, after the king had transferred the manor into private hands,
the borough had been re-absorbed into the manor and we hear only of a very modest fair
thereafter.
Royal licences delegated not only the right to hold a market but, perhaps more importantly,
the authority to administer it. For that purpose there may have been dedicated
market officers – the tradition of a market reeve still may be found today (though
not as a continuity) at Enfield, whose market traces its roots to a royal licence in 1303
to the lord of the manor. But such officials are little in evidence in urban records
and much of the administration may have been handled through existing officers (e.g.
bailiffs and their sergeants, or sub-bailiffs) as well as through local courts.
Borough executives were probably considered to have overall responsibility for
market regulations being upheld, and the delegation to some cities of the powers of
the royal clerk of the market, towards the close of the Middle Ages, made that more formal,
as at Northampton and at Norwich where
the mayor's sergeants-at-mace carried out his market inspection duties and
an additional salaried sergeant was engaged exclusively for that purpose in 1473.
We occasionally hear of rural manorial markets being in the charge of dedicated
bailiffs. While conceivable that towns with markets may have had specific market courts,
nothing has survived by way of records they ought to have produced
(in contrast to survival of fair court records); in most towns certain
market offences, such as breaches of the assizes, were handled instead by leet courts,
and disputes between traders by piepowder courts
or overarching borough courts; certainly any criminal cases arising out of activities
in the marketplace would have been handled by other courts. Market courts seem rather
a feature of rural manorial administration; at Newmarket, for example, the roughly
fortnightly session of the market court, sitting on market day, dealt predominantly
with pleas of debt and looks like a counterpart to urban piepowder courts, but with
the suitors being stall-holders rather than merchants in general; occasionally breaches
of contract, transgressions, or evasion of tolls were matters tried, and a special session
held at fair-time concerned itself mainly with stall-holders who had not kept their stalls
in good repair.
The thirteenth century also saw the greater landholders – whether nobility,
ecclesiastics, or royal servants – awakening to the potential of markets and fairs
as sources of modest but regular income, outlets through which the surplus produce
from their own estates could be sold, and through which most of the consumption requirements
of an aristocratic household could be satiated. Generating income from a market
depended largely on the volume of trade, which itself required a local population
of consumers and producers of goods, who would in turn attract traders from
further afield. The foundation of numerous small "new towns", by entrepreneurial
magnates such as William Brewer was
thus partly driven by the prospect of revenues from market tolls, stallage
(Brewer's market at Chesterfield earned him 6d. per stall per year), fines on
those infringing market regulations, and perquisites from traders' disputes dealt with
in local courts.
The proliferation of markets could be seen, from
one perspective, as the provision of trading facilities to address needs of growing local
populations and an associated increase in agricultural productivity, but from another as
an effort to tap into the growth of long-distance trade; that is, to find a niche
in a perceived commercial network spreading out across the country from
the longer-established trading centres of the larger towns. Indeed, tolls
were particularly targeted at imports of goods and at goods exported for purposes
of resale elsewhere, while locals or outsiders buying to provision their households
were customarily free of toll. Purely localized commerce (such as between neighbours)
did not really need formal markets; their purpose was rather to focus this localized
activity into known and supervisable places and times, and to try to draw
toll-liable traders from further afield, in order to tax those sales that
were implicitly profit-taking. For the most part, tolls were not oppressively
high (in proportion to the amount of money that could be made from sale of
the taxed goods); but, like any tax, they might provoke resentment and sometimes
formal complaints, notably when new tolls were
introduced or collectors exceeded their remit.
The revenue from tolls was increasingly offset by exemptions
granted by borough charter, which itself could give rise to
disputes. So the owner of a licence relied on
his market becoming popular and competitive enough to generate a high volume of transactions.
There was the danger that the demand for market licences might result in the pie being
cut too thinly; that any new market might, rather than generating a greater
volume of commerce, simply draw traders or customers away from an existing market
in the same vicinity. Consciousness of this may be evidenced as early as the tenth century,
when King Edgar, in granting Peterborough abbey the right to hold a market in
a nearby village on its estates, stipulated that no other market could exist
between Stamford and Huntingdon and that ships bringing merchandize through
the rivers of the district could not be stopped to levy tolls, except at
Peterborough. However, this could also be seen as an indication the authorization
of a market elsewhere than in a town was not to be taken as a precedent;
besides, the royal charter is suspected a twelfth-century forgery, although possibly
encapsulating an older tradition. The later licensing system had no reliable means
to gauge potential competition in advance; so, after 1200, it sought to prevent
or identify problems by making new licences conditional upon them not being detrimental
to any existing market and by having public proclamations of newly-granted licences
made as part of county court sessions. When rivalries emerged, established market
licensees were prepared to oppose upstart competitors (licensed or unlicensed) within
the same catchment area, either through extra-legal means including the use of force,
or by taking their complaints to the king's court for adjudication. We have records of
numerous challenges. For example, in 1301 a market licence that had been granted, seven
years earlier, to the Priory of Rochester on behalf of the small Buckinghamshire settlement
at Haddenham was revoked, after the Bishop of Lincoln complained it was a competitive threat
to his market at nearby Thame; the priory was compensated with the grant of a fair,
but we do not know whether it prospered. Over the course
of the thirteenth century guidelines were developed to help courts define
unfair competition: no new market was be established within a day's return-trip
distance from another, unless held on a different day of the week. The legal treatise
known as Bracton specified not only the
distance which would define two markets as neighbouring but also that any market held
within two days of another such event in the region might be considered harmful; this
latter restriction would have become increasingly problematic as the number of markets,
in terms of location and occurrences per week, grew, but Bracton was probably considered
a source of guide-lines rather than the letter
of the law. Stipulations to a similar end can sometimes be found among local by-laws,
as for example at Maldon.
Such rules should not be taken as an indicator that trade remained highly localized.
Although smaller-scale traders may have restricted excursions to markets they could
reach and return from within a day, more ambitious merchants were quite prepared
to undertake overnight trips to more distant markets or even longer journeys taking
in several destinations, whether to rural locations where raw materials might be
obtained at lower cost, or other towns where a different range of manufactured goods
could be acquired. Masschaele's analysis of
evidence of Lincoln's and Northampton's trade linkages with their surrounding
regions [Peasants, Merchants and Markets, pp. 139-43.], based on allegations
of toll unjustly demanded, as recorded in the Hundred Rolls of 1275, suggest that
regular destinations of Lincoln traders lay mainly within a 30-mile arc north, east,
and south of the city (with the notable exception of Nottingham to the west),
while Northampton traders – although venturing as far afield as Lynn, Ipswich,
and Winchester – were drawn particularly to important rural markets east
and north-east of their town. The directional biases may have something to do
with the quality of land and water highways, but Professor Masschaele concluded
that urban merchants were likely to focus their regional business on
the longer-established rural markets, because they tended to have a reasonable
customer base, a fair number of local artisans offering products, and were
more likely to attract regional farmers and traders from other towns.
Masschaele's analysis [ibid., pp.152-54] of locative surnames of non-residents
allowed to become members of Shrewsbury's merchant gild, indicating that almost 80‰
of the places were within 20 miles of the town, similarly suggests that those outsiders
who most regularly came to conduct business at the
Shrewsbury market were probably
those who could do so through a day-trip (the hinterlanders) or overnight stay.
These foreign members were largely villagers and lords of local estates, whose lands
must have played an important role in furnishing Shrewsbury with its food supplies.
Similarly at Ipswich, although outsider merchants were denied
burgess status, and the freedom from toll associated with that status – unless
they were also householders of the borough – the community was prepared
to grant a special status of foreign burgess,
which also entailed membership of the merchant gild, to lords owning estates
in the hinterland and to local monastic houses, a privilege extended to
their tenant farmers. We must see this as a recognition of their importance
in victualling the town. However, the freedom from tolls applied only
to importing produce of their own lands and exporting necessaries for
their own households; they remained liable for tolls on any merchandize
(that is, goods acquired for resale) imported or exported. At Shrewsbury
and Lynn we see gild membership granted to merchants of distant towns, but
they were a minority and we do not know if these were special cases nor
if other similar applicants were rejected. There was probably something
to be said for bringing competitors into membership, where they could be subject
to internal disciplinary controls. On the other hand, some one-time competitors
acquired a solidarity by re-settling locally; the surnames of prominent
Lynn residents of the thirteenth century reflect the scope of the town's
commercial connections, with:
- regional rivals such as Norwich, Yarmouth, and St. Edmund's;
- towns and ports of north-eastern England: Boston, Beverley, Grimsby, Lincoln;
- a small selection of other English towns: Leicester, Northampton, Bedford, Winchester,
London;
- places in northern France: Beauvais, Saint-Lô,
Saint-Omer (technically Flanders at that time),
and possibly Morlaix;
- other specific locations in northern Europe: Galway, Cologne,
Trondheim;
- more generalized geographical origins, indicated by the surnames Hispania,
Almannia, Flandrensis, and Estrensis,
while de Lamberd might point to Lombardy.
Instances of interurban trade tend to be reflected most in records of legal complaints
made to the king or his justices, which show borough authorities jostling with one another,
either to protect an established position in the commercial network – both
the trade and the toll revenues they had built up – or to seek greater advantage
by justifying a diversion of business to their own market, while upholding
local merchants' exemptions from paying toll elsewhere. Courts had to resolve
these sometimes thorny disputes by ascertaining which party's right (whether
of collection or exemption) had chronological precedence. These litigation records
may represent only those disputes that could not be resolved by interurban negotiation.
To try to preclude the expense of fruitless litigation or the deteriorating relations
that resulted from reprisals followed
by counter-reprisals, places in dispute might communicate with each other
by letter, or the town clerk or borough attorney would be despatched to show
a copy of the borough charter and discuss the matter face-to-face; furthermore,
at least some towns compiled lists of boroughs which could demonstrate valid exemptions.
The powers of collection (in many cases implicit in the royal grant or recognition
of a market) and privileges of exemption were among the reasons boroughs were careful
to have their royal charters reconfirmed when each new king took the throne.
By the close of the fourteenth century most of England was saturated with markets,
and fewer new ones were licensed thereafter. Founding a new market was
a speculative venture, without guarantee of success.
About three-quarters of the markets that had existed prior to the thirteenth century had
sufficiently established a clientele that they managed to outlast the Middle Ages.
Many others failed to find a profitable niche in the commercial network,
or were quashed because of unfair competition rulings. Those places more tardy
in obtaining market rights had less chance of establishing themselves, and only 14‰ of
markets coming into existence in the fourteenth century had durability. Small
market towns had the best chance of holding on
if there was no large urban centre nearby that might gradually monopolize
regional commerce. In the early development of a network comprising numerous
fairs and markets England seems to have outpaced most other European countries,
perhaps precisely because of the relatively slow development in England of
very large urban centres.
Whereas markets were gatherings of buyers and sellers that took place on
one or two days of each week, characterized by mostly small- or medium-scale transactions
for household consumption or for local manufacturing, a fair was held only once a year,
though for multi-day durations, and was mainly for medium-scale or bulk purchases,
either of a mercantile nature (in which the buyer intended to resell) or for
supplying some large religious or aristocratic household. Initially the creation
of fairs was associated more with monastic houses than with towns, but most settings
of those destined for some success or longevity came to be urban or suburban.
Interestingly, although the Church disapproved of commercial activity on Sundays
(at least during the times when religious services were held), multi-day fairs
would often run through Sundays and not until the post-medieval period were
there efforts to avoid this (e.g. in 1578 Colchester authorities
prohibited the town's fair from operating on a Sunday). A fair site could be,
as at Winchester, a vacant space on the
outskirts of town, where, within an enclosure, temporary structures were erected
to house vendors and administrators; or, as at St. Ives, it might take over part of
the town, incorporating spaces requisitioned in some tenants' houses, temporary booths
set up in the marketplace, and sales-stations authorized in other open areas
or on ships moored at quayside. The minor fair instituted at
Chesterfield, where William Brewer
was in process of developing a borough, utilized the marketplace, and it was written
into the seigneurial charters to the borough that market stall-holders had
to turn over stalls to the use of the fair. The presence of a fair sometimes
helped stimulate an existing process of urban growth, although in other cases
seems to have had little direct benefit. They were a mixed blessing to boroughs,
but helped familiarize long-distance traders with the destination and provided
an opportunity for local traders to make business connections with outsiders
that might develop into something longer-term. At some towns two or three fairs
came to be licensed for different times of the year.
Although, as with markets, early fairs were held by customary right, in the sense of
a franchise granted by the king the fair must be considered a Norman import, and
the form of organization it took on mirrored that of continental counterparts.
Its heyday in England (that is, when most significant as a component of
the English economy) was during the High Middle Ages. Not surprisingly,
it was in southern England – more densely populated, more productive,
more under royal control, and with better access for Fleming, French,
and Italian merchants – where the major fairs emerged. Northern England
experienced some development, in terms of growth of number of fairs and markets,
from the twelfth century, but Letters' survey of
such institutions led her to conclude that by 1300 the highest density of fairs
was in East Anglia (as also markets), followed by the South-West and the Midlands,
while the lowest was in those parts of England that were under-urbanized.
Although throughout the thirteenth century and into the early fourteenth there was
fluctuating demand for royal grants of fairs, it was already too late for any of
these to become important nationally, let alone internationally. Nonetheless they might
hope to become lesser destinations on mercantile circuits built around the greater fairs.
The great English fairs were established not simply in a period of demographic
and economic growth in England, but at a time when
wool production
and cloth-making
were expanding there, and international traders were showing
increased interest in such products. Most of these leading fairs were based
in areas of England where the industry for making cloth, the chief commodity
of the fairs, was strongest: Northampton, Stamford, Boston, Lynn, St. Ives,
and Bury St. Edmunds; the royal household was a regular buyer at most of these.
Winchester and Westminster were also important fair sites, while Ipswich
and Yarmouth had some drawing power. Gradually these fairs sorted out
their timing – through royal grants of changes in dates or extension
of duration – to reduce conflicts with one another's occurrences, making
it easier for merchants to schedule a circuit, fitting in some lesser fairs en route.
Yet it became necessary, in 1329, to pass a statute requiring fair-owners to stick
to the duration specified in their licences, making public proclamation of
that duration at the opening of the event; three years later this statute
had to be strengthened by threatening merchants who kept their selds and stalls open
beyond the licensed time with a fine equal to twice the value of any merchandize
sold 'after hours', with informers receiving a quarter of the proceeds.
All the sites of the great fairs were either well-serviced by roads and rivers,
the latter permitting merchandize to be brought by cargo ships or barges,
or were important ports (Boston and Lynn) or close to one (Winchester having
access from Southampton). The fairs were frequented initially by English merchants,
some acting as middlemen for the monastic houses whose flocks were one major source
of wool, and others dealing particularly in cloth, both finished and unfinished;
slightly later, as the thirteenth century progressed, there came growing numbers of
Europeans, from Scandinavia to Italy, while English clothiers scaled back their attendance.
Although English merchants (even the greater of them) did not generally attempt
to attend all fairs held each year, many sent wares with fellow townsmen, as
their agents or sometimes partners, or with servants (factors). We should not think,
however, that fair users were mainly merchants from far afield; both buyers and sellers
included residents of the surrounding regions, constituting (at a very rough approximation)
some two-thirds of the total attendees.
A wide range of goods was sold by wholesale at fairs. Cloth was the principal item
of merchandize in evidence at all the fairs, much of it English cloth made for export,
but also finer cloths imported from abroad (notably Flanders) or items associated
with luxury clothing (e.g. furs); the royal household was a prominent consumer.
During the thirteenth century fairs played an important role in the marketing of
domestic cloth, but in the fourteenth the larger cities – particularly
London – were taking over this role. Wool, if not as important as cloth,
was still a prominent item seen at fairs, for there was high international demand for it.
Monastic producers used the fairs as a marketplace for their wool yields and
in return purchased necessaries and luxuries for their community. Wine was another
important fair commodity, in particular at Boston, one of the major import points.
Other fairs also had their specialties; Lynn for example was known as the place
to buy hunting birds, and Yarmouth's was nominally a
herring fair. A wide range of spices
and drugs were usually available, along with raw materials used in industrial processes
(e.g lead, alum, dyes).
Fairs were used too for the sale of livestock, particularly horses and oxen,
but this involved mostly domestic buyers and sellers. Victuals were also sold by retail,
for consumption by fair-goers – such as bread, ale, cheese, and cooked food;
it was largely victuallers from the locality or region who capitalized on a fair
in this way, although a few would come from further afield. Appropriate services,
such as smiths and cutters of cloth, would likewise have a presence at fairs.
Medieval English fairs do not, however, seem to have been rowdy places where
disorderly or anti-social behaviours were tolerated, nor magnets for
itinerant entertainers or ne'er-do-wells; some efforts were made to keep undesirables
out, and the fair site was subject to a curfew. Nonetheless, some allowance
might be made for recreational needs of fairgoers, in terms of accepting the
presence of minstrels or prostitutes. Effort was also made to group sellers
in a logical or convenient fashion, and to segregate those presenting some health risk,
such as butchers or service-providers using open fires or ovens.
For the most part, these fairs were outside the control of urban authorities.
They were grants to the lord of the town – frequently a religious institution;
the influence of the owners was generally sufficient to ensure that no rival fairs
would be established in close proximity. In fact, the fairs presented a problem
for the urban community: at the least a rival for local commerce, but sometimes
the fair licence reduced or shut down local commercial activities for the duration
of the fair, forcing town merchants and tradesmen to transfer their business activities
to the fair site. This was a factor in enabling the latecomer fair at Westminster
to gain a foothold, by obliging London businesses to close while the fair was held.
At Winchester, city government itself was
taken over by the fair authorities for the duration; in this case, and perhaps that
of other towns where the major fairs were located, the presence of fairs may sometimes
have seemed more to the detriment than the benefit of the urban community. Since
the major fairs were not governed by the same restrictions that were imposed within towns,
where it was in the interest of the enfranchised community to advantage their own members'
commercial activities and limit that of non-freemen or outsiders, anyone who could
pay the requisite licence fee could sell at fairs, man or woman.
It was necessary for the fairs to be well organized, to ensure that no problems arose
between the participants from disparate jurisdictions, and that the fair's owner
could reap the benefit of the revenues: rents from stalls and other locations of sale;
tolls on goods being brought for sale; fees for weighing merchandize (obligatory);
fines imposed by the fair court. Good organization and effective operation of a fair,
to minimize the chance of problems arising and provide efficient justice when they did,
was a factor in ensuring the long-term viability of a fair; it may help explain
why fairs known to have existed before Domesday were of little importance later.
A particular application of law, called the law merchant,
held sway over such environments; fair authorities might impose their own regulations on
participants (these varying from fair to fair), while groups of traders from major towns
themselves established practices governing their members' behaviour at fairs – for
any unethical practices by an individual would reflect on the community as a whole.
Some towns appointed wardens to supervise the behaviour of merchants from their community
during the fair, and their authority was an extension of that of the government
of their town or of its merchant gild. Merchant gilds
were also involved in arrangements for renting blocks of stalls each year, and then
sub-renting them to individuals; this made it easier for the gild to keep an eye on
the behaviour of its members. Stalls at fairs were typically arranged either in
communal groupings, subdivided according to type of merchandize, or in merchandize groupings,
subdivided according to community
It was the fair-owner who had to provide mechanisms for fair administration.
He engaged personnel to police the fair: to patrol the grounds and guard them
at night, and to keep a watch on access routes to the fair (susceptible to highwaymen).
He appointed officials to oversee fair operations and enforce royal regulations,
such as inspection of merchandize to ensure standards compliance with
the assizes. And he appointed keepers,
or stewards, to administer the fair and preside in the fair court; they were assisted
by a staff of bailiffs and clerks. This keeper had to see to public proclamation
of the opening of a fair, of availability of a court to resolve grievances,
and of the code of conduct required from participants; in the time of Queen
Elizabeth such a proclamation would prohibit: disturbing the peace,
forestalling, use of false weights or
measures, sale of adulterated or counterfeit goods, fraudulent trading tactics,
sale of stolen horses, disorder (drunkenness or gambling)in local inns and taverns,
and lodging of persons of suspect character or intent. The staffing requirements
were the fair-owner's largest cost, with the provision of physical facilities –
such as booths, enclosure, toll-gates – the next largest. But if a fair was
successful in attracting business, its profits well outweighed the costs.
In the second half of the thirteenth century a gradual decline began,
with merchant gilds being less involved in organizing participation by their members,
and some of the larger buyers of luxury items – religious institutions
and the king – having less of a presence, or focusing on fewer fairs.
The king, for instance, was starting to buy more in London from city merchants,
and changes in the cloth industry itself involved a shift from fine cloths
to cheaper cloth for the general public, marketed through towns acting
as regional distribution centres. Sporadic political hostilities between
England and Flanders during Edward I's reign also took its toll on attendance
at English fairs, and Edward's military activities in the 1290s curtailed
royal expenditures and resulted in new taxes on, and prises of, wool, which
severely disrupted the wool trade.
The introduction of the staple system and the growing dominance of London
in domestic commerce, especially in southern England, along with the greater
importance of urban marketplaces generally, helped diverted mercantile activities
away from the fairs. The major fairs continued to be viable into the first quarter
of the fourteenth century, with some (notably Boston) remaining more popular
than others, but as the century progressed the international character
of fairs diminished and their clienteles and reach were more exclusively regional;
the lesser fairs continued to operate on a similarly regional basis throughout
the Late Middle Ages.
