Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2. Green Alice Stopford

Royal Com. on Markets, 1, 7, 9.

50

Ibid. 19, 25.

51

The grants of fairs and markets in the thirteenth century were about 3,300; in the fourteenth century about 1,560; in the fifteenth century to 1482 about 100; Report on Markets, 108-131.

52

Rep. on Markets, 9. On the other hand in Scotland the right of market was one of the ordinary privileges of a trading town. Ibid. 26.

53

Ibid. 19. Sometimes not till the fifteenth century, as in Norwich.

54

Ibid. 9. For the setting up of the beam and directions about weighing, Ibid. 57, 25. Paston Letters, ii. 106. Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, I. xiii-xv., xviii., xix., xxiv. – xxxiii. Schanz, i. 579-82. Towns were compelled to keep standard measures by Stat. 8 Henry VI. cap. 5; 11 Henry VI. cap. 8; 7 Henry VII. cap. 3. The Commons asked Henry VII. to have measures made at his own cost; he agreed, but refused to take the cost. When they were made in 1495 members of Parliament had to carry them back to their several towns from London. 11 Henry VII. cap. 4.

55

Boys’ Sandwich, 431, 496, 498, 509.

56

Report on Markets, 25. Cutts’ Colchester, 154-7. Nott. Rec. i. 314-16.

57

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 152. For the uncertainty as to the stone of wool, Rogers, Agric. and Prices, i. 367.

58

Plumpton Correspondence, 21.

59

Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, i. 660. The introduction of carriers and posts was later in England than in France. Denton’s Lectures, 190-5.

60

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 489. In very many towns the churchyard was without any enclosure even in the fifteenth century. For the overseer of the streets and his hog-man see Boys’ Sandwich, 674.

61

Nottingham Records, iv. 190.

62

Blomefield, iii. 183.

63

Parker’s Manor of Aylesbury, 14-15.

64

In 1388 town officers were ordered to clean their towns of all that could corrupt and infect the air and bring disease. 12 Richard II. cap. 13. The shambles were commonly at the very corner of the Tol-booth or Moot Hall. Hewitson’s Hist. of Preston, 36. See Shillingford’s Letters, 89. But in 1487 the Londoners after sixteen years continual remonstrance obtained a statute that no butcher was to kill any beast within the walls of the town, and that the same law was to be observed in all walled towns of England except Berwick and Carlisle. 4 Henry VII. cap. 3.

65

A grant for paving was given to Liverpool in 1329. Picton’s Mun. Rec. of Liverpool, i. 10. Southampton appointed in 1482 a “pavyour” who should dwell in a house of the town at a price of 13s. 4d. rent free “and to have yearly a gown.” Davies, 119, 120. Nottingham decided in 1501 to have a town paviour at a salary of 33s. 4d. and a gown; and gave order that the chamberlains were to find stones and sand. Nottingham Records, iii. 309. See vol. i. p. 18, note.

66

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 493. In Canterbury, where the inns were very numerous, there was a law that no hosteler should “disturb no manner of strange man coming to the city for to take his inn, but it shall be lawful to take his inn at his own lust without disturbance of any hosteler.” Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172.

67

Married women might become merchants on their own account and carry on trade, hold property and answer in all matters of business before the law as independent traders. (Eng. Gilds, 382. Mun. Records, Carlisle, ed. Ferguson and Nansen, 79. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.) Women might become members of the Merchant Gild at Totnes by inheritance, by purchase, or by gift. (Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 342-3.) Their property was carefully guarded, and no tenement held by the wife’s right could be alienated or burdened with a rent unless the wife had given her free consent openly in the Mayor’s Court. (Nott. Records, i. 83, 265.)

68

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 540. Boys’ Sandwich, 498.

69

The brokers were paid by a fixed tax on the merchants’ goods which passed through their hands. Boys’ Sandwich, 497, 506-7.

70

Hist. Preston Guild, 16.

71

Blomefield, iii. 168. Gross, ii. 43, 175, 220. Nott. Records, i. 445-6, 159, 201; ii. 47, 241. See also the serjeant-at-mace in Sandwich (Boys, 504-5), at Nottingham (Rec. iii. 73).

72

For typical market rules see Reading, Gross, ii. 204-7. Southampton, Ibid. 220.

73

See Schanz, i. 621-2.

74

The loaf was changed in weight not in price with the price of corn; the lowest rate conceived by ancient writers was 12d. a quarter of corn; the unit of bread was 1/4d. loaf. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 175.) Twelve kinds are mentioned in the fifteenth century, but in the Assize only three sorts were recognized – Wastel or white or well-baked bread; Coket (seconds); Simnel, twice baked bread, used only in Lent. (English Guilds, 102. Boys’ Sandwich, 543.)

75

Manorial Pleas, Selden Soc. xxxviii. For control of bread and beer at the time of Domesday see Rep. on Markets, 18. In Norwich supervisors of bread were appointed before 1340. The system seems to have worked well, for no troubles as to the assize of bread are recorded, as in other towns. Leet. Jur. of Norwich, Selden Soc. xxxvi.

76

Rep. on Markets, 25.

77

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 288. In certain departments, as in the fixing of the prices of bread and ale, in measures, in various rules about buying and selling, the towns simply carried out laws made by the central government; while in other things such as the regulation of the price of meat, poultry, fish, and wine, they were from time to time given authority to fix their own standard.

78

Andover, Gross, ii. 310. Cutts’ Colchester, 154-7.

79

In 1383 the price of unsweetened wine was practically left to the towns for about a hundred years. Schanz, i. 647. For common consumption wine was sweetened with honey and flavoured with blackberries. Archæol. Cantiana, vi. 328.

80

Liber Albus, 289, 373-86, 686-91, Liber Custumarum, 117-120, 385-6. Statutes 22 Edward IV. cap. 2. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172.

81

Ricart’s Kalendar, 81-84.

82

Piers Ploughman. Pass. xxii. 398-404.

83

Nott. Rec. iii. 357.

84

Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Soc. 88-9. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172. Gross, i. 45. English Guilds, 353, 381-4.

85

English Guilds, 353.

86

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 476. English Guilds, 392.

87

Gross, ii. 1 175. Rep. on Markets, 16.

88

English Guilds, 390, 392, 406.

89

The town liberties did not always extend over the whole town territory. The liberties of Carlisle were confined to a small district in the centre of the modern town, and did not extend beyond the limits of this “ancient city.” Hereford up till 1830 was divided into two parts, the In-Borough where the inhabitant householders had the elective franchise and the Out-Borough comprising all beyond the In-Borough that was under the corporate jurisdiction. Papers relating to Parl. Representation, 1829-32.

90

Collectanea, ii. (Oxford. Hist. Soc.), 13.

91

Freeman’s Exeter, 143.

92

Gross, ii. 262. Rot. Hund. i. 356, 3 Ed. i. When an unusual press of people was drawn to the town by some festival or public occasion orders were issued to allow country dealers to bring food within the walls and sell it without paying toll or any other manner of charge. Davies’ York, 167.