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Radical Markets
Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society
Eric A. Posner and E. Glen Weyl
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press.princeton.edu
Jacket design by Karl Spurzem
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 978-0-691-17750-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017964479
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Adobe Text Pro and Gotham
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the memory of William S. Vickrey

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Preface: The Auction Will Set You Free xiii
Introduction: The Crisis of the Liberal Order 1
1 Property Is Monopoly 30
2 Radical Democracy 80
3 Uniting the World’s Workers 127
4 Dismembering the Octopus 168
5 Data as Labor 205
Conclusion: Going to the Root 250
Epilogue: After Markets? 277
Notes 295
Index 319

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Economic production and development are fundamentally social, not individual, processes, or so we argue throughout this book.
Intellectual products such as this book are no different. The social milieus in which we developed and the wide range of communities to
which we have belonged shaped our ideas and, if this book has the impact we aspire to, the zeitgeist will doubtless be far more
important than our intellectual exertions. Yet there are many people among these broader forces who especially contributed to this
work.
While we identify many of our most important intellectual influences in the course of the book, each of us had personal intellectual
mentors who go less noted there, but merit our thanks. Gary Becker and especially José Scheinkman played critical roles in encouraging
Glen to pursue his boldest ideas, despite the costs to his professional standing and the difficulty publishing this work. Jerry Green,
Amartya Sen, and especially Jean Tirole were central to shaping Glen’s view of mechanism design as a force for social transformation.
Jennifer Chayes, Glen’s supervisor at Microsoft, gave him the professional space, interdisciplinary environment, and personal
inspiration he needed to believe in and pursue this project. Eric is grateful for the support of his colleagues at the University of Chicago,
and to the Russell Baker Scholars Fund for financial support. Glen is grateful to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for financial support
through his fellowship.
We owe a special debt to Soumaya Keynes, whose interest in and enthusiasm for the merging of our various ideas helped stimulate
us to write this book.
The many co-authors and collaborators on projects that contributed to our vision here are cited throughout, but a few deserve
explicit mention here: Anthony Lee Zhang pioneered the idea of the common ownership self-assessed tax with Glen; Steve Lalley
proved the fundamental theorems about Quadratic Voting with Glen, and Nick Stephanopoulos together with Eric devised the practical
vision of egalitarian election law based on it; Fiona Scott Morton devised the 1% rule for institutional investors with us; and Jaron
Lanier has been Glen’s partner every step of the way in Data as Labor.
Our editor Joe Jackson and his colleagues at Princeton University Press made this book a reality. Susan Jean Miller did a superb job
helping us hone our prose. We are also grateful to a talented team of research assistants. Graham Haviland, Eliot Levmore, Stella
Shannon, Han-ah Sumner, and Jill Rogowski provided invaluable assistance.
A conference on our manuscript hosted by the Cowles Foundation at Yale University and supported enthusiastically by its director
Larry Samuelson helped shape our thinking. Seven discussants (Ian Ayres, Dirk Bergemann, Jacob Hacker, Nicole Immorlica, Branko
Milanovic, Tim Shenk, and Matt Weinzierl) provided us vital feedback. Tim was particularly helpful in shaping our understanding of
the relevant history of ideas. We also received comments from many friends and colleagues, including Anna Blender, Charlotte
Cavaille, Patrick Collison, Adam Cox, Richard Eskow, Marion Fourcade, Alex Peysakovich, Greg Shaw, Itai Sher, Steve Swig,
Tommaso Valetti, and Steve Weyl. Steph Dick and Chris Muller provided thought-provoking reactions that shaped our revisions.
Richard Arnott, Bill Vickrey’s archivist, shaped our understanding of his ideas and beliefs. Dionisio Gonzalez, Tod Lippy, and Laura
Weyl supported us in thinking through the aesthetics of the book. We also appreciate the collaboration of the members of the “Radical
Economics” and “Social Life of Data” reading groups at Microsoft, especially Nicky Couldry, Dan Greene, Jessy Hwang, Moira
Weigel, and James Wright.
Encouragement from Satya Nadella and Kevin Scott, business leaders at Microsoft, and Atif Mian and Ken Rogoff from the
academic side, has also been important to the development of this work.
Glen is grateful to his wife, Alisha Holland, more than anyone. She suffuses this book from start to finish; as only she will
recognize, this book doubles as a sort of love letter. She was the one who brought Glen to Rio and got him thinking about favelas, and it
was she who encouraged him to develop the ideas of the epilogue. The spirit of the city and the migrant, and the passion to improve the
lot of both, that animate so much of our work come from her. Glen and Alisha’s two-person writing group transformed much of our
writing. Without Alisha’s support of Glen’s professional risks and iconoclasm he would not have dared write this book; without the
empathy and appreciation for beauty she taught him, he never could have had the vision to do so. Every day Glen discovers more how
interwoven and inseparable their ideas and emotions are. Building that bond, starting as isolated and nerdy adolescents, has not always
been easy or comforting. But just like a society, a partnership that can radically reform itself in the face of crisis, and thus foster rather
than constrain equality, growth, and cooperation, is a partnership that deserves to last.

PREFACE
The Auction Will Set You Free
The nineteenth-century liberal was a radical, both in the etymological sense of going to the root of the matter, and in the political
sense of favoring major changes in social institutions. So too must be his modern heir.
—MILTON FRIEDMAN, CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM, 1961
The seed of this book was planted during a summer one of us spent in Rio de Janeiro. Rio is the most naturally beautiful city in the
world. Lush tropical hills, which roll down to an island-laden bright blue bay, afford unrivaled views. Yet these same hills are covered
with favelas, squalid jerry-rigged slums that lack basic sanitation and transportation.
Leblon, possibly the wealthiest neighborhood in all of Latin America, lies at the base of the hills. There your money can buy, at
wildly inflated prices, the luxury watches and cars that are leading status symbols. Yet the citizens of Leblon don’t dare wear their
watches on the street, nor stop their cars at red lights at night, for fear of the violence looming from the favelas above. Rio is one of the
most dangerous cities in the world.
Cariocas, as the people of Rio call themselves, are relaxed, kind, creative, and open. They perceive race more subtly than we do in
the United States, with our sharp line between white and black. Both countries have long histories of slavery, but in Brazil, everyone is
of mixed heritage. Even so, variations in skin tone convey gradations of class, an omnipresent force in Brazilian society.
Economically, Brazil is the most unequal country in the Western hemisphere. While it overflows with natural abundance, a few
families control much of its wealth and almost 10% of Brazilians live below the global poverty line. The last president was ejected for
abusing her power, her predecessor is in jail for corruption, and corruption investigators are closing in on the current leader, whose
approval rating is in single digits. He will probably be jailed by the time this book is published. Living standards in the country have
stagnated for long periods. Entrepreneurship is sparse.
Why has this paradise fallen? How can its potential be fulfilled? The debate is familiar.
LEFT: The government should tax the rich to supply homes, medical care, and jobs for the poor.
RIGHT: Yes, and you end up with Venezuela or Zimbabwe. The government needs to privatize state-owned industries, enforce
property rights, lower taxes, and reduce regulation. Get the economy going, and inequality will take care of itself.
TECHNOCRATIC MIDDLE: We need an economy carefully regulated by internationally trained experts, targeted interventions that have
been tested by randomized controlled trials, and political reform that protects human rights.
People in rich countries, where inequality is rising, will recognize Brazil in their own countries. In the rich countries, economies are
also stagnating and political conflict and corruption are on the rise. The long-standing belief that a “developing country” like Brazil will
eventually end up as a “developed country” like the United States is under scrutiny, and people are beginning to wonder if things are
moving in reverse. Meanwhile, the standard prescriptions for reform are the same as they have been for the last half century: increase
taxes and redistribute; strengthen markets and privatize; or improve governance and expertise.
In Rio, these prescriptions are palpably stale. Poverty, tight and concentrated control of land, and political conflict seem to be
intimately linked. Wealth redistribution has made few inroads on inequality. Improvement of property rights has not done much to
foster development. Slum dwellers hang on to property that could instead be a public park, a nature preserve, or modern housing. Land
in the city center, where favela dwellers could live decently and have access to public services, is monopolized by the wealthy, who are
too fearful of crime to enjoy it. The same concentrated control of wealth that breeds inequality seems to corrupt politics and restrain
business initiative: Brazil is in the bottom 10% of countries in terms of ease of creating a business, according to the World Bank.
The case of Rio demands an answer to the question: Is there no better way? Can this city not escape inequality, stagnation, and
social conflict? Does Rio foreshadow the fate of New York, London, and Tokyo, except without the pleasures of samba and beaches?
Auctions as Radical Markets
The problem stems from ideas, or rather the lack thereof. The arguments of both the Right and the Left had something to offer when
they originated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but today their potential is spent. No longer bold reforms, they box us in.
To open up our social possibilities, we must open our minds to radical redesigns. To get to the root of the problem, we must understand
how our economic and political institutions work and use this knowledge to formulate a response, which is what we do in this book.
Our premise is that markets are, and for the medium term will remain, the best way of arranging a society. But while our society is
supposed to be organized by competitive markets, we contend the most important markets are monopolized or entirely missing, and that
by creating true competitive, open, and free markets, we can dramatically reduce inequality, increase prosperity, and heal the
ideological and social rifts tearing our society apart.
Like those on the Right, we think that markets must be strengthened, expanded, and purified. Yet we perceive a fatal flaw in the
Right: it has been timid and unimaginative in its vision of the social changes necessary to make markets flourish. Many on the Right

support Market Fundamentalism, an ideology they assume to have been proven in economic theory and historical experience. In reality,
it is little more than a nostalgic commitment to an idealized version of markets as they existed in the Anglo-Saxon world in the
nineteenth century. (We will use the term capitalism to refer to this idealized historical version of markets, in which governments focus
on protecting private property and enforcing contracts.) We contrast Market Fundamentalism with Market Radicalism, which is our
own commitment to understand, restructure, and improve markets at their very roots.
We share with the Left the idea that existing social arrangements generate unfair inequality and undermine collective action. But the
Left’s flaw has been its reliance on the discretionary power of government bureaucratic elites to fix social ills. Imagined by the Left to
be benevolent, ideologically neutral, and committed to the public good, these elites are sometimes arbitrary, corrupt, incompetent, or,
perceived that way whether they are or not, distrusted by the public. To harness the radicalism we believe is inherent in markets, we
must decentralize power while spurring collective action.
The Radical Markets we envision are institutional arrangements that allow the fundamental principles of market allocation—free
exchange disciplined by competition and open to all comers—to play out fully. An auction is the quintessential Radical Market.
Because the rules of an auction require people to bid against each other, the object on the block winds up in the hands of the person who
wants it most—with the caveat that differences in bids may represent differences in wealth as well as desire.
Although most people do not think of auctions outside the realm of estate sales, fine art, and fund-raisers, they are commonly
conducted on the Internet, away from the public eye. But in what follows we will show how spreading them throughout our society
could save Rio—and the world.
Rio for Sale: A Thought Experiment
Suppose the entire city of Rio is perpetually up for auction. Imagine that every building, business, factory, and patch of hillside has a
going price, and anyone who bids a price higher than the going price for an entity would take possession of it. Auctions might extend to
some kinds of personal property like automobiles, or even to what is normally determined through the political process, like the amount
of pollution that factories are permitted to discharge. Much of this book is devoted to figuring out how such a system might work.
As a thought experiment, however, let us assume for the moment that the auctions are conducted via smartphone apps that
automatically bid based on default settings, eliminating most of the need for people to constantly calculate how much to offer. Laws
ensure that the obvious sorts of disruptions don’t occur (for example, coming home to find your apartment is no longer yours).
Incentives are in place to care for and develop assets, and ensure that privacy and other values are also preserved. All of the revenue
generated by this auction would be returned to citizens, equally, as a “social dividend,” or used to fund public projects, which is how
revenues from oil sales in Alaska and Norway are used.
Life under this auction would transform Rio’s society and politics. First, people would think about their property differently. The
stark distinction between owning a house and occupying a spot on the beach would erode. Private property would become public to a
significant extent and the possessions of those around you would, in a sense, become partly yours.
In addition, perpetual auctioning would undo the tremendous misuse of lands and other resources. The highest bidder for the most
scenic hillsides would never be someone planning to build rickety and dilapidated slums. The highest bidder for central city land would
not be the developers of small, ritzy condos but the builders of skyscrapers for the new, vast middle class auctioning would create.
A third result would be the end of the primary source of economic inequality. Although at first blush you might assume that the
auction would allow the rich to buy up everything of value, reflect for a moment. What do you mean by “the rich”? People who own
lots of businesses, land, and so forth. But, if everything were up for auction all the time, no person would own such assets. Their
benefits would flow equally to all. Chapter 1 explains how.
Fourth, the Rio auction system would limit corruption by taking many major political decisions away from politicians and placing
them in the hands of citizens. With an improved public life, crime would be reduced, street life would be restored, and the retreat into
private communities would cease. Far from the usual image of markets substituting for and undermining the public sphere, Radical
Markets would bolster trust in public life. Chapter 2 explains how an auction could organize politics.
Radical Heroes
Our argument draws on an intellectual tradition that goes back to Adam Smith. Smith is frequently invoked by conservative thinkers
these days, including Market Fundamentalists. But Smith was a radical—in the two ways highlighted by our epigraph. First, he dug
deeply into the roots of economic organization and proposed theories that remain influential today. Second, he attacked the prevailing
ideas and institutions of his day and presented a series of daring propositions and reforms. People regard these ideas as “conservative”
today simply because they were so successful in reshaping policy and thinking at the time.
Market Fundamentalists draw a line from Smith to people like Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and George Stigler—midcentury
conservative idols and Nobel laureates who took from Smith an idealized notion of markets based on private property. They put this
vision to work in support of libertarian economics and politics. The Fundamentalists ignore those economists who share Smith’s radical
spirit, such as Henry George, whose ideas helped launch the Progressive era and who may have been the most widely read economist of
all time, but whose vision was lost in the Left-Right battles of the Cold War. George was more concerned about inequality than were
the conservative followers of Smith, and he recognized that private property could stand in the way of truly free markets. To remedy
this problem, he proposed a tax scheme that would create a system of common ownership for land.
The most important “Georgist” economist, to whose memory we dedicate this book, is a mid-twentieth-century professor named
William Spencer Vickrey. Vickrey, pictured in figure P.1, was the Master Yoda of the economics profession: silly, carefree, reclusive,
absent-minded, and a fount of often inscrutable yet world-changing insights. He roller-skated from the train to class and wore his lunch

on his shirts. He might wake from a nap in the middle of research workshops to comment, “This paper would benefit from … Henry
George’s principle of taxing land values.” He mentioned George’s scheme so often that a colleague who was eulogizing him quipped, “I
imagine by now he has mentioned it to God, too.”1
Also aloof, arrogant, and private, Vickrey often failed to publish academic articles
that contained his best ideas.
The inspirations of Vickrey’s research closely resembled ours. He focused during most of his career on the organization of cities
and the tremendous waste of resources in most urban forms. He was particularly fascinated by cities in Latin America, where he advised
governments on urban planning and taxation. It was while he was designing a fiscal system for Venezuela that he produced the paper
that finally undermined his best efforts at ensuring his obscurity.
That paper was published in 1961. Its title, “Counterspeculation, Auctions, and Competitive Sealed Tenders,” seemed to ensure it
would soon be forgotten. But it was rediscovered a decade later. Vickrey’s paper was the first to study the power of auctions to solve
major social problems, helped found a field of economics called “mechanism design,” and earned him the Nobel Prize in 1996.
FIGURE P.1: William S. Vickrey (1914–1996), Nobel Laureate in Economics, father of mechanism design, and quiet hero of our drama. Photo by Jon Levy,
permission granted by Getty Images.
Vickrey’s ideas have transformed economic theory and had an impact on policy. Governments around the world use auctions based
on Vickrey’s ideas to sell licenses to use radio spectrum. Facebook, Google, and Bing use a system derived from Vickrey’s auction to
allocate advertising space on their web pages. Vickrey’s insights about urban planning and congestion pricing are slowly changing the
face of cities, and they play an important role in the pricing policies of ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.2
However, none of these applications reflects the ambition that sparked Vickrey’s work. When Vickrey won the Nobel Prize, he
reportedly hoped to use the award as a “bully pulpit” to bring George’s transformative ideas and the radical potential of mechanism
design to a broader audience.3
Yet Vickrey died of a heart attack three days after learning of his prize. Even had he lived, Vickrey may
have struggled to inspire the public. In 1996, economies were booming around the world and a new era of global cooperation seemed to
be dawning. No one wanted to tinker with success and Vickrey’s approach faced daunting practical obstacles.
Today, however, the outlook for economic and political progress is no longer sunny, while, thanks to developments in economics
and technology, the practical limits on Vickrey’s approach can now be overcome. This book, therefore, tries to act as Vickrey’s lost
bully pulpit, fleshing out the vision he might have shared with the world had he lived.

Introduction
THE CRISIS OF THE LIBERAL ORDER
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is
commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any
intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
—JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY, 1936
The Berlin Wall fell when one of us was just starting preschool and the other was beginning his career, that moment was crucial in
shaping our political identities. The “American way”—free markets, popular sovereignty, and global integration—had vanquished the
Soviet “evil empire.” Since then those values—which we will call the liberal order—have dominated intellectual discussions. Leading
thinkers declared “the end of history.” The great social problems that had so long been the center of political drama had been solved.1
Both of us came of age intellectually in an unprecedented era of global intellectual consensus, confidence, and complacency.
Nowhere was this atmosphere clearer than in the policy world in which we each ended up—one of us in law, the other in economics.
Ironically, economics, more than any other field, took on the mantle of leadership in a world where debates over economic systems had
disappeared. Economists, who at one time had helped define the extremes of the political spectrum (remember Karl Marx?), saw
themselves as mainstream voices of reason, entrusted by the public with policy decisions.2
In universities and professional associations, economists focused on centrist policy analysis, which, being highly mathematical and
quantitative, appeared to be ideologically neutral. Meanwhile the field marginalized those on the radical left (Marxists) and right (the
so-called Austrian school).3
Most of the work done by academics in the areas of economics, law, and policy were devoted to justifying
existing market institutions or offering moderate reforms that, in essence, preserved the status quo.
With few exceptions, mainstream economists of this era assumed that the prevailing design of market institutions was working
about as well as possible. If markets “failed,” the theory went, moderate regulation, based on cost-benefit analysis, would pick up the
slack. Questions about inequality were largely ignored. Economists believed that because markets generated so much wealth, inequality
could be tolerated; a social safety net ensured that the worst off didn’t starve. One of us ended up working at Microsoft, pursuing his
interest in extending the standard approach to modern technology platforms, and the other focused on questions of legal reform.
Meanwhile, the ground was shifting beneath our feet.
The financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent recession were the first tremors. Yet even though the economic downturn was the
worst since the Great Depression, for a time it seemed to be no different from most recessions. People lost their homes, jobs, and access
to credit, but this had happened many times before and the economy had recovered. Only in 2016 did it become clear how dramatically
things had changed.
It turned out that a great deal of the economic progress that had taken place before the recession was illusory—it had benefited
mostly the very rich. Ballooning inequality, stagnating living standards, and rising economic insecurity made a mockery of the old style
of policy analysis. The angry political reaction to the recession—exemplified in the United States by the Occupy Wall Street and Tea
Party movements—did not subside as the economy recovered. The public lost faith in the mainstream policy analysis of elites who had
supported financial deregulation and then the unpopular bailouts. With the old ways of doing things in doubt and new directions
unclear, public opinion polarized. And because of long-simmering controversies over cultural issues, especially immigration, anger at
the elites took an ugly nativist turn. Xenophobia and populism at a level not seen since the 1930s erupted across the world.
Unfortunately, ideas have not kept up with the crisis. Capitalism is blamed for increased inequality and slowing growth, yet no
alternative has presented itself. Liberal democracy is blamed for corruption and paralysis, but authoritarianism is hardly an appealing
substitute. Globalization and international governance institutions have become favorite scapegoats, yet no other sustainable path for
international relations has been proposed. Even the best-run governments of the most advanced countries rally around the mainstream
technocratic approach of the past despite its many failures.
In searching for a way out of this impasse, we have thus found ourselves rereading the works of the founding fathers of modern
social organization: a group of self-styled “political economists” and “Philosophical Radicals” of the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, including Adam Smith, the Marquis de Condorcet, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry George, Léon Walras, and
Beatrice Webb.
Although these thinkers—whose ideas we will explore in later chapters—lived in a world different from ours, they faced some
similar challenges. The economic and political system they had inherited from the eighteenth century could not keep up with changes in
technology, demographics, the globalization of the time, and the larger cultural environment. Entrenched privilege blocked efforts to
promote equality, growth, and political reform. Believing the intellectual resources of the day were insufficient to provide a way
forward, the Philosophical Radicals developed new ideas that have played an enormous role in the development of our modern market-
based economic system and of liberal democracy. Their vision and reforms combined the libertarian aspirations of today’s right with the
egalitarian goals of today’s left and are the shared heritage of both ends of the standard political spectrum. This is the common spirit we
seek to revive.

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content

in opportune time he addressed him to the king, and before him,
and the Bishop Richard (de Belmeis, Bishop of London) being
present, the which he had made to him favourable before,
effectually expressed his business, and that he might lawfully bring
his purpose to effect meekly besought. And nigh him was he (St.
Bartholomew) in whose hand it was, to what he would the king's
heart to incline, and ineffectual these prayers might not be, whose
author is the apostle, whose gracious hearer was God: his word
therefore was pleasant and acceptable in the king's eye. And when
he had weighed the good will of the man prudently, as he was witty,
he granted to the petitioner his kingly favour, benignly giving
authority to execute his purpose. And he, having the title of the
desired possession, of the king's majesty, was right glad.
Book of the Foundation of the Church of St.
Bartholomew, London. Original Latin version (Cotton
MS., Vesp., B. IX., fols. 41-3), written 1174-89. Old
English version written about 1400 and edited by
Norman Page.
In the greater markets particular places were assigned to the sellers
of particular wares.
Ancient Regulation of Oxford market renewed in 1319.
The sellers of straw, with their horses and carts that bring it, shall
stand between East Gate and All Saints' church, in the middle of the
king's highway.
The sellers of wood in carts shall stand between Shydyerd Street
and the tenement sometime of John Maidstone….

The sellers of timber shall stand between the tenement which is
called St. George's Hall and St. Edward's Lane….
The sellers of hogs and pigs shall stand between the churches of St.
Mary and All Saints and on the north side of the street.
The ale or beer shall stand between St. Edward's Lane and the
tenement sometime of Alice de Lewbury on the south side of the
king's highway.
The sellers of earthen pots and coals shall stand between the said
lane of St. Edward and the tenement sometime of John Hampton …
and from that place upward.
The sellers of gloves and whittawyers shall stand between All Saints'
church and the tenement which was sometime John the
Goldsmith's….
The sellers of furs (? monianiorum) and linendrapers and
langdrapers shall stand from the tenement which was John the
Goldsmith's to the tenement of the abbot of Osney, in the corner,
which John Smith sometime inhabited.
The bakers selling bread called Tutesyn shall stand between the
shop which Nicholas the Spicer now holdeth and the tenement which
John Coyntroyer holdeth.
The foreign[3] sellers of fish and those that are not free or of the Gild
shall stand on market days behind the said sellers of bread, towards
the middle of the street.
The foreign or country poulterers shall stand between Mauger Hall
and the tenement called Somenois Inn….
The sellers of white bread shall stand on each side of Quatervois,
from the north head thereof toward the south.
The tanners shall stand between Somenois Inn and Quatervois.

The sellers of cheese, eggs, milk, beans, new peas, and butter, shall
stand on Quatervois Corner on each side of the way towards the
Bailly.
The sellers of hay and grass at the pillory.
The sellers of rushes and brooms opposite to the Old Drapery.
The sellers of corn shall stand between North Gate and Mauger Hall.
The fruiterers … shall stand from Guildhall down towards Knap Hall.
The sellers of herbs … shall stand from Knap Hall towards
Quatervois.
The sellers of dishes … between Baptys Inn and Stokenrow, near to
the Palace.
The sellers of fresh fish which are of the Gild shall stand as they
were formerly wont to do, under the palace of Nicholas the Spicer.
The sellers of wood from the great Jewry to the tables where fish is
sold.
The carts with thorns and bushes shall stand between North Gate
and Drapery Hall on the west side of the street.
Oxford Hist. Soc., Collectanea, II. 13 (reprint of MS. of
Anthony Wood).

SMITHFIELD HORSE AND CATTLE MARKET
UNDER HENRY II.
Outside one of the gates there (in London), immediately in the
suburb, is a certain field, smooth (Smith) field in fact and name.
Every Friday, unless it be a higher day of appointed solemnity, there
is in it a famous show of noble horses for sale. Earls, barons, and
many citizens who are in town, come to see or buy. It is pleasant to
see the steppers in quick trot going gently up and down, their feet
on each side alternately rising and falling. On this side are the
horses most fit for esquires, moving with harder pace yet swiftly,
that lift and set down together, as it were, the opposite fore and
hind feet; on that side colts of fine breed who, not yet well used to
the bit,
"Altius incedunt, et mollia crura reponunt."[4]
In that part are the sumpter horses, powerful and spirited; here
costly chargers elegant of form, noble of stature, with ears quickly
tremulous, necks lifted, haunches plump. In their stepping the
buyers first try for the gentler, then for the quicker pace, which is by
the fore and the hind feet moving in pairs together. When a race is
ready for such thunderers, and perhaps for others of like kind,
powerful to carry, quick to run, a shout is raised, orders are given
that the common horses stand apart. The boys who mount the wing-
footed, by twos or threes, according to the match, prepare
themselves for contest; skilled to rule horses, they restrain the
mouths of the untrained with bitted bridles. For this chiefly they
care, that no one should get before another in the course. The
horses rise too in their own way to the struggle of the race; their
limbs tremble, impatient of delay they cannot keep still in their

place; at the sign given their limbs are stretched, they hurry on their
course, are borne with stubborn speed. The riders contend for the
love of praise and hope of victory, plunge spurs into the loose-reined
horses, and urge them none the less with whips and shouts. You
would think with Heraclitus everything to be in motion, and the
opinion to be wholly false of Zeno, who said that there was no
motion and no goal to be reached. In another part of the field stand
by themselves the goods proper to rustics, implements of husbandry,
swine with long flanks, cows with full udders, oxen of bulk immense,
and woolly flocks. There stand the mares fit for plough, dray and
cart, some big with foal, and others with their young colts closely
following.
William Fitzstephen, Description of the Most Noble City
of London, prefixed to his Life of Thomas à Becket.
(Translation by H. Morley, prefatory to his edition of
Stow's Survey of London.)

SPECIAL PRIVILEGES.
In some cases the king gave his special protection to markets and
fairs.
1133. Charter of Henry I. to the Priory of St. Bartholomew,
Smithfield.
I give my firm peace to those who come to the fair which is wont to
be held on the feast of St. Bartholomew in that place (Smithfield),
and to those who go thence; and I command that no royal servant
implead them, nor exact from those who come customs, without the
consent of the canons, on these three days, on the eve of the feast,
on the feastday, and on its morrow.
Printed in Dugdale, Monasticon, VI. 296.
Charter of Henry II. to the burghers of Nottingham.
… Moreover all who come to the market of Nottingham shall not
suffer distraint, from Friday evening until Sunday evening, except for
the king's farm.
Stubbs, Select Charters, 167.

PIED POUDRE COURTS.
The term "Pied Poudre" or "Pie Poudre" is generally held to be
derived from the French pieds poudrés, that is, dusty feet, and
perhaps arose from the fact that the courts so called were
frequented by chapmen with dusty feet, or less probably from the
celerity of the judgments which were pronounced while the dust was
on the feet of the litigants. The existence of such courts, in
connection with fairs, was common to England and the continent. It
is possible that in some cases and in an early period the business of
fairs was not transacted in a special court. On the other hand, the
distinctive feature of Pied Poudre Courts, the method of trial by the
persons best qualified to judge, the merchants, was akin to the spirit
of English law. Therefore it is probable that they were very early
introduced into England.
Definition of Pied Poudre Courts.
Divers fairs be holden and kept in this realm, some by prescription
allowed before justices in eyre, and some by the grant of our lord
the king that now is, and some by the grant of his progenitors and
predecessors;
And to every of the same fairs is of right pertaining courts of
pipowders, to minister in the same due justice in his behalf;
In which court it hath been all times accustomed, that every person
coming to the same fairs, should have lawful remedy of all manner
of contracts, trespasses, covenants, debts, and other deeds made or
done within any of the same fair, and within the jurisdiction of the
same, and to be tried by merchants being of the same fair.

Statute, 17 Edward IV., cap. 2.
The manner of holding a Pied Poudre Court, sometimes called riding
the fair.
1277. Award between the barons of the (Cinque) Ports and the men
of Great Yarmouth.
With regard to the claim of the said barons to have at Yarmouth
royal justice and the keeping of the king's peace in time of the fair
lasting for forty days, they are to have the keeping of the king's
peace and to do royal justice, namely during the fair they are to
have four serjeants, of whom one shall carry the king's banner, and
another sound a horn to assemble the people and to be better
heard, and two shall carry wands for keeping the king's peace, and
this office they shall do on horse-back if they so wish. The bailiffs of
the Ports together with the provost of Yarmouth are to make
attachments and plead pleas and determine plaints during the fair,
according to law merchant, and the amercements and the profits of
the people of the Ports are to remain to the barons of the Ports, at
the time of the fair, and the profits and amercements of all others
who are not of the Ports to remain to the king by the bailiffs of
Yarmouth. The aforesaid bailiffs of the barons of the Ports together
with the provost of Yarmouth are to have the keeping of the prison
of Yarmouth during the fair, and if any prisoner be taken for so grave
a trespass that it cannot be determined by them in time of fair, by
merchant law, nor the prisons delivered, such persons to remain in
the prison of Yarmouth until the coming of the justices.
Cal. of Pat., 1272-81, 203.
The court of Pied Poudre is specified in later grants of fairs.

1462. Charter of Edward IV. to the city of London.
We have … granted to the … mayor and commonalty and citizens,
and their successors for ever, that they shall and may have yearly
one fair in the town aforesaid (Southwark) for three days, that is to
say the seventh, eighth and ninth days of September; to be holden
together with a court of pie-powder, and with all liberties and free
customs to such fair appertaining; and that they may have and hold
there at their said courts, before their said ministers or deputy, the
said three days, from day to day and hour to hour, from time to
time, all occasions, plaints and pleas of a court of pie-powder,
together with all summons, attachments, arrests, issues, fines,
redemptions and commodities, and other rights whatsoever, to the
same court of pie-powder any way pertaining.
Birch, Charters of City of London, 82.
The Londoners could hold their own Pied Poudre Courts in all fairs of
England.
1327. Charter of Edward III. to the city of London.
And forasmuch as the citizens, in all good fairs of England, were
wont to have among themselves keepers to hold the pleas touching
the citizens of the said city assembling at the said fairs: we will and
grant, as much as in us is, that the same citizens may have suchlike
keepers, to hold such pleas of their covenants, as of ancient time
they had, except the pleas of land and crown.

1298. To all stewards, bailiffs, and officers of the fair of St. Botolph
and other faithful of Christ to whom the present letters shall come,
Henry le Galeys, mayor of the city of London, as well as the whole
commune send greeting. Know ye that we have made and
constituted our beloved in Christ Elyas Russel, John de Armenters,
William de Paris and William de Mareys, our wardens and attorneys
at the present fair of St. Botolph, to demand and claim and exact all
our citizens who are for any cause arrested or impleaded in any of
your courts, and for executing full justice in all plaints against them
according to the law merchant, ratifying and holding good anything
they or any one of them may do in the premises, and in all other
things which they or any one of them shall deem to affect in any
way the liberties of the city and our citizens. In witness whereof we
have set our common seal to these presents.
London, Sunday the Feast of St. Margaret the Virgin, 26 Edward I.
Sharpe, Cal. Letter Books of Corporation, B. 219.

PROFITS.
Besides fines the tolls were the most general source of profit. They
were duties which the tenant of a market might exact on goods
brought into the market and sold there.
1275. Statute against exorbitant tolls.
Touching them that take outrageous toll, contrary to the common
custom of the realm, in market towns, it is provided that if any do so
in the king's town, which is let in fee-farm, the king shall seize into
his own hand the franchise of the market; and if it be another's
town, and the same be done by the lord of the town, the king shall
do in like manner; and if it be done by a bailiff or any mean officer,
without the commandment of his lord, he shall restore to the
plaintiff as much more for the outrageous taking as he had of him, if
he had carried away his toll, and shall have forty days'
imprisonment.
Statute, 3 Edward I., cap. 31.
Tolls were not necessarily levied. In later mediæval times it was held
illegal for the holder of a market to exact them unless he could
prove his prescriptive right to do so, or unless, in the case of a
market erected by a charter, such right had been explicitly granted.
1233. Because it has been certified to the king, by an enquiry made
in accordance with his precept, that in the fair of Shalford, which is
held there every year on the feast of the Assumption of Blessed

Mary, it has never been customary to take toll or custom, except at
the time when John of Gatesden was sheriff of Surrey, who of his
own will ruled that toll should there be taken: therefore the sheriff of
Surrey is commanded that he take no custom in that fair nor suffer it
to be taken, and that he cause public proclamation and prohibition
to be made, that in future none take toll on the occasion of that fair.
Cal. of Close, 1231-5, 245.
Stallkeepers made payments called stallage for the sites they
occupied to the holder of the market or fair.
1331. The profits of the bailey of Lincoln, to wit of vacant plots…,
and stallage in the said vacant plots in the times of fairs and
markets.
Cal. of Close, 1330-3, 255.
The analogous payment of piccage was for the breaking of the
ground in order to erect stalls.
1550. Grant of Southwark Fair to the city of London.
… The mayor and commonalty and citizens, and their successors,
shall and may, from henceforth for ever, have, hold, enjoy and use …
tolls, stallages, piccages.

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.
… Let all the men of London be quit and free, and their goods, both
throughout England and in the seaports, of toll and passage[5] and
lastage[6] and all other customs.
1384. The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London to the Abbot
and Bailiffs and Good Folk of the Town of Colchester.
Desiring them to restore to William Dykeman, Roger Streit, William
Fromond, and Henry Loughton, citizens of London, the distress they
had taken from their merchandise for piccage at Colchester fair; and
to cease in future to take custom of citizens of London, inasmuch as
they are and ought to be quit of piccage, and of all manner of
custom throughout the King's dominion, by charter granted to them
by the King's ancestors. The Lord have them ever in his keeping.
London. 8th June, 38 Edward III.

Sharpe, Cal. Letters of City of London, 105.
Charter of Henry II. to the citizens of Oxford.
… I have granted to them moreover that they be quit of toll and
passage and every custom throughout England and Normandy, on
earth, on water and on the seashore, by land and by strand.
1190. Charter of Richard I. to the citizens of Winchester.
… This also we have granted that the citizens of Winchester of the
Merchant Gild be quit of toll and lastage and pontage[7] in fairs and
outside them, and in the seaports of all our lands, on this side the
seas and beyond them.
1194. Charter of Richard I. to the citizens of Lincoln.
… This too we have granted that all citizens of Lincoln be quit of toll
and lastage throughout all England and in the seaports.
1200. Charter of John to the citizens of York confirming a grant by
Richard I.
… Know moreover that we have granted and by this charter have
confirmed to our citizens of York quittance of any toll, lastage, wrec,
[8] pontage, passage, or trespass, and of all customs, throughout

England and Normandy and Aquitaine and Anjou and Poitou.
Wherefore we will and straitly command that they be thereof quit,
and we forbid that any disturb them in the matter, on pain of the
forfeiture of £10, as is reasonably testified in the charter of our
brother Richard.
The Great Value of the Market of Retford.
1329. The King to the Justices in eyre in County Nottingham.
Order not to molest or aggrieve the men of the town of Retford
before them in eyre for holding a market on Saturday in every week
in that town, as the king has granted that they may hold a market
there every week on the said day during the eyre aforesaid,
notwithstanding the proclamation made by the justices according to
custom that no market shall be held in the county during the eyre,
the men having shewn to the king that they hold the town of him at
fee-ferm, and he has assigned the ferm to Queen Isabella for her
life, and the greatest aid they have towards levying the ferm comes
from the profit of the said market, and they have prayed the king
that they may hold the fair notwithstanding the said proclamation,
and the king accedes to their supplication for the reason aforesaid,
and because of the distance of the town of Nottingham.
Cal. of Close, 1327-30, 585.

PRE-EMPTION AND PRISAGE.
The king exercised certain rights of pre-emption, of buying articles
before they were offered for sale in the open market, and of prisage,
of taking from the sellers without payment certain articles for his
own use.
1207. The King to the Sheriff of Lincoln.
We command you that you acquit in the fair of St. Botolph all the
great falcons which Henry de Hauvill and Hugh de Hauvill bought for
our use in that fair, … and moreover five hawks which they bought
there for our use.
Cal. Rot. Lit. Claus. (Rec. Com.), I. 85.
1218. The King to the Mayor of Lynn greeting.
We command you that you satisfy the merchants of the fair of Lynn
as to the merchandise, namely, wax and pepper and cumin, which
our bailiffs took in that fair for our use, and we shall cause payment
to be made to you in London after the close of the said fair.
1237. It was provided at Kennington before the king and his council,
and granted by the king, that his bailiffs who are sent to fairs and
elsewhere to buy wine and cloths and other merchandise for the
king's use, shall take for his use no more than he have need of, and

no more than shall be stated in the king's letters made for them as
to the matter, nor anything for which they have not as warrant a
royal brief. And when they come to fairs they shall take the wares
and merchandise for which they have been sent at once and without
long delay, lest any merchants be unjustly burdened by them, as
formerly they have been burdened. And such bailiffs shall have
letters so that four legal merchants of each fair, in the faith which
binds them to God and the king, reasonably impose prices on the
merchandise, in accordance with the diverse kinds of merchandise
which the bailiffs have to buy.
Cal. of Close, 1234-7, 522.
1257. Petition of the barons in the parliament at Oxford.
The earls and barons petition … as to the prises of the lord king in
fairs and markets and cities, that those who are assigned to take the
said prises take them reasonably, as much, that is to say, as pertains
to the uses of the lord king; in which matter they complain that the
said takers seize twice or thrice the amount which they deliver to the
king's uses, and keep the rest, forsooth, for their own needs and the
needs of their friends, and sell thereof a portion.
1417. A Court of our Lord the King, holden before Henry Bartone,
Mayor, and the Aldermen, in the Guild-hall of London, on Tuesday,
the 16th day of February….
William Redhede of Barnet was taken and attached, for that when
one Hugh Morys, maltman, on Monday the 15th day of February, …
brought here to the city of London four bushels of wheat, and
exposed them for sale in common and open market, at the market

of Graschurch (Gracechurch) in the parish of St. Benedict Graschurch
in the city aforesaid, the said William there falsely and fraudulently
pretended that he was a taker and purveyor of such victuals, as well
for the household of our said lord the king as for the victualling of
his town of Harfleur; and so, under feigned colour of his alleged
office, would have had the wheat aforesaid taken and carried away,
had he not been warily prevented from so doing by the constables
and reputable men of the parish aforesaid, and other persons then
in the market; in contempt of our lord the king, and to the grievous
loss and in deceit of the commonalty of the city aforesaid; and
especially of the said market and of other markets in the city, seeing
that poor persons, who bring wheat and other victuals to the city
aforesaid, do not dare to come, by land or by water, through fear of
the multitude of pretended purveyors and takers who resort thither
from every side.
… And thereupon, by the said mayor and aldermen, to the end that
others might in future have a dread of committing such crimes, it
was adjudged that the same William Redhede should, upon the
three market days then next ensuing, be taken each day from the
prison of Newgate to the market called Le Cornmarket opposite to
the Friars Minors (Greyfriars, whose house was on the site of Christ's
Hospital), and there the course of the judgement aforesaid was to
be proclaimed; and after that he was to be taken through the middle
of the high street of Cheap to the pillory on Cornhill, and upon that
he was to be placed on each of those three days, there to stand for
one hour each day, the reason for such sentence being then and
there publicly proclaimed. And after that he was to be taken from
thence through the middle of the high street of Cornhill to the
market of Graschurch aforesaid, where like proclamation was to be
made, and from thence back again to prison.
Riley, Memorials of London, 645.

MARKET HOUSES.
Already in the early thirteenth century the greater markets and fairs
were held partly under cover.
1222. The King to the Sheriff of Gloucester greeting.
We command you that you do not suffer the market which hitherto
has been held at Maurice de Gant's manor of Randwick, and which is
to the injury of our town and market of Bristol, and of other
neighbouring markets, as we have surely learnt. And that you cause
the houses built there on account of the market to be removed
without delay. So that neither ships come thither nor a market is
there held otherwise than was done in the time of the Lord John,
King, our father.
1303. To the Bailiff of Sandwich.
Order to cause a house of the king in that town constructed for the
king's fair there … to be repaired by the view and testimony of John
de Hoo and Thomas de Shelvyng.
Cal. of Close, 1302-7, 55.
1345. At a congregation of the mayor and aldermen, holden on the
Friday next before the feast of St. George the Martyr in the 19th
year of the reign of King Edward III., it was ordered for the common

advantage of all the citizens dwelling in the city (of London), and of
others resorting to the same … that all foreign[9] poulterers bringing
poultry to the city should take it to the Leaden Hall, and sell it there,
between Matins and the hour of Prime, to the reputable men of the
city and their servants for their own eating; and after the hour of
Prime the rest of their poultry that should remain unsold they might
sell to cooks, regratresses (retail saleswomen), and such other
persons as they might please; it being understood that they were to
take no portion of their poultry out of the market to their hostels
(lodgings) on pain of losing the same.

ENFORCEMENT OF REGULARITY.
1233. Mandate to the sheriff of Hampshire that he cause strict
proclamation and prohibition to be made in the town of Winchester,
that no merchant of wool, cloths, and hides, do any business in
wool, hides and cloths in the said town of Winchester, after the
established term beyond which the fair of St. Giles is not wont to
last.
Cal. of Close, 1231-4, 253.
1233. Mandate to the bailiffs of Worcester that they do not permit
the fair and drapery of Worcester to be held on the feast of the
Nativity of Blessed Mary elsewhere than in that place in which it was
held in the time of the Lord John, father of the Lord Henry, King.
1297. On Thursday next before the feast of Pentecost, in the 25th
year of the reign of King Edward, it was ordered in the presence of
Sir John le Bretun, warden of the city of London, and certain of the
aldermen, that by reason of the murders and strifes arising
therefrom between persons known and unknown, the gathering
together of thieves in the market, and of cutpurses and other
misdoers against the peace of our lord the king, in a certain market
which had been lately held after dinner in Soper Lane (on the site of
Queen Street, Cheapside), and which was called The Neue Faire; the
same should from thenceforth be abolished, and not again be held,
on pain of losing the wares both bought and sold there; the same

market having been established by strangers, foreigners and
beggars, dwelling three or four leagues from London.
1317. To the Sheriff of Lincoln.
Order to cause proclamation to be made that all persons having fairs
by charters of the king or of his progenitors or otherwise, shall cause
the fairs to be held in the manner and form and on the days and
times according to the tenor of the charters, or as they ought to do
according to the title, to wit from time out of mind, and upon no
other days and times, and to summon all persons claiming to have
fairs to be before the king's council at Westminster.
Cal. of Close, 1317-18, 456.
1328. It is established that it shall be commanded to all the sheriffs
of England and elsewhere, where need shall require, to cry and
publish within liberties and without that all lords which have fairs, be
it for yielding certain farm to the king for the same or otherwise,
shall hold the same for the time that they ought to hold them and no
longer: that is to say such as have them by the king's charter
granted them, for the time limited by the said charters; and also
they that have them without charter, for the time that they ought to
hold them of right.
And that every lord at the beginning of his fair shall there do, cry
and publish how long the fair shall endure, to the intent that
merchants shall not be at the same fairs over the time so published,
upon pain to be grievously punished before the king. Nor the said
lords shall not hold them over the due time upon pain to seize the
fairs into the king's hands, there to remain until they have made a

fine to the king for the offence, after it be duly found that the lords
held the same fairs longer than they ought, or that the merchants
have sitten above the time so published.
Statute, 2 Edward III., cap. 15.
1393. The ordinance underwritten was publicly proclaimed in full
market in Westchepe (Cheapside), and Cornhulle (Cornhill) in
London, on Thursday the 20th day of March in the 16th year.
As from of old it has been the custom to hold in the city on every
feastday two markets, called Evechepynges, one in Westchepe and
the other on Cornhulle; that is to say the one in Westchepe between
the corner of the lane called St. Lawrence Lane and a house called
the Cage. So always that the said lane be not obstructed by the
people of the said market, who are not to stand near to the shops
there for the sale of divers wares that in such shops are wont to be
sold. And that too by daylight only, between the first bell rung and
the second, for the said markets ordained. And now on the 10th day
of March … William Staundone, the mayor, and the aldermen of the
said city, have been given to understand that divers persons at night
and by candlelight do sell in the common hostels there and in other
places, in secret, divers wares that have been larcenously pilfered
and some falsely wrought and some that are old as being new; and
that other persons do there practise the sin of harlotry, under colour
of the sale of their said wares, to the very great damage and scandal
of good and honest folks of the said city.
Therefore the said mayor and aldermen by wise counsel and with
good deliberation between them had, for the honour of the city and
in order to put the said markets under good control and governance,
have ordained that from henceforth on every such market night each
of the said two bells shall be rung by the beadle of the ward where it
is hung, one hour before sunset and then again half an hour after

sunset. At which second ringing all the people shall depart from the
market with their wares, on pain of forfeiture to the chamber of all
such wares as shall, after the second bell rung, be found in the
same; as to the which the beadle if he be acting, or officer by the
chamber of the Guildhall thereunto assigned, shall have twopence in
every shilling for his trouble in taking them. And that no one shall
sell in common hostels any wares that in the said market are wont
to be sold, or anywhere else within the said city or in the suburbs
thereof, but only in their own shops and in the places and at the
days and hours aforesaid, on pain of forfeiture to the use of the said
chamber of all the wares that shall otherwise be sold.
1320. Be it remembered that on the Monday next before the feast of
St. Katherine the Virgin in the 14th year, the pork and beef of John
Perer, John Esmar, and Reynald ate Watre, alleged to be foreign[10]
butchers, were seized because that they against the custom of the
city (of London), had exposed the said meat for sale at Les Stokkes
(the Stocks Market on the site of the Mansion House), after curfew
rung at St. Martin's-le-Grand: whereas it is enacted that no foreign
butcher standing with his meat at the stalls aforesaid shall cut any
meat after None rung at St. Paul's; and that as to all the meat which
he has cut before None rung he is to expose the same for sale up to
the hour of Vespers, and to sell it without keeping any back or
carrying any away.

SUPERVISION OF SALES.
The quality of wares and the prices asked for them were supervised,
and fair dealing was enforced, by officers. Sometimes, as at Oxford,
these were specially appointed for the discharge of their duties. In
London they were the masters or wardens of the crafts, otherwise
the associations of members of one trade. When many of the crafts
had developed into the livery companies the officials of the latter
inherited the inspectorial functions of the wardens.
1393. Ordinance by the mayor and aldermen of London as to
markets of West Cheap and Cornhill.
… That the masters or those assigned thereto of each trade of which
the wares are brought to the said markets shall have power,
together with the beadle of the ward or other officer thereto
assigned, to survey, assay and stop all false and defective wares, in
the markets aforesaid or elsewhere exposed for sale, and to present
the same to the chamberlain to be there adjudged upon as to
whether they are forfeitable or not; and further to arrest to the use
of the said chamber all other things and wares in hostels or other
places exposed for sale against the form…. Of the which forfeitures
so by the said masters, or others thereto assigned, taken and
adjudged as forfeited, the said masters or persons thereto assigned
shall have one third part for their trouble.
1556. Of the clerks of the market of Oxford and of the fixing of
prices.

The clerks of the market should be chosen of such as have
experience of the prices which, for necessity or convenience, pertain
to food and clothing, and of such as have knowledge, power and will
faithfully and diligently to fill the office enjoined on them. Especially
it behoves them to see that no fraud is committed as regards the
measures and weights and quality of all foodstuffs and of all things
which belong to clothing, and to observe the statutes and
ordinances issued in this behoof; and since, for the most part,
among these commodities, high prices greatly flourish, the clerk
should summon to his aid the presidents of colleges and such others
of the university as he knows to be fit for the business, and should
consult with them as to what course can be taken to render the
prices lower.
Oxford Hist. Soc., Collectanea, II. 104.
1468. The assize[11] of a tallowchandler is that he selleth salt,
oatmeal, soap and other divers chaffer, that his weights and
measures be assized[12] and sealed and true beam. For when he
buyeth a pound of tallow for an halfpenny, he shall sell a pound of
candle for a penny, that is a farthing for the wick and the wax and
another farthing for the workmanship. And right as tallow higheth
and loweth, so he for to sell his candle. And if his stuff be not good,
or any he lack of his weight, or any he sell not after the price of
tallow, he to be amerced, the first time twelvepence, the second
time twentypence, the third time fortypence, and to forfeit all that is
forfeitable; and he to be judged according to the form of statutes.
Printed in Strype's edition of Stow's Survey of London,
Book V. 344.
1327. John de Causton, citizen of London, has shown the king, by
petition before him and his council, that John Dergayn, the late

king's ulnager, in the eighth year of his reign, took five pieces of
John's striped cloth of Gaunt (Ghent) outside his shop in Boston Fair,
asserting that they were not of the assize, and that they were
therefore forfeited to the late king, and delivered to Ralph de Stokes,
then keeper of the king's wardrobe, and that it was afterward found,
by enquiry made by the said king's order before the treasurer and
barons of the Exchequer, that the cloth was of the assize and ought
not thus to be forfeited, and that the cloth was worth 22½ marks; …
and he has prayed the king to cause that sum to be allowed to him.
Cal. of Close, 1327-30, 86.
1366. On the 14th day of October … John Edmond of Esthamme
(East Ham), cornmonger, of the county of Essex, was brought before
John Lovekyn, mayor, and the aldermen at the Guildhall, for that he
had exposed for sale at Grascherche (Gracechurch) one quarter of
oats in a sack, and had put a bushel of good oats at the mouth of
the sack, all the rest therein being corn of worse quality and of no
value, in deceit of the common people.
Being questioned as to which falsity, how he would acquit himself
thereof, the same John did not gainsay the same. Therefore it was
adjudged that he should have the punishment of the pillory, to stand
upon the same for one hour of the day.
1363. On the 9th day of the month of November … William Cokke of
Hees (Hayes) was taken because that on the same day he, the same
William, carrying a sample of wheat in his hand, in the market within
Newgate in London followed one William, servant of Robert de la
Launde, goldsmith, who wanted to buy wheat, from sack to sack,
and said that such wheat as that he would not be able to buy at a

lower price than 21 pence; whereas on the same day and at that
hour the same servant could have bought such wheat for 21 pence.
Upon which the same William Cokke being questioned, before the
mayor, recorder, and certain of the aldermen, he acknowledged that
he had done this to enhance the price of wheat, to the prejudice of
all the people. It was therefore awarded by the said mayor and
aldermen that the said William Cokke should have the punishment of
the pillory.
1362-90.
To Wye and to Wychestre I went to the faire,
With many menere marchandise as my Maistre me hight,[13]
Ne had the grace of guile ygo[14] amonge my ware,
It had be unsolde this sevene yeare, so me god helpe!
The Vision of Piers the Plowman, Lines 205 et seq.

FOREIGN MERCHANTS.
1233. Mandate to the bailiffs of Peter de Dreux, count of Brittany, in
the fair of St. Botolph, that every week, for so long as the fair lasts,
they shall cause thrice to be proclaimed throughout that fair that no
merchant bringing wine for sale to England, whether wine of
Gascony, of Anjou, of Oblenc (Le Blanc on the Creuse), of Auxerre,
or of other place, shall after this fair of St. Botolph bring to England
any dolium of wine which contains less than it was wont to hold in
the time of Henry, Richard and John, kings.
Cal. of Close, 1231-4, 223.
1235. The King to his Bailiffs of Yarmouth greeting.
Know that we have granted by our charter for us and our heirs to
our beloved citizens of Cologne that they may go freely to the fairs
throughout our land, and buy and sell in the town of London and
elsewhere, save for the liberty of our city of London.
Cal. of Close, 1234-7, 216.
1279. To William de Brayboef, Keeper of the Priory of Winchester.
Order to send to the king the 310 marks which Reyner de Luk and
his fellows, merchants of Lucca, lent to William at the last fair of St.
Giles at Winchester.
Cal. of Close, 1272-9, 519.

1327. The bailiffs of Boston Fair … have arrested wool and other
goods of Taldus Valoris and his fellows, merchants of the society of
the Bardi of Florence, in the said fair.
Cal. of Close, 1327-30, 221.
1276. To John Bek and Philip de Wylby.
Order to restore upon this present occasion to the merchants of
Douay in Flanders their goods arrested by John and Philip; for the
king lately ordered John and Philip to arrest the wool and goods of
merchants of Flanders in Boston Fair and at Lynn and Lincoln, yet it
was not his intention that the goods of certain persons should be
arrested, but that all goods and wares of Flemings should be
arrested at one and the same time everywhere in the realm, by
reason of the debt which the countess of Flanders owes to him and
the merchants of the realm; and by reason of the neglect of the
agreement between the king and countess; and the king did not
then recollect his grant to the Flemish merchants that they might
safely come into the realm and stay until the feast of St. Peter ad
Vincula last past.
Cal. of Close, 1272-9, 308.
1293. To the Steward of the Bishop of Winchester, late Keeper of the Fair
of Winchester.
Order to cause to be delivered to Robert de Basing, citizen of
London, two bales of cloth, which Robert lately bought from the
merchants of St. Omer in the fair aforesaid, and which the steward
caused to be arrested under pretext of the king's order to arrest the
goods and wares of merchants of the power and lordship of the

count d'Artois; as Robert de Tybetot has become surety before the
king for the said Robert that he will answer to the king for the bales
in the next parliament.
Cal. of Close, 1288-96, 302.
1328. To the Sheriff of Huntingdon.
Order not to arrest the goods of the men or merchants of Mechlin in
Brabant, and not to molest them by virtue of any order to arrest
goods of the men and merchants of the power of the duke of
Brabant, in the fair of St. Ives or in his bailiwick, as the king learns
that Mechlin belongs to the count of Hainault, Holland and Zeeland,
and not to the duke of Brabant.
The like to the abbot of Ramsey's bailiff of the fair of St. Ives.
Cal. of Close, 1313-18, 408.
1364. To the Bailiffs of Great Yarmouth and The Collectors of Customs
there.
Order to suffer fishermen from Flanders and elsewhere over sea,
who shall come within the realm for taking herring of the present
season and bringing them to Yarmouth Fair, to take with them to
their own parts or elsewhere, without let, at their will, all the money
they shall receive for the price of herrings brought thither and sold
at the said fair, after paying the customs due thereupon, … although
lately the king caused proclamation to be made throughout the
realm forbidding any man, under pain of forfeiture, to take or cause
to be taken out of the realm gold or silver in money or otherwise:
as, willing to shew favour to the said fishermen, the king has given
them license under his protection to come within the realm, and take
at sea what herring they may, receive money in gold for what they

shall sell, and take the same with them whither they will, as they
shall deem for their best advantage.
Cal. of Close, 1364-8, 30.

MISCELLANEOUS POINTS OF INTEREST.
Special Organisation of Citizens of York in Boston Fair.
1275. To the Bailiffs of Boston.
Order to permit the citizens of York to have, until otherwise ordered,
their hanse[15] and gild merchant in Boston Fair, as they ought to
have them there and in times past have been wont to have them.
Cal. of Close, 1272-9, 65.
Dress of London Women.
1281. It is provided and commanded that no woman of the city (of
London) shall from henceforth go to market or in the king's highway,
out of her house, with a hood furred with other than lambskin or
rabbitskin, on pain of losing her hood to the use of the sheriffs; save
only those ladies who wear furred capes, the hoods of which may
have such linings as they may think proper. And this because that
regratresses, nurses and other servants, and women of loose life,
bedizen themselves and wear hoods furred with gros vair and
minever, in guise of good ladies.
Unlawfulness of Bearing Arms at Fairs.
1328. It is shewn to the king on behalf of John Wynter of Norwich
and Thomas Wynter of Norwich, merchants, that they lately went
with their goods and wares to the abbot's fair at Reading, to trade

there with the same and for no other purpose. And although they
wore no armour save two single aketons, to wit one each, and that
only by reason of the dangers of the road and not for the purpose of
committing evil, the bailiffs nevertheless took and imprisoned them
with their goods, and still detain them and their goods, by virtue of
the ordinance of the late parliament at Northampton that no one
shall go armed in fairs or markets or elsewhere, under pain of
imprisonment and loss of their arms, wherefore they have prayed
the king to provide a remedy. The king therefore orders the bailiffs
to release the said John and Thomas and goods, upon their finding
surety to have them before the king in three weeks from
Michaelmas.
Cal. of Close, 1327-30, 314.
Misadventure of some Shrewsbury Merchants travelling to a Fair.
1332. To Richard Earl of Arundel.
Whereas the king lately took into his protection the burgesses of
Shrewsbury so that they might be free to intend their affairs and to
exercise their merchandise more safely, forbidding any to do them
harm; and they have shewn to the king that whereas John de
Weston, Richard Biget, William son of Roger de Wythiford, and John
son of Yarvord le Walssh, their fellow burgesses, lately wished to go
to the town of La Pole (Welshpool) in Wales to a fair there, to ply
their merchandise, Yevan ap Griffith, the earl's yeoman, with other
armed Welshmen of the earl, took without cause the said John,
Richard, William and John, at Cause in the Welsh marches, without
the earl's lordship, as they were going to La Pole, and took them
with their horses and other goods and chattels, to the value of £200,
and brought them to the earl's castle of Osewaldestre (Oswestry),
where they imprisoned them and where they are still detained. And
although the burgesses have repeatedly requested the earl to deliver

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