Part 6

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).

Foreign here denotes all persons not inhabitants of Oxford.

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."

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.)

"Prance high, and rear their supple necks."

From Virgil's Georgics.

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.