Part 8

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.

Birch, Charters of City of London, 122.

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 and lastage and all other customs.

Stubbs, Select Charters, 108.

Passage was probably the due payable for the use of ferries.

The most probable explanation of lastage is that it was the due payable for the right of freely carrying away goods bought in a market.

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.

Stubbs, Select Charters, 167.

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 in fairs and outside them, and in the seaports of all our lands, on this side the seas and beyond them.

Stubbs, Select Charters, 266.