The first fairs were formed by the gathering of worshippers and pilgrims about sacred places, and especially within or about the walls of abbeys and cathedrals on the feast days of the saints enshrined in them. The sacred building often was in open country, or near some village too small to provide accommodation for the throng assembled at its yearly feast of dedication. Then tents were pitched, and as the resources of the district would no more suffice to victual than to lodge its flying visitors, stalls were set up by provision dealers and by all travelling merchants who look to a concourse for opportunity of trade.
The profits to be had from fairs could not be ignored by the churches. They were the first corporations, after all.
Bishops and abbots, of course, never overlooked the reasonable source of profit to their shrines and the maintainers of them, which would be derived from tolls upon the trade occasioned by themselves, and carried on within the bounds of their own lawful jurisdiction.
At first fairs lasted for three days but soon most lasted a week or more. Like fairs today, the fair-goer was offered a wide range of souvenirs to take back to the wife and kids. That they were generally tawdry, we know, because the word itself comes from those sold at the Fair of St. Awdrey.
There were the fairs of St. James, St. Denis, St. Bartholomew, and at first their duration used to be for the natural period of three days: the day of assembling on the eve of the feast; the feast day; and the day following; when there were farewells to be said to friends, matters of business to further among strangers, and fairings (relics perhaps, or images of saints, the ancestry of our small figures in gilt gingerbread) to be procured for relatives at home, before the general dispersion of the holiday assembly.
Eventually, the frivolity and buy-and-sell inherent in a successful fair, drove it to some respectful distance from the church of the saint that it celebrated.
Until a date later than that of the foundation of the [Bartholomew] fair in Smithfield, fairs were held very commonly in the churchyard of the sacred building about which they were assembled, or even within the church itself. In the fourteenth year of Henry the Third the archdeacons within the diocese of Lincoln were instructed to inquire into this practice, and it was in that diocese soon afterwards prohibited. In the same reign a royal mandate forbade the keeping of Northampton fair within the church or churchyard of All Saints. In the thirteenth year of the reign of Edward the Second, the holding of a fair in any churchyard was prohibited by statute.
The fairs became matters of commerce far more than holy celebration. Ever more lucrative, the churches demanded their fees nonetheless.
Since the small size of the towns and villages of Europe during the infancy of modern nations, and the infrequent resort of strangers to any place except upon occasions of religious festival, allowed few towns to become centres of trade, the fairs of the most popular saints, to which men flocked from afar in greatest numbers, became the chief marts in every country. They prospered especially, because the privileges granted by the crown to the clergy for the holding of fairs were equivalent to a concession of some channels for free trade, through the midst of a wilderness of taxes.
Church, crown and merchants profited so greatly that monarchs and local nobility instituted laws and security arrangements giving merchants traveling to a fair, and renting space for their booths there, special protections, designed to attract still more.
The granting of the King's "firm peace," or "firmest peace," to all persons coming to, staying in, or returning from a fair, was not a mere technical form. Otto the Great used the same phrase on behalf of German fairs in the tenth century; breakers of such peace were set under ban; and, where the right of private feud was recognised, it was suspended during fair time. Traders, on their way to or from a fair, and in the fair, were free from arrest, except for debts arising out of commerce in the fair itself. This immunity was defined in the case of the then ancient Frankfort fair, by Charles the Fourth, in the fourteenth century, as freedom to fairgoers for eighteen days before and after the fair, during which they were to fear nothing from Imperial mandate, interdict, ban, or arrest. As further security, Frederic the First had ordained that such traders should carry swords tied to their saddles, or fastened to the vehicles in which they rode, " not for the hurt of the innocent, but for defence against the robber." Again, because there was no settled provision for the feeding and lodging of a large number of travellers, who passed but once a year over roads usually unfrequented, and through towns but thinly peopled, special licence was given to the inhabitants of any district so traversed to convert their houses during fair time into inns.
To add to the attractions of a fair, and more especially to induce the rich and powerful to resort to it with full purses in their pursuit of pleasure, amusements were introduced. The best entertainment offered to the curious in the first days of modern history was to be found, not in fixed cities, but among the tents of those great shifting capitals of trade.
In time, the churches and their saints had nothing to offer for their fees and the fair distanced itself both physically and spiritually. As cities grew larger, and were able to provide the commercial services of the fairs all the weeks of the year, they featured more the local/regional livestock, game-booth, and entertainment events that survive to the present day. The tawdry souvenirs remain, of course.
Also at Virtual Grub Street and Tudor Topics:
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- Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
- A Triple Wedding and Surprise Visit from the King (1536). July 31, 2023. “History was rushing onward at that point toward many fateful events”
- Ambassador Noailles’ Account of Mary I’s Procession to Westminster: September 30, 1553. September 17, 2022. “…in matching cloth of silver, was Lady Elizabeth, sister of her majesty…”
Queen Elizabeth’s Greatest Love, Robert Dudley, died on September 4, 1588. September 3, 2022. “Even after matters had settled down, Robert’s special treatment was the source of smoldering jealousy.”
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Queen Elizabeth I Biography Page for many other articles.
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