MARKET TRADERS

The translation of communal life into politics is clearer in the towns, which were specialized communities for the promotion of trade, the practice of religion and the exercise of secular government. That trade in agricultural produce was the force behind urban growth is shown by the process of town foundation, which reaches its peak in the 1230s at about the same time as the agricultural boom and falls off steeply in the early fourteenth century. Behind the plantation of new towns, and following a similar time-scale, lay a general establishment of new markets throughout the countryside. Very often these must have crystallized a mass of informal trading of which we get glimpses in such incidents as a case of homicide in Liverpool heard in 1305 by the justices of trailbaston: this was found to have arisen from an argument between Robert Clark and William Brown as they travelled from Chester (perhaps by way of the Birkenhead ferry) – an argument about money, goods and chattels which William had received from Robert ‘to trade with for their common profit’ and for which he refused to account.

The rural market, like villeinage, was a basic institution which demanded recognition in the laws of King and Church. Long before 1200 the holding of markets and the exaction of tolls from those who came to trade in them were valuable rights for which landlords would often obtain the security of royal charters.