I. The Legal Status of Markets

L. F. Salzman

doi:10.1017/S1474691300003486

I. The Legal Status of Markets

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2011

L. F. Salzman

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In his study of Les Droits des Marchés et des Foires, M. Huvelin discusses the question whether markets owed their origin to grants made by the king, direct or through authority delegated to a lord, or to grants made by a lord and confirmed by the king. His decision that they were entirely of royal origin would have met with the approval of Edward I, whose attorneys during the Quo Waranto inquest constantly asserted that, “to no one in the realm is it permitted to have a market without the licence and goodwill of the lord king or his predecessors.” In the delegated regality of the Palatinate of Durham it had been definitely stated in 1228 that, “no one has toll save the Bishop, because no one has market or fair in the Haliwarifolc save he alone.” Yet it is legitimate to wonder how this particular apple got into the royal dumpling. The majority of the regalia are obviously such by nature; but there are some about which we feel that, while we hear much of baronial usurpations from the king, we might well hear something of royal encroachments upon domanial rights. If a market is regarded simply as a regularly recurrent assembly for the sale of local products, it is surely a matter that concerns the local community or its lord rather than the king. A phrase in the so-called “Laws of William the Conqueror”—“There shall not be any market or fair save in cities of our realm and in boroughs enclosed by a wall and in castles and very safe places, where the customs of our realm and our common right and the royalties of our crown … may not be defrauded”—sounds more like an attempt to bring an existing, independent market system under the control of the Crown than the assertion of an acknowledged regality; and it may be noted that a previous attempt, made by Athelstan in 925, to confine markets to towns had had to be abandoned.

Type: Research Article
Information: Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , 1928 , pp. 205 - 212

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474691300003486 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1928

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^{page 205 note 1} E.g. Quo Waranto, p. 800.

^{page 205 note 2} Lapsley, County Palatine of Durham, p. 62.

^{page 205 note 3} Thorpe, Ancient Laws, p. 212.

^{page 205 note 4} Ibid. p. 88; Rep. on Market Tolls and Rights, 1.15.

^{page 206 note 1} Assize R. 924, m. 24.

^{page 206 note 2} E.g. Bakewell, Quo Waranto, p. 140.

^{page 206 note 3} Assize R. 725, m. 8.

^{page 206 note 4} Cal. Close R. p. 421.

^{page 206 note 5} Rot. Hund. I. 11.

^{page 206 note 6} E.g. Yevele (Beds.), op. cit. p. 75.

^{page 207 note 1} Cal. Charter R. II. 312.

^{page 207 note 2} Op. cit. p. 788.

^{page 207 note 3} E.g. Alfreton and Ilkeston; ibid. pp. 135, 137.

^{page 207 note 4} Ibid. p. 756.

^{page 207 note 5} Ibid. p. 146.

^{page 207 note 6} Rolls of Parl. 1. 197.

^{page 207 note 7} Quo Waranto, p. 115.

^{page 207 note 8} Rot. Hund. II. 261.

^{page 208 note 1} Quo Waranto, p. 801. In 1240 Henry III had granted the bishop a fair at Ramsbury and one at Sherborne, in exchange for which the bishop gave up his market at Ramsbury, but retained the right for his men to sell foodstuffs there: Sarum Charters, p. 238.

^{page 208 note 2} Curia Regis, 72, m. 12 d.

^{page 208 note 3} In 1207; Rot. Litt. Claus. I. 82. There is no reference to the prohibition of the assembly at Chagford.

^{page 209 note 1} The market at Dunmow had been established by grant from the king and an inquest by the sheriff and three hundreds: Bracton's Note-Book, no. 1037.

^{page 209 note 2} Hist, of English Law, 1. 634.

^{page 209 note 3} Cal. Close R. pp. 399, 400.

^{page 209 note 4} Matt. Paris, Chron. v. 29.

^{page 209 note 5} De Legibus Angliae, III. 585.

^{page 210 note 1} E.g. Lipson, Economic Hist. p. 211. Ashley, Economic Hist. (1888) p. 99, quotes Bracton but adds that “it is not probable that any such rule was ever observed.”

^{page 210 note 2} Op. cit. p. 184.

^{page 211 note 1} Quo Waranto, p. 185.

^{page 211 note 2} Letter Book F. p. 126.

^{page 211 note 3} Rot. Hund. II. 252.

^{page 211 note 4} Ibid. II. 2.

^{page 211 note 5} Cat. Charter R. VI. 148.

^{page 211 note 6} Curia Regis, 302, m. 43 d.

^{page 212 note 1} When the jury were asked, in 1202, to estimate the injury to this same market of St Edmund's by the Bishop of Ely's market at Lakenheath, they replied that “they do not know, nor does anyone know, save God alone”: Curia Regis Rolls, II. 136.

^{page 212 note 2} De Banco, 19, m. 10 d.

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