Fair

in commercial history, a market held on a stated day in a particular town or city. The word means a holiday. The fairs of Europe seem to have originated in the offering of wares on the occasion of church festivals. In fact, the Germans call a fair a messe, the exact equivalent of our word mass. Fairs attained importance during the Middle Ages. A great fair sprang up at Mecca and is still held during the annual pilgrimage. Hindu fairs were held on similar occasions. Nijni-Novgorod is famous for fairs. Donnybrook Fair was held near Dublin. Glasgow Fair was noted. Greenwich and Bartholomew fairs grew up at London. Frankfort-on-the-Main and Lyons, France, were noted for fairs. An account of the Leipsic Fair may be read under that title. See Bartholomew; Nijni-Novgorod; Gild

Much of the buying and selling of the country was done not in the towns but at the fairs. The fairs were gatherings held at various places yearly or oftener. The right to hold a fair was dependent on a charter which had been granted by the king to an abbey, bishop, baron, or even a town government. The bishop of Winchester, for instance, had a charter granted to him by William II, allowing him to hold a fair every year, lasting two weeks. It was held on a hill not far from the town of Winchester. Booths or wooden shops were put up and rented to merchants, who came from different parts of England and from other countries to buy and sell. Tolls were charged by the bishop on everything that changed hands. While it was being held, nothing except food could be bought or sold in the city of Winchester itself or for several miles around.

The bishop's officers held a court at the fair for the immediate settlement of disputes that broke out among the merchants, and for the punishment of offenses committed there. This was called a court of "pie-powder," which was an English mispronunciation of the French words pied poudre, "dusty foot." The court was so called because of the promptitude of its action. Men might come to it just as they were, without even stopping to brush the dust from their shoes. There were six or eight fairs in England as famous as that of Winchester, and several hundred of lesser importance, many of them being held in mere villages and only for the sale of live stock or of some special article. More than a hundred charters for fairs were granted in King John's time, and more than two hundred in the time of Henry III.--Cheyney's England.

The greatest fair in England was held yearly at Stourbridge from September 18 to October 9, when hundreds of booths or stalls were erected in rows forming long streets, and leased to merchants from Hamburg, Bordeaux, Florence, Bruges, and other European marts. Here merchants and bailiffs procured their annual supply of salt, pepper, spices, wines, arms, etc., and disposed of their wool, hides, grain, and hay.--Walker, English History.