It is possible, of course, that the celebrated Stourbridge Fair, which in later centuries was held every autumn in the river Meadow, a mile or so below the town, adjoining Barnwell Priory, did date back to these early times, but its two earliest charters undoubtedly belong to the thirteenth century, one belonging to the reign of King John, granting the tolls of the Fair to the Friars of the Leper Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, the other to Henry III.'s time fixing the date of the Fair for the four days commencing October 17, being the Festival of St. Etheldreda, Virgin, Queen and Abbess of Ely. From this time onward at any rate the annual occurrence of this Fair furnishes incidents, not always commendable, in the annals of both town and University. It is said with probability that John Bunyan, who in his Bedfordshire youth may well have been drawn to its attractions, made the Fair at Stourbridge Common the prototype of his "Vanity Fair." And certainly any one who will take the trouble to compare the description of the Fair given by the Cambridgeshire historian Carter with the well-known passage in the "Pilgrim's Progress," cannot but feel that the details of Bunyan's picture are touches painted from life:-- "Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the Wilderness, they presently saw a Town before them, and the name of that Town is _Vanity_; and at the Town there is a Fair kept, called _Vanity Fair_ ... therefore at this Fair are all such Merchandise sold, as Houses, Lands, Trades, Places, Honours, Preferments, Titles, Countries, Kingdoms, Lusts, Pleasures, and Delights of all sorts, as Whores, Bawds, Wives, Husbands, Children, Masters, Servants, Lives, Blood, Bodies, Souls, Silver, Gold, Pearls, Precious Stones and what not. "And moreover at this Fair there is at all times to be seen Jugglings, Cheats, Games, Plays, Fools, Apes, Knaves, and Rogues, and that of all sorts. "And as in other Fairs of less moment, there are the several Rows and Streets under their proper names, where such and such wares are vended; so here likewise you have the proper places, Rows, Streets ... where the wares of this Fair are soonest to be found. Here is the Britain Row, the French Row, the Italian Row, the German Row, where several sorts of vanities are to be sold."