As from of old it has been the custom to hold in the city on every feastday two markets, called _Evechepynges_, one in Westchepe and the other on Cornhulle; that is to say the one in Westchepe between the corner of the lane called St. Lawrence Lane and a house called the Cage. So always that the said lane be not obstructed by the people of the said market, who are not to stand near to the shops there for the sale of divers wares that in such shops are wont to be sold. And that too by daylight only, between the first bell rung and the second, for the said markets ordained. And now on the 10th day of March ... William Staundone, the mayor, and the aldermen of the said city, have been given to understand that divers persons at night and by candlelight do sell in the common hostels there and in other places, in secret, divers wares that have been larcenously pilfered and some falsely wrought and some that are old as being new; and that other persons do there practise the sin of harlotry, under colour of the sale of their said wares, to the very great damage and scandal of good and honest folks of the said city. Therefore the said mayor and aldermen by wise counsel and with good deliberation between them had, for the honour of the city and in order to put the said markets under good control and governance, have ordained that from henceforth on every such market night each of the said two bells shall be rung by the beadle of the ward where it is hung, one hour before sunset and then again half an hour after sunset. At which second ringing all the people shall depart from the market with their wares, on pain of forfeiture to the chamber of all such wares as shall, after the second bell rung, be found in the same; as to the which the beadle if he be acting, or officer by the chamber of the Guildhall thereunto assigned, shall have twopence in every shilling for his trouble in taking them. And that no one shall sell in common hostels any wares that in the said market are wont to be sold, or anywhere else within the said city or in the suburbs thereof, but only in their own shops and in the places and at the days and hours aforesaid, on pain of forfeiture to the use of the said chamber of all the wares that shall otherwise be sold. Riley, _Memorials of London_, 532.