1487. The Corporation of London made an Ordinance prohibiting the freemen of that City to go to any fair out of the City with any manner of merchandise to sell or barter. This Ordinance was repealed by act of parliament in the preamble of which it is recited that there “be many fairs for the common Weal of your said liege people, as at Salisbury, Bristol, Oxenford, Cambridge &c.” If this order of enumeration had any reference to the relative importance of the fairs (which I suspect it had not) it puts this fair only fourth. This act has already been set out in detail in Chapter V. This year Sir Wm. Littlebury alias Horn, citizen and salter, and also Lord Mayor of London, gave 500 marks towards repairing the highways between London and Cambridge. This was probably in view of benefiting those attending the fairs. 1496. On 20th July Katherine Cooke widow of John Cooke some time mayor, granted to the mayor, bailiffs, treasurers, and burgesses and their successors, to the use of the Treasury of the Town of Cambridge, three booths situate in the Soper’s lane, the Chepe, and the Petimercerye, in Sterbrigge fair. To the intent that the Treasurers should perpetually uphold yearly on the 25 Feby., a special dirge and mass in the parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin next the market for the souls of John Cooke and William Colles, and Katherine, Joan, and Lucy their wives, and pay to the bell-man for going about the town for the said souls 3_d_; with other small bequests to the poor &c. Cooper’s “Annals,” i., p. 246. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY—STURBRIDGE. 1501. The accounts of the Treasurers of Cambridge for this year contained the following item: Paid John Fynne, Clerk to make up the farm of the land called the Chapel ground lying in Sturbridge Fair leasted to the Mayor, bailiffs and burgesses, beyond the money received for the farm of the same this year, _because a great part of the same was not levied this year, by reason that the merchants of London withdrew themselves from the Fair_, 100_s._ This lease had been taken on 7th Aug. 1497 for a term of 99 years at a rent of £12, and five tapers of wax for the chapel of equal weight, and weighing in the whole 3 lbs. 1503. William Kentte the younger, Clerk, by his will devised two booths in Sturbridge fair, and the reversion of a tenement called the Crown in the parish of St. Andrew in Cambridge, the mayor and burgesses entered into covenants with his executors to observe and keep a yearly dirge in the Church of St. Benedict, on the first Wednesday of the kalends of May, and other specified observances of a religious character. 1510. There was a suit between Kings Lynn and Cambridge regarding Toll at this fair. How the matter was then disposed of does not appear. See 1541.