To regulate the currency, to secure the country against the loss of specie, and more harmlessly to prevent the importation of spurious or debased coin, the officers of the king’s exchange examined into the mercantile transactions of the foreign traders. To form a ready remedy against fraud, the mayor sat at his court “of the dusty feet;” a mixed multitude were engaged in sale or purchase; the nobles securing such articles of luxury as were offered them, or which law and custom assigned to their rank—their rich robes of peace, their armour from Milan, their war horses from Spain. The franklin came for materials for his farm, and furniture for his house; sometimes even to buy rams in order to improve the breed of his flock. The bailiffs of college and monastery were busy in the purchase of clothing. And on holidays and Sundays, some canon, deputed from the neighbouring priory, said mass and preached in the booth assigned for religious worship. This is certainly a not over-coloured picture of the past of this once mighty fair. Mr. Cunningham, in his most excellent work, “The Growth of English Industry and Commerce” (1882, Cambridge University Press, p. 164), says:—“By far the greater part of the commerce of this country was carried on at such fairs; and _Sturbridge_ Fair was one of the most important in the whole kingdom, rivalling it was said the great fair of Nijni Novgorod, as a gathering of world-wide fame.” And he adds by way of note:—“In the eighteenth century it continued to be a most important mart for all sorts of manufactured goods, as well as for horses, wool, and hops.” [Illustration] BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. CHAPTER XV. ORIGIN. This is I believe the only fair, or certainly the only one of any note, ever held within the walls of the City of London. Southwark Fair became vested in the Corporation in the fifteenth century. I do not propose to write anything more than an outline history of Bartholomew Fair. Mr. Morley’s most interesting “Memoir of Bartholomew Fair” (1859) is available to those who desire more minute details. But as an institution which existed for seven hundred years, and more or less illustrates the social history of the metropolis, and in some sort its trading customs, during a considerable portion of that period, it cannot be passed over lightly. I shall adopt a chronological mode of illustration as, on the whole, best suited to the end in view.