Guilds -- England -- London; London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
There are certain places in the country, and on the Continent, where the
mediæval market is still preserved in its most important features. For
instance, there is the market-place of Peterborough, which is still
divided by lanes, and which has areas allotted to the different trades;
and that of Rheims, where the ancient usages are preserved and followed,
even to the appearance of Autolycus, the Cheap Jack, and the Quack, who
may be seen and heard on every market day.
We may take Stow’s description of the Elizabethan Chepe:
“At the West end of this Poultrie, and also of Bucklesbury, beginneth
the large street of West Cheaping, a market place so called, which
street stretcheth west till ye come to the little conduit by Paule’s
gate, but not all of Cheape ward. In the east part of this street
standeth the great conduit of sweet water, conveyed by pipes of lead
underground from Paddington for the service of this city, castellated
with stone, and cisterned in lead, about the year 1285, and again new
built and enlarged by Thomas Ilam, one of the sheriffs 1479.
“About the midst of this street is the Standard in Cheape, of what
antiquity the first foundation I have not read. But Henry VI., by his
patent dated at Windsor the 21st of his reign, which patent was
confirmed by parliament 1442, granted license to Thomas Knolles, John
Chichele, and other, executors to John Wells, grocer, sometime mayor of
London, with his goods to make new the highway which leadeth from the
city of London towards the palace of Westminster, before and nigh the
manor of Savoy, parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster, a way then very
ruinous, and the pavement broken, to the hurt and mischief of the
subjects, which old pavement then remaining in that way within the
length of five hundred feet, and all the breadth of the same before and
nigh the site of the manor aforesaid, they to break up, and with stone,
gravel, and other stuff, one other good and sufficient way there to make
for the commodity of the subjects.
“And further, that the Standard in Cheape, where divers executions of
the law beforetime had been performed, which standard at the present was
very ruinous with age, in which there was a conduit, should be taken
down, and another competent standard of stone, together with a conduit
in the same, of new, strongly to be built, for the commodity and honour
of the city, with the goods of the said testator, without interruption,
etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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