From the earliest times work was prohibited on Sundays and holy days. Lyndwood, in his gloss on the Constitution of Archbishop Chicheley prohibiting on such days “all servile work in any city or place of the Province of Canterbury,” explains at some length the nature of the prohibition. When the work was genuinely necessary, as might be in the case of a barber, or a blacksmith, or a cook, then it was excused by the necessity, and did not come under the law. But where the work could be done on another day, or could have been easily anticipated or postponed, then it was prohibited by ecclesiastical law. This applied to the fairs and markets, which were so often held on feast days, and which the authorities in the fourteenth century were so much concerned to suppress, and the prohibition affected as well those who sold as those who bought at them. The Constitution of John Thoresby, Archbishop of York in 1367, was the first order against the growing practice of holding markets and fairs on the Sundays, and the misuse of the cemeteries in this respect. The following year Archbishop Simon Langham sent out a general monition for the Province of Canterbury, and a special prohibition against certain abuses in the Isle of Sheppey, where, “for the noise of the people, the solemnities of the Mass in the church” were disturbed, and where, on account of the attraction of the market, people were induced to neglect their duty of being present at the Divine Service. The prohibition against selling and purchasing, however, did not apply to the ordinary necessaries of life, as bread, meat, etc., so long as the sale or purchase did not interfere with the religious obligations of the parties, and did not prevent them from going to church. In another place the same canonist states, as he says, “briefly,” what kind of work was to be considered “servile,” and as such was prohibited to the people in mediæval England. This includes all mechanical, agricultural, and mercantile work, as well as the holding of courts or legal inquiries of every kind, unless “reasonable necessity or charity” required that any such work should be undertaken. In the cause of charity, however, it was held to be lawful on the holy days to assist to till, etc., the lands of the really poor, after all religious duties had been fulfilled. The obligation of resting from servile work on the Sunday or festival was reckoned from the Vesper hour on the Saturday, or the eve. The instruction given to the people as to servile work was very clear and well understood. In _Dives and Pauper_ it is thus put:--