In 904 Eádweard gave a market in Taunton to the bishop of Winchester, with the toll therefrom arising, by the name of “ðæs túnes cýping”[132]: and a few years earlier Æðelred of Mercia granted half the market-dues and fines at Worcester to the bishop of that city[133]. The Frankish emperors possessed and exercised the same right[134]. The strict law of the Anglosaxons, which treated all strangers with harshness, was unfavourable to the chapmen or pedlars, who in thinly-peopled countries are relied upon to bring markets home to every one’s door: and it must be admitted that, where internal communication is yet imperfect, stringent measures are necessary to guard against the disposal of goods improperly obtained. The details of these measures belong to another part of this work, but it is necessary to call attention here to the endeavour on the part of the authorities, to confine all bargaining as much as possible to towns and walled places[135]: the small tolls payable on these occasions to the proper officers were a reasonable sacrifice for the sake of a certificate of fair dealing, and the assured warranty of what the Saxon law calls _unlying_ witnesses. The king, as general conservator of the peace, had this royalty, and, as we have seen, granted it in various towns to those who would be able and willing to perform the duties which it implied. ----- Footnote 132: Cod. Dipl. No. 1084. “Praedictae etiam villae mercimonium, quod anglicè ðæs túnes cýping appellatur, censusque omnus civilis sanctae dei aecclesiae in Wintonia civitate, sine retractionis obstaculo cum omnibus commodis aeternaliter deserviat.” Footnote 133: Cod. Dipl. No. 1075. Footnote 134: See Böhmer, Regest. Karol. Nos. 439, 628, 700, 2065, 2078. Footnote 135: Eádw. § 1. Æðelst. i. § 10, 12, 13; iii. § 2; v. § 10. Eádm. i. § 5. Eádg. Sup. § 6. Æðelb. i. § 3. Cnut, ii. § 24. Eádw. Conf. § 38. Wil. Conq. i. § 45; iii. § 10, 11. -----