Equally stringent were the orders of leet, which curtailed the privileges of the "foreyn," who came to buy or sell within the city. He was not allowed to purchase corn in the market until mid-day, three hours after the townsfolk had been admitted to make their bargains.[555] A certain time of sale was assigned him,[556] and very frequently his goods were examined by the mayor ere he could dispose of them in the market. If his trade competed in any serious degree with that of the city craftsmen, there was no end to the restrictions wherewith he was hampered. Urged by a spirit of local monopoly, the authorities regulated the trade in hides and tallow in favour of the dealers of the city, though on the butchers' assertion that the country tanners would give a better price for the hides than their town brethren, the rules were somewhat relaxed. No chandler, however, was permitted to sell more than twelve pounds of candles out of the city[557] to one purchaser. The frequent enactment of these and similar regulations in the early sixteenth century shows the terror with which the townsfolk looked on the spread of industry in country districts. Owing to the conversion of arable land to pasture for sheep farming, agricultural labourers had been thrown out of work; many therefore were employed in handicrafts in their own houses and their competition was thought to seriously threaten the prosperity of their town neighbours.[558] At the Corpus Christi fair all was bustle and activity in Coventry, and the mayor had doubtless much ado to settle all the disputes arising from differences of currency or hard driving of bargains at the pypowders court, for all the world of the neighbourhood came to lay in stores for the year, and merchants from far and near to sell their wares. Eight weeks a year of a farmer's life is said to have been spent more or less at fairs and markets,[559] and undoubtedly a merchant employed a far longer period in travel to and from these centres of trade. Our forefathers were not altogether such simple stay-at-homes as we love to picture, but, rather, experienced travellers, and in those days travelling meant experience, and was not as it is now--at least in civilized countries--a method for getting from place to place which puts no tax on the body, and the least possible on the mind of the traveller. All manner of men and of merchandise[560] were to be seen at the fair. Irish traders brought druggets from Drogheda; coarse cloth came from the west country;[561] Frenchmen brought dyes for cloth; Bristol traders wine from Guienne and Spain; country gentlemen and local graziers bales of wool for export or home manufacture.