But while the wool trade lasted,--and it only died out as such trades do by degrees,--Winchester with all its limitations must have been a rarely interesting and attractive place in which to “catch the manners fleeting as they rise.” It is much to be regretted that the Winchester of this period had no shrewd and genial humorist, no Chaucer or Jonson, to mingle with the crowd, and to preserve for us, whether by pen or pencil, the humours of the day,--the varied types, lay and cleric, monk, friar, pilgrim, merchant, or franklin, who might have been found periodically gathered either at the Wool Market or the Hall of the Gild merchant, or at ‘the George,’--for there was a ‘George’ at Winchester then, even as now,--in as full and diverting variety as ever foregathered at the Tabard itself; but interesting as those intrinsically were, their interest was as nothing beside the two great dominating attractions which periodically gathered all sorts and conditions of men for temporary hospitality within her walls, the pilgrimages, and the great Fair of St. Giles. And if it was the Wool Trade which made the Fair, equally it was the Fair which gave the city its notoriety and its commercial importance. And the Fair while it lasted dominated everything--not only was all ordinary business suspended, but even the jurisdiction of the ordinary civic authorities was equally subject to its influence, and the already complex problem of civic rule was rendered topsy-turvy by a temporary transfer of authority within the city area from the Mayor to the Bailiff of the Soke,--a glorious opportunity for paying off old scores, which many a modern local administrator might well envy him.