The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1902-05-15
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people of all classes gathered to them
from all parts of the country.
Few of the once celebrated fairs have
entirely DISAPPEARED, but they survive in
very attenuated forms, the most pitla-
BILE ghosts of their former selves; deal
ing now in horses or fruits or toys,
where once they transacted the weight
lest business of exchange; over in a
few hours, where once they lasted for
days or even weeks. Railways have
robbed them of their utility and their
glory. But it is not so long ago since
the exchange of the country could no
more been carried on without them
and pushing commercial travellers, and
gigantic warehouses, and the other var
ious huge apparatus of trade. In the
Fourteenth century Stourbridge Fair,
on the south bank of the Cam. near
Cambridge, was one of the greatest of
them; one of the great fairs of Europe,
on par then with the great Russian
fair of Mini Novgorod. which still re-
tains it's eminence. What falling off
is there! In the Fourteenth century
the banks of the Cam were much more
widely known for their great annual
fair than for their university.
In 1880 there was not town in Eng
land between Berwick and Calais that
was not represented on Stourbridge
Green. From the midland and the
eastern counties bargain hunters came
hopefully from every parish. The fair
was open for weeks, and the booths of
the traffickers were regularly built in
streets or rows,-named after the article
of trade to which they were assigned.
All the necessities and all the luxur-
les of medieval life were to be had at
Stourbridge Fair, and all classes
thronged towards Cambridge in the
middle of September. The knight
came there to buy furs and jewelry,
silks and laces, for his wife and daugh-
tiers; bowstaves for his archers, armor
and horses for himself and retinue.
Monasteries laid in their stock of wine
and spices, and haggled with the gold
smiths and silversmiths and wood carv-
ers of Flanders and Germany over orna-
ments for their chapels. The wealthy
sheep farming franklin carried home
from Stourbridge, in exchange for his
wool, wagon load of tar ior his sheep;
cloth to make clothes for his workmen;
iron to make implements for his farm;
leather to make harness for his horses;
pots and pans and brushes for his
household. Vessels of iron and brass;
wines from Spain, Guenne, Burgundy,
Tuscany, Crete, Greece; currants, rasins,
almonds from the Levant; tar and pitch
from Norway; fur and amber from
Russia; armor from Milan; cutlery
from Sheffield; linens and lawns,
diapers and holland from Bruges and
Liege, Mechlin and Client; there was
nothing that was not to be seen and
bargained for at the world famous mar
ket.
And because of the vast congregation
of people from all quarters, servants
coming in the train of their masters,
there were great facilities at such fair
for the organization of discomfort. Sec
ret conferences could be held; notes of
grievances compared; measures con-
certed; brotherhoods formed; signals
and watchwords agreed upon.
One of the muzzles of the great Peas.
of which is disguised when it is called
Wat Tyler's, and spoken of as mere
impromptu expansion of a tax collect.
ing riot, is to understand how it was
organized 1t was really the greatest
social CONFUSION that this kindgom has
ever experienced, widespread and
deep rooted rebellion, compared with
which all our other civil dissensions
between barons and barons, York and
Lancaster, king and parliament, Jacob
lite and Hanoverian, were superficial
connections. The great deeps of socie.
ty were stirred as they had never been
before and never have since. The
quickness with which the storm passed,
the absence of visible result, the small
space it occupies consequently in our
histories, have caused its stupendous
violence to be forgotten. The gather
ing at Backheath under Tyler, the in.
vasion of London by the mobs of Kent
and Essex, was but part of movement
by which all England was thrown into
momentary confusion. On the same
day everv town of consequence in Eng
land, north and south, east and west,
York, Canterbury, Lincoln, Cambridge,
Manchester, Bristol, Coventry, was as
sailed by the armies of the peasants,
formidable though unframed. Every
| important town was, as it were, the
centre Of circle in the circumference
of which the insurgents gathered IN
bands land converged along every rad