The English Fair Book

England's old-time fairs were colorful, often bawdy, and a vital part of the country's economy. This lively, but comprehensive new study-- based on local sources and archives plus interviews with farmers and dealers--traces the fair's history from early Saxon times to the great fairs of the Middle Ages with their vast array of the world's commodities, through the sheep gathers of the West Country; the turbulent cattle fairs; the notorious cloth fair of St. Bartholomew; and the mop fairs where servants were ritually bought and sold to the present day, where fairs are based purely on entertainment rather than trade. A fascinating, sometimes violent tableau of dealers and merchants, cheapjacks, jugglers and fiddlers, the ever-present pickpockets and prostitutes, and, above all, the people who flocked to the fairs to make them what they were: exciting, explosive, often violent social and economic gatherings.Read More