Agricultural History Review, Volume 54 Part 2 (2006), p. 346

This is a collection of articles presented at a conference organized in March 2003 by the Friends of the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester. The editors claim to have exercised a very light touch and kept editorial intervention to a minimum. The articles cover a wide range of subjects in widely differing styles. Their wide-ranging nature reminds us that the market is a multifaceted construction. It is not possible to do full justice to each of the articles in a short review.

Graham Jones examines the forms and locations of medieval marketplaces, with particular reference to the relationship between churches and market places in Norwich and Stamford. He also examines Sunday markets (he includes a list), wool markets in Leicestershire, and the possibility that the sites of some fairs have pre- Christian religious origins. Christopher Dyer reminds us that even in the medieval period markets were not simply places for the exchange of essential foodstuffs, or the only place where they were exchanged. Although the households of the gentry may have increased demand when they were present, markets were maintained by a local population of consumers. His paper is illuminated by numerous examples and reinforced by Jane Laughton’s paper on Catesby Priory as a consumer in the first half of the fifteenth century. Using the account rolls, she shows how the priory used a variety of local markets and different personnel to purchase regular and occasional goods. She demonstrates not only that there was a hierarchy of markets, but that significant resources would be put into accessing the right market for a specific product. More illuminating is the use of local traders for substantial purchases, showing their flexibility, and the multiple roles of the Priory’s cloth carrier as a trader on his own account and provider of fish and meat.

Dave Postles examines the market place as a social and cultural site that exhibited ‘multiple spatiality’. Here different groups came into contact, power was demonstrated and resisted, and civic pride was exhibited, especially in the control of the space within the market and the development of new market places. He argues that the special temporary context that was essential to the functioning of the market provided a focus and cultural resource in which to play out conflicts. The significance of the personal experience of the market place is amply demonstrated by the contribution from Alan Everitt, recording his personal experience of markets, with particular reference to the modern market in Leicester. He reminds us that although the marketplace may have been the main focus of trade, it was not the only place where deals were done. He also reminds us of the importance people attached to their local markets and fairs, something few can now experience. This reviewer remembers that less than twenty years ago his town was transformed on a Wednesday by an influx of animals and country people, and in September children were given the day off from local schools to walk to the Cheese Show. Since then both the market and the fair have moved to sites out of town, and the intimate relationship between the activities, their traditional location and the population has been broken after more than five hundred years.

Andrew Hann explores the modernization of the market places in the eighteenth century, using a cultural and associated economic approach to look at the commodification of market rights, and the introduction of bourgeois civic values into the public sphere of the market. The last two papers examine horse trading. Anne Pegg gives an introduction to Rothwell (Rowell) Horse Fair and includes transcriptions from the toll books for 1686 and 1743–44. Mandy DeBelin provides an examination of the terms used to describe the horses, taken from the records from Banbury, Oxford and Hallaton (Leicestershire).

The value of collections such as this is the opportunity to be informed about areas outside one’s normal range of interests. The reviewer wonders whether such books might be more widely read if they could be made available on the internet, but until they are would encourage anyone with more than a passing interest in the market to write to Leicester for a copy.