r next speeches on Tower Hill might be somewhat differently
flavoured.

Saint Frideswide's Fair was a sight to see. For several days before it
was held, a multitude of carpenters were employed in putting up wooden
booths and stalls, and Gloucester Green became a very lively place.
Fairs in the present day, when they are held at all, are very different
exhibitions from what they were seven hundred years ago. The stalls
then were practically shops, fully stocked with goods of solid value.
There was a butcher's row, a baker's row, a silversmith's row, and a
mercer's row--ironmongers, saddlers, shoemakers, vintners, coopers,
pelters (furriers), potters, hosiers, fishmongers, and cooks
(confectioners)--all had their several streets of stalls. The Green--
larger than now--became a town within a town. As the fair was held by
licence of Saint Frideswide, and was under her especial protection, the
Canons of that church exacted certain dues both from the Crown and the
stall-holders, which were duly paid. From the Crown they received 25
shillings per annum. It was deemed a point of honour to keep the best
of everything for the fair; and those buyers who wished to obtain good
value for their money put off their purchases when it grew near fair
time. When the third of May came, they all turned out in holiday
costume to lay in necessaries, so far as possible, for the year--meat
excepted, which could be purchased again at the cattle fair in the
following September.

There was one serious inconvenience in shopping at that time, of which
we know nothing at the present day. With the exception of the penny and
still smaller coins (all silver) there was no money. The pound, though
it appears on paper, was not a coin, but simply a pound weight of pence;
the mark was two-thirds, and the noble (if used so early) one-third of
that amount. When a woman went out to buy articles of any value, she
required to carry with her an enormous weight of small silver cash.
Purses were not therefore the toys we use, but large bags of heavy
leather, attached to the girdle on the left side; and the aim of a
pickpocket was to cut the leather bag away from its metal fastening--
hence the term _cut-purse_.

Every woman in Kepeharme Lane--and it might be added, in Oxford--
appeared in the street with a basket on her arm as soon as daylight had
well dawned. The men went at their own time and convenience. For many
of them a visit to the fair was mere