FAIRS HELD IN CHURCHES.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1526, 9 April 1886, Page 3

FAIRS HELD IN CHURCHES.

On what were proclaimed as fair days pedlars, with permission of the I church wardens, would set up their stalls in the open space of the chuich, | against the walls or wherever they \ found it convenient, and people would ' repair to these stalls for all kinds of i fancy merchandise, as they would npw-a-davs go to a bazaar. It may seem i strange to us that there should have i been fairs in churches, or in any of the I sacred enclosures around churches. | The word fair, however, is derived from feria, which originally meant festival, 1 and here is the way in which a modern | author, zealous as any Anglican or | Scotch Episcopalian can be for the I honour of the ancient Gatholic Church, ! accounts for the origin of fairs. !" Monasteries," he says, " were places of such general resort that they were often the stage of mercantile as welljas | saered transaction. The great concourse of people that generally assembled around religious houses on holy days required refreshment. This i suggested the idea of gainful trade J to traffickers who rep lired thither not i only with vic'uals aud drink, but different other articles of merchandise, which they disposed of amongst the crowd The same author, in describing tho priory of St Andrews, savs that to the west of the prior's house was the cloister, and in it was held the S-wz'e Fair, on the seond week of Easter. The stalls of the merchants j had thus the advantage of being covered in, and it does not require a great stretch of imagination to suppose that if stalls were once allowed in the cloisters, and the cloisters were found insufficient to accommodate the traders, either charitable or pecuniary considerations would permit still further encroachment on the holy ground.— From Old Church Life in Scotland.