The Rise And Fall of Markets in Southeast England

Abstract

This article discusses the rise and fall of markets in southeast England — the counties of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. A number of markets that were licensed do not appear to have actually come into being. A high density of markets in Kent supports the suggestion that the expansion of marketing resulted, in part, from landlessness and poverty. Lords frequently made more profit from stallage than they did from tolls. Revenues began to fall in the 1390s and in the mid-fifteenth century dropped even lower. Broken and wasted shops and empty market stalls became a commonplace, especially in the Weald. Markets that catered to an industrial population, as in cloth-producing areas, were more likely to survive and produced higher revenues than those that catered primarily to a rural hinterland.