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Author
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Topic: Shops in castles
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Lyonene
Member
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posted 11-30-99 02:24 PM
  
My friend and I, having been assigned a research project, are having a debate about whether a castle had shops in it or not. Did castles actually have shops in them? Or did the goods come from fairs or a town market? I'm having trouble finding any information on the web about this subject.
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wurdsmiff
unregistered
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posted 11-30-99 03:28 PM
The situation in Scotland was that certain burghs were granted the right to hold fairs or markets by right of their charter, and that the frequency of these events was determined in the same way. Whilst these towns generally had a main street which was wide to accomodate the barrows from which the vendors operated, and that the activity often spilled into the castle precincts at one end of the street, I can think of no examples where permanent sales points such as shops actually were within the castle walls. That is until commercial pressure and the desire to raise funds were felt by various national bodies and private owners who opened the properties up to visitors and tourists.------------------
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Philip Davis
unregistered
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posted 11-30-99 05:01 PM
The same is also true for England. Many castles are closely associated with towns and towns, almost by definition, had markets - usually weekly - and annual fairs. The annual fair could be a large event with trading of luxuries imported from across europe and beyond (silks were one type of the luxury imported from a long distance in the mediaeval period.) The several days of the fair were also associated with a religious festival and celebrations. In England very few of these fairs remain (The Nottingham Goose Fair is one) but in Spain almost every town still has it's fiesta which just have to be experienced. I imagine fairs would have involved castles not least because visitors would have filled the castle up.
However I cannot think of a castle that had a shop in it, as such, until modern times.------------------
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