Bartholomew Fair (1752 - 1855)

The play Bartholomew Fair (1614) by Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637), depicts the customs associated with the popular English fair held annually on this day. Jonson’s play is peopled with balladeers, stall holders, prostitutes and cut-purses.

Bartholomew Fair began with a vision. Rahere, the jester of King Henry I, said he had seen the apostle Bartholomew in a vision and he had directed him to found a church and hospital in his honour. After the work was done, Rahere established a fair which was to begin on his patron’s day, and go for three days. It lasted from 1133 to 1855.

Sideshows displayed such people as ‘The Wild Indian Woman and Child’, ‘The Spotted Boy’ (pictured -- and you thought it was Gorby), ‘The largest child in the Kingdom’ and ‘The female dwarf, Two Feet, Eleven Inches high’, as well as exotic animals, such as elephants, tigers and ‘the giant emew, fom Brazil’. Many locals opposed the noisy, debauched fair, for many years.

The Bartholomew Fair lasted for four days. It opened annually at Smithfield, England each St Bartholomew’s Day (August 24) from 1133 to 1752, then after the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, opened on September 3, except where this was a Sunday. It was removed to Islington in 1840, and last held in 1855.

Categories: medieval, england, english, customs, folklore, fair, fairs, festival, festivals