Markets in London

Para1During the Elizabethan era, England had an estimated 800 markets, with about 18 of those in the greater London area. The markets were primarily a source of food for those living in the city and a common weekly trip for residents of suburban and rural areas. Many city dwellers worked in commerce and trade, and all of them needed to buy all the food they ate, goods they used, and clothing they wore. Rural inhabitants shopped at markets to purchase goods that their own land or industry did not produce.
Para2For London residents, the many markets provided a wide selection of food, products, and services. London had a large population of approximately 200,000 people in 1600, making it one of the largest cities in Europe. Trade had rapidly expanded both in size, scope, and wealth as London doubled to this size between 1550 and 1600. This growth attracted many merchants, artisans, laborers and even actors from all around Europe. London’s diversity and prosperity also provided artists and playwrights with inspiration, influence, and opportunity. This was a time of increased world exploration, and with every newly discovered land or established trade route came new goods to be traded in London markets.
Para3As London became a European center of commerce, many new industries emerged or were elevated to prominence. Printing, for example, was a broadening industry at the time, creating opportunity for the monetization of art and performance. Many other trades also benefitted from London’s growing wealth, with the industries that catered to the desire to show status through clothing and other items for personal display thriving.

Sights

Para4Markets were a bustling center of activity. Scattered open vendor stalls set up on market days filled open squares of fields, with walkways forming lanes. One such market that remains even to this day is the Borough Market, which is situated a short distance from where the Globe Theatre once stood and the nearby site where its functioning replica stands. Food historians are confident that playwrights like Shakespeare who lived and worked in the Bankside neighborhood shopped at the Broad Street Market that evolved into today’s Borough Market.

Sounds

Para5With the crowds came noise. Beyond the clanking, murmuring, yelling, and overall exuberance of the marketplace, the sound of music permeated the air. With money to be made, wandering musicians and singers called minstrels could be heard performing, possibly with ballad sellers hawking printed versions of the songs nearby. The street cries remade into song by the Elizabethan court composer Orlando Gibbons give some idea of the bustle and variety of London’s markets:
Hot codlings cooking apples, hot. Hot apple pies, hot. Hot pippin pies, hot.
Fine pomegranates, fine. Hot mutton pies, hot.
Ha’ ye any old bellows or trays to mend?
Rosemary and bays, quick and gentle.
Ripe chestnuts, ripe. Ripe walnuts, ripe.
Ripe cabbage, white young cabbage, white.

Smells

Para6The aroma of markets was likely varied and ever present, with fish and meat markets offering the pungent odors associated with their products along with dung and blood of the living animals that were often slaughtered onsite. But more pleasant smells were also present, with stalls selling bread, pies, roasted meats, warmed nuts, and the fragrance of fruit as well the smell of fresh vegetables.

Key Print Sources

Bruster, Douglas. The Representation Market of Early Modern England. Renaissance Drama vol. 4, no. 12, 2013, pp. 1–23.
Harding, Vanessa. Cheapside: Commerce and Commemoration. Huntington Library Quarterly vol. 71, no. 1, Mar. 2008, pp. 77–96.
Picard, Liza. Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London. St. Martin’s Press, 2005.

Key Online Sources

Best, Michael. The Marketplace. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/city%20life/markets.html. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. Orlando Gibbons. Encyclopedia Britannica. 1 Jun. 2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Orlando-Gibbons.
Gibbons, Orlando. The Cryes of London. YouTube. Uploaded by Peter Randall, 1 Aug. 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFqjpFxEG74.
Riddaway, Mark. Borough Market Began with a Bridge. Borough Market. https://boroughmarket.org.uk/market-blog/borough-market-began-with-a-bridge/. Accessed 26 Jun. 2025.

Prosopography

Jason Stott

Jason Stott was a student at Utah Valley University.

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title Markets in London
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Jason Stott, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
Sponsor(s)

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
Encoding description Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status published, peer-reviewed
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globalink Research Internship
Utah Valley University
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