ABSTRACT
Troublesome markets were grouped with troublesome hedges, ditches, ponds and streams as a type of nuisance - but a type for which the assize of nuisance was not available. This opinion conformed to normal thirteenth-century practice. The procedure adopted by the abbot of Bury in 1202 does not correspond to this later pattern. Although the new clause in market charters implied the possibility of a plea to expose the conditional nature of a new grant, it did not entail any immediate new thinking about how such matters should be brought to court. The development, when supplemented by the subsequent formalizing of procedure in such cases, enabled the Crown to respond to the many requests for new market charters in the thirteenth century with a minimum of consequent uncertainty in the administration of justice.
