Street market

A market, or marketplace, is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world it may be referred to as a souk (from the Arabic), bazaar (from the Persian), a fixed (Spanish), or itinerant tianguis (Mexico), or palengke (Philippines). Some markets operate on most days; others may be held once a week, or on less frequent specified days.

The term, 'market' comes from the Latin 'mercatus' (market place). The earliest recorded use of the term, 'market' in English is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 963, a work that was created during the reign of Alfred the Great (r. 871-899) and subsequently distributed, copied throughout English monasteries. The exact phrase was “Ic wille þæt markete beo in þe selue tun,” which roughly translates as “I want to be at that market in the good town.”

Markets have existed since ancient times. In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora (open space), and in ancient Rome the forum.

In the Graeco-Roman world, the market primarily served the local peasantry. They would sell small surpluses from their individual farming activities, purchase minor farm equipment and a few luxuries for their homes. Major producers such as the great estates were sufficiently attractive for merchants to call directly at their farm-gates, obviating the producers' need to attend local markets. The very wealthy landowners managed their own distribution, which may have involved exporting. The nature of export markets in antiquity is well documented in ancient sources and archaeological case studies. Markets were also important centres of social life.

In Medieval England and Europe, market towns dotted the landscape. Market towns were close enough to permit a round trip within one day (about 10 Km). Braudel and Reynold have made a systematic study of these European market towns between the thirteenth and fifteenth century. Their investigation shows that in regional districts markets were held once or twice a week while daily markets were common in larger cities. Gradually over time, permanent shops that opened daily began to supplant the periodic markets and peddlers filled in the gaps in distribution. The physical market was characterised by transactional exchange and the economy was characterised by local trading in which goods were traded across relatively short distances. Braudel reports that, in 1600, grain moved just 5-10 miles; cattle 40-70 miles; wool and wollen cloth 20-40 miles. However, following the European age of discovery, goods were imported from afar - calico cloth from India, porcelain, silk and tea from China, spices from India and South-East Asia and tobacco, sugar, rum and coffee from the New World.

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