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Piepowder courts were those attached to fairs and markets. When the king gave a town or community the franchise to hold a fair, he also granted the right to hold a court to settle disputes between the itinerant merchants in attendance, and to deal with crimes committed during the fair.
The name may be derived from the dusty feet (French: pieds poudrés) of the travelling merchants,[1] or of the court officials who wandered from mart to mart. Writing in 1768, the English jurist and judge William Blackstone described the piepowder courts as “the lowest, and at the same time the most expeditious, court of justice known to the law of England”.[2]
The judges in piepowder courts were not professional lawyers, but usually local officials such as the town mayor or local merchants.[3]
Piepowder courts fell into decline during the late Middle Ages, but one was held in 1854 at St Bartholomew Fair in London, although it may have been ceremonial. A piepowder court was also held in Hemel Hempstead in 1898, but principally to collect tolls from stall holders.[3]