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In one sense, the term 'market town' is all but tautological when applied to the historic towns of England for they all gained a substantial part of their income from trading. Archaeologists, indeed, use evidence of trading activity as one of the vital criteria in deciding whether a given community was urban or rural.

The word 'market', however, does have a precise historical significance. It is the concession granted, by the lord of the manor, to a community permitting 'the meeting together of people for the purchase and sale of provisions or live stock, publicly exposed, at a fixed time and place'.

The market was valuable to the community, providing it with a means of disposing of surplus products, and drawing in trade from the surrounding countryside. It was valuable to the lord of the manor, who gained a substantial addition to his income by levying tolls on the traders. But the concession was by no means automatically granted and obtained. The king had to be convinced that a new market was needed in the locality and, in general, permission would not be granted unless the nearest market was more than 6 miles away.

Trading 'at a fixed time and place': this was the vital definition of a market which, in due course, was to have so much effect upon the physical shape of English towns. The market was expected to take place at least once a week in a public place known to all. The vast majority of them began outside the church door, the most obvious and best-known of all public places. Many, indeed, occurred inside the church itself, but from the thirteenth century on-wards a sense of piety, combined with the practical desire to control the expanding market, dictated its removal to a secular site. Common sense, again, prescribed the best-known locality - usually the meeting place of a network of roads. The market did, however, bring with it from the church the most potent symbol of Christianity - the cross. Two illiterate traders sealing a bargain with a handclasp under the cross would regard that as inviolable an act as two businessmen today would regard their signatures on a contract.

The cross moved with the market. Most market crosses retained their simplicity of form - the one at Grantham is an excellent example of this. Elsewhere this image developed over the centuries into an elaborate structure, still known as 'the market crossbut capable now of sheltering certain classes of merchandise and their traders. Some developed into superb works of art, like that at Chichester, and even evolved into the local town hall: the crosses at Wymondham and Barnard Castle both have upper chambers used as council rooms. Meanwhile, the traders were moving in and setting up their stalls around the cross.

These stalls, or shambles, could be heavy and solid like that surviving at Shepton Mallet, or a flimsy temporary structure. In either case, it was much easier for the stall holder to leave it set up, rather than to dismantle it at the end of the trading session. From the beginning there were running battles between the traders and the steward of the market place, the former attempting to leave his stall up permanently, the latter attempting to ensure its removal.

Usually, the steward won. But sometimes the stall holder was victorious: his stall would remain up first by the week, then by the month, then indefinitely. Eventually, he or his successor on the site would be successful in turning it into a permanent building, creating a market 'encroachment'. These encroachments are very noticeable on a town plan in the form of little lanes on the edge of the market place: Ludlow in Shropshire and Skipton in Yorkshire are two of many towns with such evidence of long-forgotten arguments.

The 'market place is often an idea more than an actual location in the Continental sense. Markets founded by monastics (and these unworldly men were remarkably adept at founding these very worldly organizations) were usually placed outside the main gate of the monastery, as at Glastonbury, ) the cathedral, as at Wells. East Anglian towns tended to favour some think along the lines of the Continental places or piazza or platz , that is a formal site usually fairly regular in shape and specifically set aside for the market .

(From the introduction to English Market Towns by Russell Chamberlin 1985 Artus Books Orion Publishing Group page 8)