Kendal, Street Market in Market Place

Markets were a favourite place for Quakers to inveigh against ‘deceitful merchandise’ and corruption in general:

Sometimes some of them, men, or women, will more like Phrantick people, then modest Teachers of the Gospell; or like the Prophets of Munster, or Iohn of Leydens Apostles, run through, or stand in the streets, or Market-place, or get upon a stone, and cry Repent, Repent, woe, woe, the Judge of the World is come, Christ is in you all, believe not your Priests of Baal, they are Lyars, they delude you. Kendall, and many other Townes in these Northern parts, are witnesses of these mad Speakings, and Practises ...

Francis Higginson A brief relation of the irreligion of the northern Quakers (London: T.R., 1653).

Image © Meg Twycross 6 November 2010

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