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Encyclopedia Britannica

HIRING (from O. Eng. hyrian, a word common to many Teutonic languages cf. Ger. heuern, Dutch huren, &c.)

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 523 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: HIG-HOR

HIRING (from O. Eng. hyrian, a word common to many Teutonic languages cf. Ger. heuern, Dutch huren, &c.) , in law, a

contract

by which one man grants the use of a thing to another in return for a certain price. It corresponds to the locatio-conductio of Roman law. That

contract

was either a letting of a thing (locatio-conductio rei) or of labour (locatio operarum). The distinguishing feature of the contract was the price. Thus the contracts of mutuum, commodatum, depositum and mandatum, which are all gratuitous contracts, become, if a price is fixed, cases of locatio-conductio. In modern English law the term can scarcely be said to be used in a strictly technical sense. The contracts which the Roman law grouped together under the head of locatio-conductiosuch as those of landlord and

tenant

TENANT (from Lat. tenere, to hold)

, master and servant, &c.are not in English law treated as cases of hiring but as independent varieties of contract. Neither in law books nor in

ordinary

ORDINARY (med. Lat. ordinarius, Fr. ordinaire)

discourse could a

tenant

TENANT (from Lat. tenere, to hold)

farmer be said to hire his land. Hiring would generally be applied to contracts in which the services of a man or the use of a thing are engaged for a short time.
Hiring Fairs, or

Statute

STATUTE

Fairs, still held in Wales and some parts of England, were formerly an annual fixture in every important country town. These fairs served to bring together masters and servants. The men and maids seeking

work

WORK

stood in rows, the males together and the females together, while masters and mistresses walked down the lines and selected those who suited them. Originally these hiring-fairs were always held on Martinmas Day (11th of November). Now they are held on different

dates

DATES

in different towns, usually in October or November. In Cumberland the men seeking

work

WORK

stood with straws in their mouths. In Lincolnshire the bargain between employer and employed was closed by the giving of the " fasten-penny," the

earnest

EARNEST (probably a corruption of the obsolete arles or erles, adapted from Lat. equivalent arrha, due to a confusion with the adjective " earnest," serious, O. Eng. eornust, cognate with Ger. ernst)

money, usually a shilling, which " fastened " the contract for a twelvemonth. Some few days after the

Statute

STATUTE

Fair

FAIR

it was customary to hold a second called a Mop

Fair

FAIR

or Runaway Mop. " Mop " (from Lat. mappa, napkin, or small cloth) meant in Old English a tuft or tassel, and the fair was so called, it is suggested, in allusion to tufts or badges worn by those seeking employment. Thus the carter wore whipcord on his hat, the cowherd a tuft of cow's

hair

HAIR (a word common to Teutonic languages)

, and so on. Another possible explanation would be to take the word " mop " in its old provincial slang sense of " a fool," mop fair being the

fools

FOOLS, FEAST OF (Lat. festum stultorum, fatuorum, follorum, Fr. fete des fous)

' fair, a sort of last chance offered to those who were too dull or slovenly-looking to be hired at the statute fair. Perhaps " run-away " suggests the idea of those absent through drunkenness, or those who simply feared to face the ordeal of the larger hiring and so ran away.

End of Article: HIRING (from O. Eng. hyrian, a word common to many Teutonic languages cf. Ger. heuern, Dutch huren, &c.)

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