Some times the most unusual event provoke festivities.
There were also spontaneous fairs. Frost-fairs, for example, were organized during winter when it was so cold that canals, moats, ports and rivers were covered by a thick layer of ice. The phenomenon is best known from London, but there were also frost-fairs in Amsterdam, Antwerp (where they had fairs on the frozen river Scheldt in 1565 and 1670), Hamburg, Paris and Rotterdam.
This fair on the Thames was one of the largest ever seen. The frost lasted from early December 1683 till 5th March 1684.
The frost lasted so long that a complete village grew up on the ice. Even a printer established a premises complete with printing press. The fashion that year was for people to have their names printed on a “quarto sheet of Dutch paper” which stated that it had been printed on the River Thames. Even the English King Charles II, Mary D’Este, sister of the Duke of Modena and Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark had their names immortalised in this fashion.
At this fair on the Thames in 1814 rides were set up and sheep cooked – the meat was sold as Lapland Mutton !
Frost Fair on the river Thames, London, 1814. Taken from William Andrews’ Famous Frosts and Frost Fairs (published in London, 1887).
Winter fair on a frozen river Maas in the Netherlands. Woodcut from the 19th century.