The Champagne Trade Fairs

During the 12th and 13th centuries, a series of six trade fairs spread throughout the calendar were held in four cities in the Champagne region of what is now France.  In many ways, trade fairs in Fletnern as we see them are based on these fairs.  Though not completely and we’ll get into some of the similarities and differences. 

But first off, how important are these and do you really care about a history lesson right now?  Well, assuming we haven’t lost you already, these really are that important.  How important to the modern world?  Well, one of the cities hosting the trade fairs was Troyes.  Did you think the “Troy ounce” when weighing gold came from the Troy with the Greek heroes?  Nope - The Troyes fair was so important that its currency became the global standard and is still the standard today.

In many ways these fairs also began practices we take for granted today, practices like checks (OK, maybe not any more) and short term international loans.  They also changed the job of a merchant from being the guy who has to travel great distances to buy and sell goods, to being the guy who can send his underlings to go and pick up stuff he has already bought sight unseen by contract.  These might seem unimportant, but they were huge in establishing the economy of the Middle Ages.

These fairs served in many ways as the exchange point between France and Italy, but also England and Germany.  Merchants would show up to buy English fleece, and bring it back to their shops to return the next year with high end woolen fabrics.  Other merchants might buy those high end woolen fabrics only to return the next year with the same fabrics now dyed to the most vibrant colors.

OK, so what were they exactly?  They were trade fairs - huge markets where goods from far away could be purchased.  The host would offer the land for the market to take place as well as a reasonable guard to prevent chaos and theft.  They might also offer warehouse space so the merchants could store their goods before or after sales.  The Champagne fairs usually lasted about six weeks in order to make it worthwhile for merchants to travel there.  Travel from Italy to these fairs was probably three to four weeks, so they needed to be long enough to make these trips worthwhile.

Where did they take place?  They took place at crossroads, commonly where river travel met road travel.  These were typically the old Roman roads, but bridges and mountain passes were extremely important in establishing the best spots to hold the fairs.  Early on, they were also held near the mints where coins were minted.  This helped facilitate the earliest fairs, before the high end banking began.

In a lot of ways, these fairs were focused on fabrics, especially woolen fabrics.  While that seems to be the key product, obviously there had to be other products.  We don’t always think of it as a product, but the Germans were showing up to the fairs with newly cast silver bars.  Definitely a nice “product” to sell.

Our only point is that for many products, especially products that rely on agriculture and therefore are seasonal, having a store year round may not be an intelligent way to sell your goods.  If a weaver could sell all his goods in a couple of weeks at a major fair, then he could spend all of the rest of his time actually working instead of wasting time trying to sell cloth from a store.  The other side to this is that international trade can be cool.  How often do you get to have a huge party where you also make some decent money?