Mercantilism, Consolidation and Gifts: The Importance of the Fairs of Champagne.

I will not be concerned, in this response, with the important authority that the Fairs of Champagne conferred on the Counts. It suffices mainly to consider how the crisis with the Piacenza merchants. The fairs provided enough of revenue for merchants that the potentate of Piacenza engaged in a series of diplomatic exchanges with the count of Champagne, so as to avoid exclusion from the fairs (Evergates, Document 24).

Of greater interest to me is the importance of the wealth that was generated by the fairs, and the fact that they appear to have played an integral role in the development of Champagne as a rather unified county. In other words, the wealth that was derived from the fairs, being tremendous, was spread to various other institutions, including monasteries and vassals, which allowed for the counts to consolidate their county politically.

I have recorded, from document 51 in the source handout, the amount of wealth that the counts of Troyes would have been able to gather from two fairs, the first at Troyes and the second at Provins (the other two fairs, according Evergates (Evergates, p.28), were Bar-sur-Aube and Lagny), amounted to about 4000 pounds, for the years 1276 to 1278 (source packet document 51). It would be wrong to assume that they were this large in 1164 or 1174, in the time of Henry I.

We can, however, think that the amount of revenue from rents in the market (that is without rents from room OR from weighing taxes) to under ten percent of what the merchants would bring. Indeed, the value of the fair in Provins is given at 1000 pounds in 1275, for the fair taking place between June 24^th and September 8^th (source packet, doc 51). The first letter of Thibault, stating that merchants from Siena, Florence, Pistoia, Lucca and Pisa had been despoiled of 12,000 worth of good while they were on their way to the fair of Provins. The fact that the letter is dated to October would tend to show that the fair these despoiled merchants were travelling to had to have been the St Ayoul Fair, which takes place from September 14 to November 1. It is unlikely that we would be dealing with the May Fair, given the sum in question and the pace of responses. Indeed, letter two from February 1243, is a response to another letter. That means that in four months three letters had been exchanged, which gives us an average time of five weeks per letter. Then the merchants of Siena and the other cities would have left to go to the St Ayoul fair. Since their goods were estimated at 12,000 pounds and the revenue of the fair is estimated at 1,000 pounds, a figure of ten percent revenue is a large estimate for the ratio between the value of the goods exchanged and the value of the fair to the count.

It is not, however, a ratio that would out of place given the merchandises exchanged. The Italian merchants exchanged luxury goods like spices and silk (Evergates, p.28). The merchants from other cities citied by the third letter of Thibault (Toulouse, Marseille, Metz, Lyon) and local merchants would probably be selling cheaper goods, and thus their aggregate wealth would not amount to the wealth of the Italian merchants. I will proceed under the assumption that this ratio would have been somewhat constant, even if it fluctuated annually.

These fairs, then would have provided the count with an impressive margin to give out gifts to monasteries and to purchase lands from castellans. It is no wonder, then, that Thibault, in his testament of 1257, is able to bequeath such largesse on the monasteries. For instance, he gives 200 pounds to Clairveaux, or 1,000 pounds to the poor commoners of Champagne (document 53), given that he had some assurance that he would receive a large revenue stream from his fairs. His wealth is not limited to the fairs, of course, and would have also come from rents in fiefs.

There is some evidence that these fair money could have been used to purchase fiefs. In the purchase of the lands of Roger, lord of Rozoy-en-Thiérarche, it is stated that he receives 500 pounds, in addition to a rent of 60 pounds to be taken from the fairs at St Ayoul (document 7). Given the context, and though Roger becomes their vassal, he receives a great amount money for his fief. Given that, according to Evergates, 100 pounds invested in property and five pounds annual rent is sufficient for a simple lifestyle (document 28), the 60 pounds in rent (in addition to other rents Robert might have received from other fiefs) would have been plenty. That Robert chooses for this rent to come from the St Ayoul fair is not surprising, it would have been a sure stream of money.

Thus, the importance of the fairs for Champagne can hardly be overstated. Indeed, they provided the counts of Champagne with an insured revenue stream, which could be brokered against property, or even given as gifts. Thus, the wealth of the merchants of Italy reached many places, including the lower castellans of Champagne.