Champagne (province)
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Location of the Champagne province in France |
Champagne is one of the traditional
provinces of France, a region of
France that is best known for the production of the sparkling white
wine that bears the region's name.
Champagne is now part of the French administrative
region of
Champagne-Ardenne.
Until 1284 the County of Champagne was in essence an independent territory, whose count nominally owed fealty to the king of France.
The Champagne fairs
The
Champagne fairs were a circuit of six cloth fairs in the towns of Champagne and
Brie, changing location every two months and spanning the year from January to October. At their height, in the 13th century, the Champagne fairs linked the cloth-producing cities of the
Low Countries with the Italian dyeing and exporting centers. The fairs, which were already well-organized at the start of the century, were one of the earliest manifestations of a linked European economy, a characteristic of the
High Middle Ages.
The towns provided huge warehouses, still to be seen at
Provins. From the north came woolens and linen cloth. From the south came pepper and other spices, drugs, coinage and the new concepts of credit and bookkeeping. Goods converged from Spain, travelling along the well-established pilgrim route from
Santiago de Compostela and from
Germany. Once the cloth sales had been concluded, the reckoning of credit at the tables (
banche) of Italian money-changers affected compensatory payments for goods, established future payments on credit, made loans to princes and lords, and settled bills of exchange (which were generally worded to expire at one of the Champagne fairs). Italian credit was able to exploit every exchange in the process, and Italian cloth merchants became the great bankers of the
Late Middle Ages.
It was to the interest of the
Count of Champagne, virtually independent of his nominal
suzerain, the
King of France, to extend the liberties and prerogatives of the towns. Traditional historians have dated the decline of the Champagne fairs to the conquest of Champagne by
Philip the Bold in 1273 and Champagne's subsequent inclusion within the Crown of France by
Philip IV in 1284. A sea route had been established, inaugurated by the first appearance of Genoese ships in Antwerp in 1277.
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Champagne (beverage)*
Count of Champagne*
Battle of Champagne*
Champagne Riots
