A history of commerce

by Clive Day

CHAPTER VIII
FAIRS

71. Fairs; the reason for their existence.—The foregoing description of medieval commerce will have shown that trade was far less extensive than it is now, and will suggest the reason for one of the characteristic trading institutions of the time—the fairs.

Every person with wares to sell seeks a purchaser who desires those particular wares and who will give him in exchange something that he himself desires. Nowadays, for instance, a farmer brings his country products to the city, seeks out a produce merchant who will give him money for it, makes his purchases at the dry goods store with the money, and returns contented; he has exchanged his surplus for what he lacks. If there is no special store where he can sell his produce he must seek out buyers by going around to the separate houses, and if there is no general store where he can make his purchases he must again hunt up the individuals who make or sell what he desires. Where exchange is still relatively rare it may be a very troublesome process to find the buyers and sellers of particular wares, and the following device has almost always been adopted to meet the difficulty; people who desire to trade agree to meet at a certain time and place, so that there will be every chance that buyer and seller will find each other and secure that coincidence of supply and demand which exchange implies. The current of trade is dammed for a time as it were; then allowed to flow in much greater volume for a little while, then dammed again.

72. Comparison of fairs with markets and modern exchanges.—Even now the old custom of “market days” persists in some places, and once it was universal; townspeople and country people agreed on a certain day, and met in the market-place then to exchange their wares. A fair is the same kind of institution as a market, and grew up for similar reasons, but it represented a further step of development, for it attracted buyers and sellers from a far greater area, and served the needs of wholesale as well as retail trade. The fair is, of course, much less advanced than the modern exchanges (stock and produce), from the fact that it was intermittent instead of being continuous, as well as for other reasons; but in the Middle Ages it was the means by which commerce grew strong, and the prosperity of commerce could be measured by the prosperity of fairs.

The fairs always attracted people for social as well as business purposes; life in the Middle Ages would be regarded as insufferably dull at the present time, and both townspeople and country people enjoyed the excitement which the fair brought with it. There were “side-shows” in plenty, then; wild animals, trained dogs, and monstrosities, poets and musicians, actors and clowns, dancing and gambling halls; and there was a good opportunity to turn a penny dishonestly as well as honestly. The court roll of the English fairs of St. Ives tells us of a defendant who was caught selling a ring of brass for 5¹⁄₂d., saying “that the ring was of the purest gold, and that he and a one-eyed man found it on the last Sunday in the Church of St. Ives, near the Cross.”

73. Privileges of merchants trading at a fair.—The fair ordinarily grew up under the protection of some feudal lord, secular or ecclesiastical, who endeavored in every way to further its growth that he might increase his revenue from the taxes he imposed on it. The lord of a fair endeavored to attract merchants by guaranteeing them protection on their way, and there were many cases in which the lord took up the cause of merchants of his fair who had been robbed or maltreated by others, and forced restitution. Furthermore, he endeavored to secure exemption from tolls for wares on the way to his fair, and sometimes merchants on their way to a fair were freed from the attachment of the person for debt. Inside the fair a freedom of trade was allowed which was unusual at the time, and various special privileges were granted the merchants. The most important of these was a special court in which cases of breach of contract and the like could be tried. It was called the Court of Pie Powder (Pie, French pied, foot; curia pedis pulverizati, court of dusty foot) from the dusty feet of the merchants, or, as some said, because justice was done as speedily as dust would fall from the foot. At any rate this court did give a rough and ready means of settling commercial disputes by referring them to a committee of traders, which was highly prized because commercial law was still in its infancy, and no justice could be looked for in a manorial or a feudal court.

74. Great fairs in Europe. The fairs of Champagne.—It would be possible to give a long list of fairs, for every country of Europe had them in varying number at different times. The oldest was probably that of St. Denis at Paris, which may have been founded (as its patrons alleged) in the seventh century, and which was certainly in active operation long before the time of Charlemagne. In a later period another Paris fair, that of St. Germain, became more important, and later still the fairs in the French province of Champagne became the most flourishing in Europe. The prosperity of these fairs was due in part to their geographical position, which made them a natural trade center and distributing point when commerce on land was more important than that on sea, but still more, apparently, to the good government and wise policy of the Counts of Champagne. The Counts gave sufficient protection both at home and abroad, maintained regular and reasonable dues, and did everything to stimulate the confidence of the merchant class. They got an enviable reputation by their strictness in forcing the proper execution of contracts made at the fairs, and took such precautions to assure the payment of debts contracted there that some merchants (or bankers) went to the fairs simply to loan money.

Most of the traffic of the Champagne fairs went North and South, by way of Flanders and of Italy. Merchants from Normandy ascended the river Oise to its junction with the land route. The route of German merchants is unknown, but most of them probably went by way of Bruges.

75. Trade at the Champagne fairs; other continental fairs.—In the thirteenth century, the period of their greatest prosperity, six fairs were held at different places in Champagne, of which Troyes and Provins, southeast of Paris, were the most important. Each lasted over six weeks, and, following in rotation, they supplied an almost continuous market. Here one might find all the wares which formed the objects of commerce in Europe; textiles of silk, wool, and linen; minor manufactures and jewelry; drugs and spices; raw materials like salt and metals; leather, skins, and furs; foods and drinks, live stock and slaves. The bulk of the trading was done by merchants from various parts of France and Flanders (modern Belgium) and by Italians who came up over the Alpine passes; there were also Germans and Spanish, and, in less number, English, Dutch, and Swiss. Wares came from more distant countries, Scandinavia and the eastern Mediterranean, but changed hands on the way.