Other Monuments

The Tithe Barn "Provins during the Champagne Fairs"
(La Grange aux Dîmes)

This designation wasn’t known until the XVIth century. During the Fairs of Champagne, the edifice was used as a co-vered market. Merchants from Toulouse are known to have rented it in 1223 for example.
The lower room was used to store goods, whereas the lower and upper floor were inhabited. In the entrance room, the cross-ribbed vaulting rests on capitals adorned with foliage. At the basis of the vaults, we can notice deep grooves which used to support wooden cross-pieces embellished with cloth and which were meant to divide up the space.

Visit with an audio guide
To better understand the period when the Champagne Fairs flourished, the Provins Tourist Office has the pleasure of suggesting that you discover this exhibition via an audio guide that sets the scene and provides explanations about the various types of merchant and trades that existed in those days. (Audio guide in french, english, gerùa, spanish and chinese).

You can see :
The Italian Merchant , the Provins woollen cloth merchant, the money-changer, the Flemish merchant, the letter-writer, Wool Techniques in Provins, the potter, the quarryman, the stone cutter, the parchment maker.
 

The Fairs of Champagne in 12th and 13th Centuries
By the year 1000, the Counts of Champagne who ruled over the region had understood the economic importance of long-distance trade, and used the strategic geographical position of the towns of Champagne to their advantage. On routes to eastern Europe, these towns straddled routes from both the North Sea and the Mediterranean ports, between the trade centers of Flanders and Italy, Flanders looking towards northern and eastern Europe, and Italy to Byzantium, Africa and the Orient. At that time, Provins was a major crossroads, with nine main roads and eleven secondary roads converging on it. 

The prerogatives granted by the Counts to the merchants soon gave the fairs a solid reputation, fostered by good commercial practices. The tradespeople of Provins itself felt the benefit of all this trade, and thé local woollen industry expanded considerably, becoming famous throughout Europe. The fair was also a time of celebration, with music and juggling shows.

Its siting made the twice-yearly fair one of the main focuses of European trade, especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The fairs were wholesale-trade affairs. There was no retail trade, which took place at local markets. Merchants bought goods in bales or casks. The success of the great fairs in Champagne was partly due to the protection the counts gave to the merchants. They were quite happy to protect them as the fairs increased their wealth. In fact, within their borders, the Counts organized special fair safe conducts, escorting at their own cost any convoy of merchants wanting to attend the fair. This was a definite attraction on the difficult, unsafe roads of medieval times, when it took six weeks to travel up from Navarre. In Provins itself, the Counts deployed special fair guards and lieutenants to keep order. They held courts of justice, demanded the payment of sales taxes, witnessed contracts, and settled disputes. They could pursue an offender anywhere in Europe.

You must try to imagine the extraordinary bustle of people from all over Europe trading not only in goods, but also in ideas. Melting pots like this were essential to social progress. Each country contributed some of its influence, and Champagne played a key role in literature, art and taste. It was during these good times that the basis for the wealth of the western world was laid, going hand-in-hand with increasingly refined cultural aspirations. Similarly, the Church was importing ivory and precious woods and stones from Africa to decorate religious objects. This period of flourishing trade gradually declined during the fourteenth century as the trade routes shifted to the high Alpine passes and the straits of Gibraltar became more popular for shipping. The wars of Religion, plague, and the abolition of merchant prerogatives sealed the fate of the great fairs of Champagne not only in Provins, but also in Troyes, Lagny and Bar-sur-Aube.