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Configurations of European Fairs. Merchants, Objects, Routes (1350-1600)

Subject Area Early Modern History
Medieval History
Economic and Social History
Term from 2019 to 2025
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 430627254
 
Final Report Year 2025

Final Report Abstract

The decline of the famous fairs in Champagne and Brie at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries did not spell the end of these periodic markets, where merchants specialising in wholesale or long-distance trade would meet. On the contrary, from the 14th to the 17th centuries, numerous new markets emerged, supported by towns, rulers and merchants. Among the hundreds of large fairs listed in fair calendars and merchants’ handbooks, those in Chalonsur-Saône, Frankfurt am Main and Geneva stood out in particular. Lyon, for its part, was a meeting place for international merchants and financiers for over a century. In the first third of the 16th century, the separation of commodity and financial fairs (or payment fairs) against the backdrop of the emergence of markets for financing states led to the establishment of the first European stock exchange (Antwerp, around 1540). The main objective of the research project was to better understand the constantly changing configurations of fairs and the reasons for their development. The study examined the geography and chronology of the fairs, the role of the authorities in organising these large periodic markets, the trade routes used by merchants and transport companies by land and sea, and the process of integration of the commodity and financial markets. The study was based on the evaluation of archival materials mainly preserved in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland: privileges, council minutes and municipal resolutions, public or commercial account books, manuals for merchants, printed calendars, chronicles and pictorial documents. All these sources provide information on the dates, locations and organisation of the fairs, as well as on the merchants, the goods traded and the travel routes. The information collected was entered into an online database created specifically for the project. This database provides a new approach to the history of trade fairs. The analysis of the data – dates/duration, locations, people, actions and objects – makes it possible to go beyond case studies of a trade fair venue or a trading company and shed light on the relationships between the players in the trade fair from a relational perspective. The large fairs and annual markets were not simply abstract meetings of supply and demand, as modern economics often defines the market. They organised space and time, determined the rhythm of trade, urban activities and, in a broader sense, European society. It is precisely this spatio-temporal perspective that the project focused on. The project enabled a new look at the history of trade fairs, with a focus on the relationships between cities, fairs and merchants. An exhibition presented the work of the German-French research team in the departmental archives in Lyon (03- 06/2023) and subsequently in the Leipzig City Museum (09-10/2023). In addition, two project members have prepared an exhibition in Asti, northern Italy (‘Fiere, città, mercanti’: 09-12/2024). Texts and images of the documents and objects on display, descriptions and a tour for young visitors can still be viewed on the German-French website. The unexpectedly high level of interest that the project has generated among experts in the field of trade fairs and exhibitions promises new developments and partnerships (Leipzig Book Fair, Messe Erfurt, FAMA Fachverband Messen und Ausstellungen e.V., UNIMEV, nundinotopia.com).

Link to the final report

https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.67777

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