thirteenth century.138 From 1278 dates the first reference to a ‘universitas’ (joint
association) of merchants from a number of different Italian cities frequenting the
fairs.139 The year 1245 also saw the first reference to a consul from Montpellier, who
initially had jurisdiction only over merchants from that city. A document of 1258
indicates that the Montpellier consul was extending his jurisdiction to merchants from
other Provençal towns trading at the Champagne fairs, and one from 1290 provides a
list of Provençal towns whose members formed a ‘universitas’ under a ‘capitaneus’
(captain) who exercised jurisdiction over them.140 From 1258, there is also a lone
reference to an organization of Aragonese merchants frequenting the fairs, although no
evidence that it exercised jurisdiction.141
Merchants from other European cities and territories, by contrast, did not have
consular organizations at the Champagne fairs.142 The Flemish urban federation
known as the ‘Seventeen Towns’, mentioned in a handful of documents relating to the
Champagne fairs, is a shadowy organization whose membership and activities are
largely unknown, but scholars agree that it was very loosely organized, lacking
elections, officials, or leadership at the fairs.143 German merchants frequented the fairs
in the second half of the thirteenth century, but were not recognized as a community
until 1294, and even then with no jurisdiction.144 The most detailed study of the
nationalities frequenting the fairs lists merchants from many parts of France (until
1285 territorially distinct from Champagne), Flanders, Brabant, Hainaut, Germany,
Savoy, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and even Sweden - none of them with consuls
or community jurisdictions.145
In summary, only a minority of merchants at the fairs - the Italians and the Provençals
- ever appointed consuls, and these did so only after 1245, sixty years after they had
begun to trade at the fairs. Among those consuls, only some enjoyed jurisdictional
138 Bautier (1953), 126, claims that ‘already prior to the mid-13th century ... the Italians had installed a
consulate for each of their trading colonies at the fairs’, but on p. 127 n. 3 more accurately states that
fifteen other Italian cities recorded consuls in the second half of the thirteenth century.
139 Bautier (1953), 130.
140 Bourquelot (1865), I:151, 154 n. 9, 174. Bautier (1953), 132.
141 Bautier (1953), 130.
142 Bautier (1953), 128.
143 Laurent (1935), 86-95; Bautier (1953), 128-30; Carolus-Barré (1965), 26-7.
144 Bourquelot (1865), 1:199-201; Schonfelder (1988), 21.
145 Bourquelot (1865), I:139-40, 145, 155-9, 168, 196-204, II:24-5, 211-29.
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