merchant of Prato. When the London mayor replied that he had heard the Florentine
merchant’s account and concluded that no debt was owed, the fair-wardens responded
by threatening a fair-ban, not against merchants of Florence as the ‘community’ of
which the debtor was indisputably a member, but rather against merchants of London,
as the justice-system which had refused to render legal remedy for a fair-debt.151
The effectiveness of the Champagne fair-ban in enforcing contracts should not be
overstated. Foreign jurisdictions were often reluctant to comply with the Champagne
fair-wardens’ demands. Some jurisdictions adumbrated reasons why compliance was
impossible, claiming that it required an order from a higher authority (as in Malines in
1277152 or Florence in 1279153), or that the debtor had left town (as in Venice in
1299).154 Others moved agonizingly slowly, with the London authorities putting the
fair-wardens off for seven years between 1293 and 1300155 and the Florentine
authorities delaying them for four years between 1294 and 1298.156 Some refused to to
recognize the fair-wardens’ competence, as in 1277 when the Parlement de Paris
imprisoned the Champagne fair-wardens for exceeding their authority in demanding
that the bailli of Vermandois appear in their court.157 Flat refusals were not unknown,
as in 1296-8 when the Florentine authorities told the fair wardens that they were too
busy to concern themselves with an unpaid fair-debt.158 Even when fair-bans were
imposed, they could be avoided, as in 1264 when Cahors merchants attended the
Champagne fairs despite a preceding fair-ban,159 in 1297 when the captain of the
universitas of Italian merchants frequenting the Champagne fairs mediated an
agreement between creditors from Ypres and the Ricciardi firm of Lucca allowing the
latter to attend the fairs despite the existence of a fair-ban against Lucca,160 or in 1302
when the bishop of Paris paid a modest sum to various Piacenzan firms to annul a fair-
ban requested against his subjects.161 On the other hand, creditor merchants would not
have paid the fair-wardens to undertake the elaborate documentary stages on the way
151 Huvelin (1897), 430-1; Bassermann (1911), 46.
152 Bautier (1953), 125.
153 Berti (1857), 247.
154 Laurent (1935), 300.
155 Walford (1883), 250-9.
156 Berti (1857), 256-7, 264-7.
157 Boutaric (1867), I:193 (#2097); Laurent (1935), 281.
158 Berti (1857), 260-1, 267-70.
159 Bautier (1953), 124.
160 Laurent (1935), 297.
161 Laurent (1935), 297-8.
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