Champagne fairs of 13th century and eBay?
“The Champagne fairs were an annual cycle of trading fairs held in towns in the Champagne and Brie regions of France in the Middle Ages. From their origins in local agricultural and stock fairs, the Champagne fairs became an important engine in the reviving economic history of medieval Europe, “veritable nerve centres”. serving as a premier market for textiles, leather, fur, and spices. At their height, in the late 12th and the 13th century, the fairs linked the cloth-producing cities of the Low Countries with the Italian dyeing and exporting centres, with Genoa in the lead.”
“The predominance of the Champagne fairs over those of other cities has been attributed to the personal role of the Counts in guaranteeing the security and property rights of merchants and trading organisations attending the fairs, and in ensuring that contracts signed at the fairs would be honoured throughout Western Christendom. The counts provided the fairs with a police force, the “Guards of the Fair”, who heard complaints and enforced contracts, excluding defaulters from future participation; weights and measures were strictly regulated. Historian Jean Favier has written “the success of the Champagne fairs can be attributed solely to this intelligent policy of applying public order to business.”
You must be reading this and thinking: “Why am I citing Wikipedia here?” and “What do I have to do with Champaign fairs that took place in 13th century?”
Yesterday we had innovation class at MIT that draw parallel between those Champaign fairs that took place back in Middle Ages and E-bay. Personally, I was fond of history since the early ages and I really enjoyed drawing those parallels with our Internet reality and events that happened almost thousand years ago.
Indeed the way in which counts created “market place” providing the police force and observers who would control both merchants and customers is very similar to how e-bay organised its on-line platform providing support to both sellers and buyers.
Just last week I have been on another wonderful class where sixty students from over twenty different countries discussed leadership lessons from Japanese movie “Shall we dance”. It was interesting to see how the views varied based on the culture students represented and their backgrounds.
MIT is a unique place where science meets history, culture and innovation. Happy to be part of it!
