. The county of Champagne was a classic feudal principality of the high Middle Ages and among the most powerful of the realm. The counts, commanding almost 2,000 direct feudal tenants, from great barons to simple knights, created a sophisticated and well-run government. Their farsighted economic policies led to the vigorous development of both the countryside and their castle towns and to the establishment of fairs that made Champagne the center of international trade and finance. The counts were also noted supporters of reformed monasteries, primarily the Cistercians, and patrons of writers, of whom Chrétien de Troyes was the most illustrious. The proximity of Champagne to the royal domain and intimate ties between the comital family and the Capetians led to close, though not always amicable, relations between the two lands and resulted in the county’s ultimate attachment to the royal domain.
As an open region east of Paris bounded by the rivers Aisne, Marne, and Yonne, Champagne lacked a natural center. In the late Roman Empire, northern Champagne was part of a frontier province facing Germanic tribes on the Rhine, while southern Champagne belonged to an interior province centered at Lyon. The church observed that division in creating two archiepiscopal sees, at Reims and Sens. Under the Franks, southern Champagne entered the Burgundian orbit; the northern area, with its chief city of Reims, fell under the sway of royal Francia. Remi baptized Clovis (ca. 496) at Reims, and later Archbishop Hincmar (845–882) made his city the preferred site of royal coronations and its most prestigious monastery, Saint-Remi, the royal necropolis. The cathedral school of Reims enjoyed wide repute from the 9th century, producing such influential personages as Gerbert (later Pope Sylvester II) and Fulbert (later bishop of Chartres).
The collapse of Carolingian government brought political fragmentation to Champagne: numerous counties and lesser lordships, monasteries with immunities, and episcopal cities all resisted integration into larger territorial units. The prelates of Reims and Châlons-sur-Marne, the major urban centers of Champagne, assumed control of their cities and surrounding counties, in effect displacing secular authority from most of northern Champagne. In the 10th century, the house of Vermandois acquired the counties of Meaux and Troyes by marriage, but on the death of Étienne, count of Meaux-Troyes (r. 995–1019/ 21), those counties passed to his closest heir, Eudes II, count of Blois (r. 996–1037). Eudes’s son, Thibaut III of Blois (I of Champagne; r. 1037–89), acquired the adjacent counties of Bar-sur-Aube and Vitry through marriage to Alix de Valois and thus held the four old counties of southern Champagne that would later become the core of the new county of Champagne.
At Thibaut’s death, however, the counties of Champagne were temporarily divided between his sons: Meaux remained with the eldest, Étienne-Henri, count of Blois (r. 1089–1102), while Troyes, Bar-sur-Aube, and Vitry passed to the youngest, Hugues (r. 1093–1125). Since Count Hugues’s most important urban center and principal residence was the city of Troyes, it became the de facto capital of southern Champagne. Count Hugues’s young nephew, Thibaut IV of Blois (II of Champagne; r. 1102–52), spent much time in Champagne in his capacity as count of Meaux, and thus it was natural that when Hugues disowned his own son on suspicion of illegitimacy, he transferred his three counties to Thibaut (1125).
Thibaut le Grand continued his uncle’s support of the Cistercians, who were rapidly expanding in eastern France under Bernard of Clairvaux’s leadership. The count offered secure routes to merchants traveling through the county and supervised trade fairs for the exchange of merchandise. Those Champagne fairs, later organized into a cycle of six terms that rotated between Troyes, Bar-sur-Aube, Provins, and Lagny, became in the course of the 12th century the center of international trade between northern Europe and the Mediterranean. The fairs also served as a financial clearinghouse for princes, aristocrats, and merchants through the 14th century, long after the Atlantic shipping route had displaced the overland trade routes converging in Champagne.
Thibaut’s rapprochement with King Louis VI had longterm consequences for Champagne. The count served as guardian to young Louis VII, whom he escorted to Bordeaux for marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine (1137); and despite a falling out that resulted in the destruction of Vitry by a royal army (1142/43), Thibaut restored good relations with the king, even entrusting his young son Henri to Louis’s entourage on the Second Crusade. That crusade experience forged a bond that later permitted Henri and his brother Thibaut to marry Louis’s two daughters by Eleanor, while the king in turn married their sister Adèle (of Champagne). Their brother Guillaume, in part because of the royal connection, enjoyed rapid promotion in the church as bishop of Chartres (1165–68), then as archbishop of Sens (1168–75) and Reims (1176–1202).
Largely because of Thibaut’s attention, Champagne had become by his death the most promising of his lands.
Not surprisingly, his eldest son, Henri, born and raised in Champagne and associated early in its governance, chose it as his inheritance, leaving Blois-Chartres and Sancerre to his younger brothers, Thibaut and Étienne. The Champagne lands of Henri I le Libéral (r. 1152–1181) consisted entirely of fiefs held from ten lords, of whom the most important were the king (for Meaux), the duke of Burgundy (for Troyes), the archbishop of Reims (for Vitry), and the bishop of Langres (for Bar-sur-Aube). Over his disparate lands, the count created a new territorial unit, the county of Champagne, by imposing a single administrative system of castellanies (districts of his own feudal tenants) and prévôtés (districts of his domainal lands). The organization of the new principality is best seen through the only surviving administrative record from his rule, the census of his feudal tenants known as the Feoda Campanie (1170s), which furnishes the names and military obligations of his barons and knights in each of the twenty-six Champagne castellanies. No doubt, his officials kept equally exact but routine, and therefore expendable, financial accounts of his domain and fair revenues.
Count Henri actively attracted immigrants to clear lands, to create new villages, and to settle in his castle towns. Only two of his towns, however, could approach the size of the neighboring episcopal cities like Reims, Châlons-sur-Marne, and Sens: his capital of Troyes and Provins (which was becoming a second capital), with populations of ca. 15,000 and 10,000, respectively. The growing fairs of Champagne complemented the essentially rural economy of the county and contributed substantial revenues to the comital treasury. The count’s coins, minted at both Troyes and Provins, circulated widely in northern France, and the provinois even acquired international currency through the fairs.
Henri le Libéral was well known for his generosity to the church, as his 400-odd extant charters testify, and founded a number of collegial chapters, of which Étienne of Troyes and Quiriace of Provins served his administrative needs. Henri and Marie also were noted patrons of writers whose interests ranged from spirituality to poetry and romance. Besides Chrétien of Troyes, the best known included Pierre de Celle, Gautier d’Arras, and Gace Brûlé, none of whom, however, were in residence at the count’s court.
Henri II (r. 1181–97) ruled only briefly in Champagne (1187–90). His mother was regent while he was a minor (r. 1181–87) and after he left on the Third Crusade in the company of his uncles, counts Thibaut V of Blois and Étienne de Sancerre, and a large army of Champenois. Henri cooperated closely with his uncle Richard the Lionhearted and, after marrying Isabelle, queen of Jerusalem, assumed leadership of the westerners defending what little remained of the crusader states after Saladin’s conquests.
Henri II’s younger brother, Thibaut III (r. 1197–1201), is remembered chiefly as one of the organizers of the Fourth Crusade, with his cousin Louis, count of Blois, and his brother-in-law Baudouin, count of Flanders. Thibaut’s marshal, Geoffroi de Villehardouin, supervised the logistical arrangements, including the treaty with Venice for the construction of ships, and later recorded his memoirs of that crusade as the Conquête de Constantinople. Count Thibaut, however, died shortly before the expedition departed. To his young widow, Blanche of Navarre, fell the daunting task of defending Thibaut’s posthumous son’s inheritance against Henri II’s daughter by Isabelle. Although Henri II had designated Thibaut as successor in Champagne, should Henri not return, no one had foreseen Henri II’s marriage overseas nor Thibaut’s own untimely death without a male heir.
Countess Blanche’s regency for Thibaut IV (1201–22) was a trying period for Champagne. After almost eighteen years under Marie of France (also known as Marie de Champagne), the barons did not relish another long regency, especially by a foreign-born woman. There was regional resentment, too, as Thibaut III had begun to expand comital authority in southeastern Champagne at the expense of formerly independent baronial families. Ultimately, Blanche’s determination prevailed. A series of treaties with Philip II, for which she paid dearly, placed Thibaut IV under royal protection. When Érard de Ramerupt, scion of the prominent Brienne family, claimed Champagne through his wife, Henri II’s daughter Philippa, the king convened a royal court at Melun (1216) where the peers of the realm (first mentioned here) declared for Thibaut IV. Brienne and his disgruntled supporters attempted a military solution, but a brief civil war (1216–18) left Blanche victorious on the field of battle as well. In May 1222, Blanche handed her son a county not only intact but with a baronage finally subdued.
Thibaut IV le Chansonnier (r. 1222–53) is often depicted as a songwriter of distinction but as an otherwise incompetent leader who committed serious gaffes, such as abandoning Louis VIII at the siege of Avignon (1226) and dallying with the regent queen, Blanche of Castile. In fact, Thibaut IV made significant contributions to the governance and prosperity of the county. He steadily expanded the county eastward, often in competition with the count of Bar-le-Duc, by awarding new fiefs and by purchasing the mouvance of others. He consolidated both central and local administration. A “governor” exercised executive authority in the count’s absence, and financial “receivers” supervised the comital finances. Baillis oversaw the castellanies and prévôtés and convened courts of the first instance. The supreme court of Champagne, the Jours of Troyes, met regularly from this time, although its decisions are known only from a later compilation known as the Coutumier of Champagne (ca. 1290).
The 1230s brought important changes to the county. In 1230–31, Thibaut franchised his castellany towns after they had vigorously resisted an invasion by French barons led by Pierre Mauclerc, duke of Brittany, to avenge Thibaut’s abandonment of their conspiracy against Blanche of Castile. The count commuted tailles and personal restrictions to a wealth-based tax, and he granted a large measure of self-governance exercised by elected mayors and councils. Since the franchises included the towns and their surrounding districts, they applied to most of the count’s nonfeudal tenants. A number of barons subsequently franchised their own tenants. Those who were not franchised in the course of the 13th century, primarily tenants on church lands,
and who therefore retained the old personal liabilities and restrictions, later were stigmatized as “serfs.”
In 1234, Alix, queen of Cyprus, the second daughter of Henri II, arrived in Champagne claiming the county as her inheritance. Thibaut bought her off for £40,000 and a pension, but unable to find the ready cash, he sold the mouvance of Blois (and Sancerre) to Louis IX, thus severing the historic tie between Blois and Champagne. In the same year, however, Thibaut acquired his mother’s inheritance, the kingdom of Navarre, where he and his successors spent many years.
The county achieved its ultimate shape under Thibaut IV. His sons, Thibaut V (r. 1253–70) and Henry III (r. 1270–74), brought Champagne under increasing royal influence. Thibaut V, having married Louis IX’s daughter, maintained a residence in Paris, while Henri affianced his daughter Jeanne (b. 1273), heiress of Champagne, to a son of Philip III. With Jeanne’s marriage to the future Philip IV (1284), Champagne lost its independence. Philip III already had issued directives to the baillis of Champagne, and soon the Jours of Troyes were staffed by royal officials and the county administered as a royal province. Title to both Champagne and Navarre passed through Jeanne to her son Louis X, then to his daughter Jeanne, who was dispossessed of Champagne by Philip V (1316). Charles IV assigned most of the county in dower to his wife (1325) and had the comital archives transferred to Paris.
As a royal province, Champagne suffered misfortune. Heavy taxation spawned an antiroyal league of nobles (1314). The decline of the fairs as trading centers weakened the county’s economic vitality. Plague and the Jacquerie, which flared along the Marne and particularly in Meaux, destabilized the social order. And by the 1370s, the Hundred Years’ War brought its ravages to Champagne. A demographic decline of 50 percent and more, especially in the towns, forced the abandonment of many villages. Only in the late 15th century did some semblance of order return to this once prosperous province.
Arbois de Jubainville, Henri d’. Histoire des ducs et des comtes de Champagne. 7 vols. Paris et Troyes: Schulz-Thuillié-Bouquet, 1859–66.
Benton, John F. “The Court of Champagne as a Literary Center.” Speculum 36 (1961):551–91.
——. “Philip the Fair and the Jours of Troyes.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 6(1969):281–344.
——. “Recueil des actes des comtes de Champagne, 1152–1197” [A “preedition” of 732 acts of Count Henry I, Countess Marie, and Count Henry II. On deposit at the Library of Congress and selected university libraries.]
Berlow, Rosalind K. “The Development of Business Techniques Used at the Fairs of Champagne.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 8(1971):3–32.
Bur, Michel. La formation du comté de Champagne, v. 950-v. 1150. Nancy: Université de Nancy, 1977.
Chapin, Elisabeth. Les villes de foires de Champagne. Paris: Champion, 1937.
Corbet, Patrick. “Les collégiales comtales de Champagne (v. 1150-v. 1230).” Annales de l’Est 29(1977):195–241.
Crubellier, Maurice, ed. Histoire de Champagne. Toulouse: Privat, 1975.
Desportes, Pierre. Reims et les Rémois aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles. Paris: Picard, 1979.
Evergates, Theodore. Feudal Society in the Bailliage of Troyes Under the Counts of Champagne, 1152–1284. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.
——ed. and trans. Feudal Society in Medieval France: Documents from the County of Champagne. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
——. “The Chancery Archives of the Counts of Champagne.” Viator 16(1985):161–79.
Longnon, Auguste, ed. Documents relatifs au comté de Champagne et de Brie, 1172–1361. 3 vols. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1901–14.
——. Rôles des fiefs du comté de Champagne sous le règne de Thibaut le Chansonnier, 1249–1252. Paris: Menu, 1877.
Patault, Anne-Marie. Hommes et femmes de corps en Champagne méridionale a la fin du moyen âge. Annales de l’Est 58 (1978).
