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

2008年的金融危机促使经济和金融史研究重新焕发活力，尽管危机的性质相对短暂，但也重振了对长期市场的研究。最近，对管理现代国际商业的结构的攻击使人们对制度研究产生了怀疑，并引发了对全球化市场未来的疑问。正是在这种质疑和怀疑的背景下，CoMOR项目从“市场一体化”的角度审视了欧洲博览会的历史。在中世纪末期，集市形成了一个基于严密组织的时间表（“集市日历”）的系统，允许商人在特定的地点和特定的日期会面，提前知道。同时，这些集市促进了地方和区域市场（农村和城市）以及跨区域商业网络之间的相互联系。在16世纪，商品和金融市场之间发生了脱钩，这与从金融产品到纯粹货币市场的转变有关。项目的时间边界的选择是为了最好地解释这些主要的转变：从1320年左右香槟旧集市系统的衰落，通过一个由里昂集市主导的周期，到1630年左右贝桑帕尔松集市的衰落。CoMOR项目特别注重研究这些商人聚会的关系方面（及其变化）、参与者的角色和行为。通过综合数据库和地理信息系统，这些交易将首次在空间和时间维度上被绘制出来，追踪商人的交易会、商品、行程和节奏。这个项目的基本数字轴将由法国团队负责数字人文学科，德国团队负责空间人文学科。此次调查以核心研究人员的专业法国、德国、意大利为中心，并希望在项目结束时扩大到其他经济文化地区。”负责CoMOR的法德团队为该项目带来了许多具体的优势。最重要的是，不同时代的互补专业：法国中世纪和德国早期现代主义。其次是共同关注项目的主要地形，从德国南部到里昂，两个团队的成员中也包括意大利北部的专家。最后，虽然每个小组都有一定的学术倾向- -在法国，强烈强调社会历史和经济社会学，在德国，传统的Handelsgeschichte，金融和交换的历史- - -他们都有一个共同的雄心，即对欧洲经济史作出贡献，植根于对交易会在漫长的时间内对经济和社会模式的综合影响的研究。

The financial crisis of 2008 contributed to re-invigorating research in economic and financial history and revive, despite the relatively brief nature of the crisis, studies of markets over long periods. More recently, attacks against structures which have governed modern international commerce have thrown institutional studies into doubt and provoked questions about the very future of globalized markets. It is within this context of questions and doubts that the CoMOR project takes up the history of European fairs from the perspective of “market integrations”. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, fairs formed a system resting on a tightly organized schedule (“calendar of fairs”) which permitted merchants to meet in specific places on specific dates, known well in advance. At the same time, these fairs facilitated the interconnection between local and regional markets (rural as much as urban) and the trans-regional commercial networks. During the sixteenth century, a decoupling occurred between merchandise and financial fairs linked to the shift from financing products to pure money markets. The chronological boundaries of the project have as such been chosen in order to best account for these major transformations: from the decline of the old fair systems at Champagne, around 1320, through a cycle dominated by the fairs at Lyon, to the decline of the fairs at Besançon around 1630. The CoMOR project is particularly attached to studying the relational aspects (and their changes) of these merchant gatherings, the roles and the behaviours of the participants. These exchanges will be mapped for the first time in their spatial and temporal dimensions through an integrated database and GIS tracing the merchants through their fairs, items, itineraries, and rhythms. This fundamental digital axis of the project will be brought to life by the French team with respect to Digital Humanities and the German team for Spatial Humanities. The investigation centers on France, Germany, and Italy, the specialties of the core consortium researchers, with, we hope and expect, expansions towards other economic and cultural regions near the end of the project. The Franco-German team in charge of CoMOR brings a number of specific ad-vantages to the project. Most importantly, a complementary specialization in different eras: French medievalists and early modernist Germans. This is followed by the shared closed focus on the project's main terrain, Southern Germany to Lyon, with both teams also counting among their members specialists in Northern Italy. Finally, while each team brings with it certain academic dispositions – in France, the strong emphasis on social history and sociology of economy, in Germany, a tradition of Handelsgeschichte, the history of finance and exchange – they share an ambition to contribute to the history of the European economy, rooted in the study of the integrating effects of fairs on economic and social patterns over the longue durée.