Aigues-Mortes, and Marseille, facilitated trade with the western and eastern basins of the
Mediterranean.
The Champagne fairs were a significant international commercial destination in the
era of caravan trade, functioning as a crossroads of interaction between merchants of
northern and southern Europe. Italians traveled by boat to southern France and then north
by two main arteries, the Rhône Valley route involving travel partly on land, partly on
water; and the Regordane, stretching within medieval France from Montpellier or Nîmes
to Alès and north across the Cévennes to Le Puy, Brioude, Issoire, Clermont, and beyond
to Paris or east into Champagne. There was also another, more westerly, passage to Paris
from Montpellier, north through Lodève, Millau, Rodez, Figeac, Aurillac, La Force, and
Clermont. Italians could opt for an overland route to Champagne using the Mont-Cenis
and Saint-Bernard passes in the Alps. The Saint-Gothard pass, opened in 1237, made
possible overland travel between northern Italy and Flanders via the Rhine, eliminating
passage through Champagne. The Atlantic sea route, inaugurated in 1277, provided an
alternative route from the Mediterranean to England and Flanders, further encouraging
the decline of Champagne as a European commercial hub.
Kathryn L.Reyerson
[See also: CHAMPAGNE; FAIRS AND MARKETS; MEDITERRANEAN TRADE;
SHIPS AND SHIPPING; TRAVEL; WINE TRADE]
Bautier, Robert-Henri. “Recherches sur les routes de l’Europe médiévale.” Bulletin philologique et
historique des sociétés savantes 1960 (1961):99–143.
Boyer, Marjorie N. “A Day’s Journey in Medieval France.” Speculum 26(1951):597–608.
Combes, Jean. “Transports terrestres à travers la France centrale à la fin du XI [Ve siècle et au
commencement du XVe siècle.” Fédération historique du Languedoc-Roussillon (1955): 3–7.
Lopez, Robert S. “The Evolution of Land Transport in the Middle Ages.” Moyen âge
69(1963):479–90.
Renouard, Yves. “Les voies de communication entre pays de la Méditerranée et pays de
l’Atlantique: problèmes et hypotheses.” In Mélanges Louis Halphen. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1951, pp. 587–94.
TRANSHUMANCE
. Nomadic animal husbandry involving seasonal migration of flocks and herds.
Transhumance maximized pastoral resources by moving animals to where the grass was
most abundant. In the Middle Ages, it was used especially in the Midi, where changes in
elevation and season of grass growth occur over short distances, to support larger flocks
and herds. Animals were pastured during the winter in lowlands having their rainy season
then, as along the Languedoc coast; in spring and early summer, they were moved to the
high mountain pastures (estives, montagnes, or alpes) of the Pyrénées, the Massif
Central, and the Alps and were brought down again to the lowlands in the fall. Because of
the many passage, feeding, and watering concessions involved, medieval transhumance
was practiced most extensively on a large scale by the great monastic houses; those of
Bonneval and Bonnecombe in Rouergue, for instance, were well known for bringing
sheep and cattle from Quercy up into the high elevations of Rouergue; the animals,
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