Extension:Fairs in Future Galicia in the Pre-Partitions Age
a central role in medieval and early modern trade all over Europe. These annual market days or weeks, as their German name – Jahrmarkt – “annual market” indicates, originated in Western Europe in the 11th century with the emergence of a new type of town – communities of merchants and craftsmen, and a gradual revival of the market economy. Fairs became the main medium of exchange between town and countryside, as well as the focal points of emerging international trade. Apart from trade activities, fairs provided unique opportunities for interaction between different social estates, different religions, and people from different countries and cultures. Fairs could be local or international, urban or rural.
In Poland, fairs were established by royal administrators in royal cities or by the noble lords of a private town or a village or by the local church. In many cases, the establishment of a rural fair eventually caused the transformation of a village into a town. Fairs were usually held on the day of a patron saint of a town or a village, and in some large cities they were conducted several times a year. For example, seven fairs were conducted annually in Kraków: on Jubilate week (fourth week after the Easter), on St. Stanisław day (April 11th), on St. Vitus day (June 15th), on St. John day (June 24th), on the feast of St. Peter in chains (August 1st), on St. Michael day (September 29th), and on St. Jadwiga day (February 28th).
The earliest fair on the territory of future Galicia was the fair of St. Margaret (July 13th) at Nowy Sącz established by King Władisław I the Elbow-high (Łokietek) in 1327. Jews were allowed to attend this fair already at this early age. During the early modern age, when the Jews began to dominate many branches of Polish trade, they naturally attended local and international fairs inside and outside Galicia in large numbers. It was also very important for the Jews that the fairs were exempt from the so-called Privilegium de not tolerandis Judaeis (not to tolerate Jews) granted to many towns, so that they could enter and even remain for a long time in such towns under the pretext of attending the fairs. Polish kings were well aware of the important economic role of the Jewish merchants and they even prohibited to holding fairs on Sabbaths and Jewish holidays.
In the 17th-18th centuries there were 23 urban and 53 rural fairs in Galicia. Their distribution between Eastern and Western Galicia was very uneven: there were 18 urban fairs in Eastern Galicia and only three in Western Galicia, but there were only 10 rural fairs in Eastern Galicia (five of them in the suburbs of Lviv) and 43 rural fairs in Western Galicia. This discrepancy shows that most of the villages in Eastern Galicia continued to maintain the medieval autarchic economy, while many villages in Western Galicia became integrated into the market economy in the 17th-18th centuries.
Of course, many Galician Jewish merchants also attended Polish fairs outside Galicia, such as in Gdańsk, Lublin, Warsaw, Poznań and others, as well as international fairs in Leipzig, Wrocław, Prague, Berlin, Nürnberg, Frankfurt am Main, Amsterdam and others. The share of Jewish merchants from Galicia visiting the largest fair in Central Europe at Leipzig was very low in the 17th century: 59 visits of Jews from Kraków out of 11,942 of all visits of Jewish merchants are recorded for 1675-1699. The proportion of the Jewish merchants from Galicia visiting the Wrocław fair was higher: 21 visits from Kraków and 10 visits from Rzeszów out of 450 of all visits of Jewish merchants in 1678, 1685, 1696, and 1697. It should be taken into account that only independent merchants who paid entrance fees were registered in fairs’ records, but most of the Jews attending international fairs were trade agents of their noble lords or of Jewish and non-Jewish rich merchants. Jewish merchants from Galicia also attended fairs in Iași, Bucharest, and Istanbul being involved in trade with Moldavia and Ottoman Turkey much more than the other Polish merchants. Main commodities exported from or via Galicia were cattle, hides from Moldavia, salt, and Hungarian wine. Main commodities imported to Galicia from abroad were textiles and metal-ware.
Fairs also served as social gatherings, which had political, cultural, and religious significance. Thus, the sessions of the Council of Four Lands usually took place during the fairs of Lublin or Jarosław. Nathan Nute Hanover described the fairs in his mid-17th century chronicle with these words:
“In the summer they travelled to the fair of Zaslav and to the fair of Jarosław; in the winter to the fairs of Lviv and Lublin. There the young men and boys were free to study in any academy [yeshivah] they preferred. Thus, at each of the fairs hundreds of academy heads, thousands of young men, and tens of thousands of boys, and Jewish merchants, and Gentiles like sand on the shore of the sea, would gather. For people would come to the fair from one end of the world to the other. Whoever had a son or daughter of marriageable age went to the fair and there arranged a match. For there was ample opportunity for everyone to find his like and his match. Thus, hundreds and sometimes thousands of such matches would be arranged at each fair. And Jews, both men and women, walked about the fair, dressed in royal garments. For they were held in esteem in the eyes of the rulers and in the eyes of the Gentiles, and the children of Israel were many like the sand of the sea…”
The practice of matchmaking during the fairs was so widespread among the Jews, that in 1634 and 1642 the Council of Four Lands issued special resolutions about fees for matchmakers at the fairs. Special Jewish judges were also appointed for settling conflicts between Jewish merchants during the fairs. During the sessions of the Council of Four Lands conflicts connected to the elections of the council’s officials could deteriorate into riots, as it happened on the fair at Jarosław in 1724, when a riot between supporters of the former marshal of the council, Abraham Isserlis and supporters of the new marshal, Abraham Isaac Fortis broke out.
In Lviv there was also a special “fair of contracts” held for three weeks after the day of the Three Kings (January 6th) before and after the regular urban fair held on the day of St. Agnieszka (January 21st).
It is thus described by the wine merchant Dov Ber Birkenthal of Bolekhiv in his memoirs:
“Most of the nobles had not sufficient money to meet the expenses at Warsaw, and contracted debts, which they promised to repay in Lviv during the time of the [fair of] contracts. So this book-keeper had come here to Lviv to collect these debts, as the nobles used to bring to the [fair of] contracts all the money which they got from their rents, and some of them would buy or sell properties, lend money and pay back debts contracted during the passed year. When some of these nobles saw this book-keeper, they asked: ‘Herr Dietrich, what are you doing here at Lviv?’ The book-keeper replied: ‘I have brought good Hungarian wines here to sell retail; they are stored in the house of the Carmelite friars.’ He said because he did not like to put them to shame by saying that he came to claim their debts. The nobles on hearing this sent their servants with vessels and money to obtain good wine for their masters, and the book-keeper called out to me, (addressing me as his agent): ‘Give wine to this and that gentleman from the cask you know for cash, and enter the amount on the register in proper order.’ In this way ten casks of wine were sold retail in a week. The remainder of the goods were sold during the same time by the whole cask.”
As we can see, Jews who were not allowed to attend this nobles’ gathering, used this opportunity to sell their luxury goods through proxies. Jews also used such occasions to activate their connections with nobles in order to obtain their goals in favor of their communities.
Bibliography: Grocholska, Barbara, "Jarmarki w handlu polskim w drugiej połowie XVIII wieku”, Przegląd Historyczny 64/4 (1973), pp. 793-821. Hundert, Gershon David, “The Role of the Jews in Commerce in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania”, Journal of European Economic History 16/2 (1987), pp. 245-275. Lewicki, Stanisław Józef, Drogi handlowe w Polsce w wiekach średnich i w. XVI, Warszawa 1926. Maroszek, Józef, Targowiska wiejskie w Koronie Polskiej w drugiej połowie XVII i w XVI11 wieku, Białystok 1990. Rybarski, Roman, Handel i polityka handlowa Polski w XVI stuleciu, Poznań 1928. Schiper, Ignacy, Dzieje handlu żydowskiego na ziemiach polskich, Warszawa 1937.