The Varied Manuscript Contexts of a Little Practical Text: La devisions des foires de Champagne

The short text most commonly known as La devisions des foires de Champagne is little more than a list of the dates of the six major Champagne fairs followed by an enumeration of the different periods during the fairs. Nevertheless, it raises a number of interesting questions, due in large part to its extremely varied manuscript context, for this little "memory aid" appears both associated with calendars and separately in some dozen manuscripts produced from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. In addition, via those manuscripts we can trace its travels from France to Flanders, England, Italy, and Spain. This article provides a survey of the manuscripts and the contexts in which this text survives.