Les forges champenoises de la comtesse de Flandre (1372-1404)

The Countess of Flanders' Champenois Ironworks (1372-1404). The countess of Flanders decided, in 1372, to build two huge forges in Champagne in order to make money from the wood in her forests in the Othe area, the heart of a very old metallurgical region. These industries' books, kept over a period of thirty years, allow us to understand the functioning of these production units which were linked to the world of fair-towns. The fluctuations in their market relations, closely tied to those of mines—from the moment of their discovery to their mineral exhaustion—shed light on entrepreneurial groups, social divisions, and intervention thresholds, and thus on the industry's economic level.Braunstein Philippe. Les forges champenoises de la comtesse de Flandre (1372-1404). In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 42ᵉ année, N. 4, 1987. pp. 747-777