A 13th-century stone barn, three storeys tall, originally built as a merchant warehouse during the heyday of the Champagne Fairs. The ground floor opens directly onto Rue Saint-Jean, giving wagons access to load and unload. The vaulted ceiling above is a beautiful example of early Gothic ribbed vaulting.
Today the building houses a museum of medieval trades. Painted figures and informational displays demonstrate the work of the dyers, parchment-makers, stonecutters, money-changers, scribes and farriers who would have crowded the building during the fair seasons. The reconstruction is more pedagogical than atmospheric — it is aimed at schoolchildren — but it gives a clear sense of how the building was actually used.
The basement was later used to collect ecclesiastical tithes paid in grain, which is where the modern name "tithe barn" comes from.