Portugal in a European context: essays on taxation and fiscal policies in late medieval and early modern Western Europe, 1100-1700 9783031062261, 9783031062278

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF FINANCE

Portugal in a European Context Essays on Taxation and Fiscal Policies in Late Medieval and Early Modern Western Europe, 1100–1700 edited by

Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez Amélia Aguiar Andrade

Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance

Series Editors D’Maris Coffman, Bartlett Faculty of Built Environment, University College London, London, UK Tony K. Moore, ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading, UK Martin Allen, Department of Coins and Medals, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Sophus Reinert, Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA, USA

The study of the history of financial institutions, markets, instruments and concepts is vital if we are to understand the role played by finance today. At the same time, the methodologies developed by finance academics can provide a new perspective for historical studies. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance is a multi-disciplinary effort to emphasise the role played by finance in the past, and what lessons historical experiences have for us. It presents original research, in both authored monographs and edited collections, from historians, finance academics and economists, as well as financial practitioners.

Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez · Amélia Aguiar Andrade Editors

Portugal in a European Context Essays on Taxation and Fiscal Policies in Late Medieval and Early Modern Western Europe, 1100–1700

Editors Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences University of Minho Braga, Portugal

Amélia Aguiar Andrade Institute of Medieval Studies—NOVA FCSH Nova University of Lisbon Lisboa, Portugal

ISSN 2662-5164 ISSN 2662-5172 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance ISBN 978-3-031-06226-1 ISBN 978-3-031-06227-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

For millennia, states have been preoccupied with their own formation in contexts of threats to security, internal conflicts with aristocratic and urban, ecclesiastical hierarchies with rebellions, peasantries and a need to integrate diverse populations into polities of compliant subjects. Histories of when, how and why between 1453 and 1815 hundreds of ruling regime and elites from all parts of Europe were conquered by rivals or merged by agreements (often cemented by dynastic marriages) into empires, dominions, realms, princedoms, churches, republics and cities fill university libraries. Led by North’s restoration of insights first elaborated by the German historical school, the dominant concern for the modern generation of economic historians has been to investigate connexions between institutions and long-run economic development. As economists, they have unfortunately remained under-informed about the origins and evaluation of promotional, neural and malign states behind the constructions, maintenance and political destruction of the institutions selected by economic theory as preconditions for the supply of three indispensable public goods for private investment, the extension of markets and innovation—namely, external security, internal order and protection from predation. Nevertheless, the reorientation of economic history to accord a central weight to institutions has implied a re-engagement with traditions of political history concerned with state formation. Attempts by economists to cut out or through that body of scholarship by resorting to analyses v

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based on rational choice, rent-seeking behaviour by elites’ constitutions for freedom exposés of the logical errors of mercantilism and the futility of warfare could only be dismissed by historians as ontologically superficial and by econometricians (as the frontiers of that enticing discipline) as theoretically naïve. Economic historians have anticipated that a middle range of grounded generations about paths and patterns of state formation could emerge (as Schumpeter suggested) from comparative investigations into pathdependent variations in the relative fiscal and financial capacities of European states to fund the provision of external securities, internal order and political stability required for the formation and operation of an interrelated set of institutions required to promote and sustain economic growth over long spans of time. To date, such comparisons have been limited to a small sample of states that happen to have preserved records of amounts of taxes, loans and credits that some central governments assessed and borrowed as funds available to spend for purposes that can be retrospectively recognised as promotional for the growth of economies. Furthermore, most publications on the “rise of Europe’s fiscal and financial states” not only exclude important countries such as Portugal and major provinces of modernday Italy, but work with a chronology that virtually ignores the medieval foundations of European states. The editors of this volume are to be thanked and congratulated by those of us who have explored the tax revenues, loans, credits and fiscal institutions for later centuries, that possess both data we have fortunate enough to access, and primary sources for the study of institutions. Their evidence reveals that their origins can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Narratives comparing the rise, decline and disappearance of European states that neglect influences, developments and divergences that originated in this period are seriously under-specified. All the essays in this book go a long way towards repairing the intellectual myopias of truncated chronologies and expertly qualify our views on the formation of European states and Portugal’s insertion in this context. London, UK

Patrick K. O’Brien, FBA Professor Emeritus of the University of London

FOREWORD

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Patrick K. O’Brien is Centennial Professor of Global Economic History at the London School of Economics (retired). He was Director from 1990–1998 of the Institute of Historical Research and before that Reader in Economic History and Professorial Fellow of St. Antony’s College, Oxford. His research interests include world trade, technology and historiographical traditions; historiographical traditions in the construction of global economic history; the evolution of intercontinental trade from Roman Empire to 1846; macro inventions and macro inventors in English cotton textiles from Kay to Cartwright; the economics of European expansion overseas from the conquest of Ceuta to the Imperian Meridian; the formation and efficiency of fiscal states in Europe and Asia 1500–1914.

Contents

Introduction Amélia Aguiar Andrade and Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

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Medieval and Early Modern Portuguese State Finances: Sources and Evidence The Study of Medieval Fiscal History in Portugal: Results and Problems (1951–2020) Amélia Aguiar Andrade The Collection of Annates in Portugal During the Papacy of Avignon, c. 1316–1377: Just Another Case of Apostolic Tax-Collecting in a Realm at the Back of Beyond? Mário Farelo

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Is the Economy an Issue? Kings and Economic Legislation in Medieval Portugal Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar

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A Difficult Transition: Portuguese State Finances Between Later Medieval and Early Modern Times, c. 1415–1530 Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

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Taxes and Fiscal Institutions in a Maritime Empire, 15th–16th Centuries: A Comparative View of Overseas’ Territories Under the Portuguese Crown Susana Münch Miranda Portugal in a Broader Perspective: The Later Middle Ages and Some Remarks for a Transition Towards the Early Modern Period Amélia Aguiar Andrade and Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

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The Development of State Finance: Portugal in European Context Introduction—Constructing the Modern Fiscal States: Ruptures, Changes, and Permanencies Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez and Tony K. Moore

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The ‘Resource Curse’ of Mediaeval English State Finance, C.1155–1453 Tony K. Moore

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A History of Taxation in the Kingdom of France (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Policies, Rules and Practices Florent Garnier

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Fiscal Tradition and Innovation in Italy, 1350–1650 Luciano Pezzolo A Treasury in Transition: Changes and Continuity in the Management of Castilian State Finances During the Reign of Isabella I (1474–1504) Pablo Ortego Rico

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Public Debt in Late Medieval Crown of Aragon: A(Nother) Financial Revolution? Albert Reixach Sala and Pere Verdés Pijuan

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Why Holland Had a Financial Revolution, but Flanders and Brabant Did not Marjolein ’t Hart

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Public Finance and Fiscal Policy. The Papal States in Early Modern Age Fausto Piola Caselli Portugal and the Europe: Similarities, Bridges and Potential Avenues to Explore in Future Works on Comparative Fiscal History Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez and Amélia Aguiar Andrade

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Notes on Contributors

Andrade Amélia Aguiar is Full Professor in Medieval History at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon (NOVA FCSH). She has held numerous scientific and university positions, in Portugal and abroad, being recently accepted in the College of Expert Reviewers of the European Science Foundation (ESF). Since 2011, she has been Director of the Mario Sottomayor Cardia library and the NOVA FCSH Documentation Centers and, since 2016, the National coordinator of DARIAH—Description the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities and the ROSSIO’s Infrastructure Representative. She is also a member of the Scientific Council of NOVA FCSH, including the vice-presidency from 2006 to 2008. From 2009 to 2012, she was ViceDean of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA FCSH), for which she received a public praise [DR nº 7599/2012]. She was the coordinator of the doctoral course in history of NOVA FCSH (2011–2013), as well as the coordinator of the doctoral course in medieval studies within the framework of a partnership between NOVA FCSH and Universidade Aberta (2016–2018). Amélia Aguiar Andrade also headed the Institute of Medieval Studies of the same faculty between 2011 and 2016. Among her international curriculum, it’s to highlight that she chaired Scientific Committee of the European Association for Urban History (2012–2014). During her career, she received 4 awards and honours. Her research areas are related to medieval urban history, the study of spaces and powers in the Middle Ages and their forms

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of articulation, as well as to the exploration of medieval royal inquiries as a privileged source of treatment for these themes. Caselli Fausto Piola is Professor of Economic History at the University of Cassino and Meridional Lazio, in Italy. He has researched the papal financial network in the late Middle Ages, with particular attention to state balance sheets and to the development of public accounting. He has also dealt with public finances in the early modern period, focusing on the creation of national public debts and the development of tax systems in a comparative perspective. He edited Government Debts and Financial Markets in Europe (2008). Dominguez Rodrigo da Costa was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Graduated in History from the University Center of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais (2001), MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2006) and PhD in History (2013) both from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto. He is currently Junior Research Associate and Director of the Interdisciplinary Center of Social Sciences (CICS.NOVA) at the University of Minho, in Braga, Portugal. He is also a member of international economic, fiscal and social history associations in Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Latin America and the United States, being also President of the Economic and Business History Society (EBHS—USA) for the mandate 2022–2023. His main areas of study have been: Economic and Fiscal History of Portugal in the long run (15th–19th centuries); Portugal’s trade and shipping in the modern times; the impact of modern European conflicts, as the War of the Spanish Succession and Napoleonic Wars, on the Portuguese economic diplomacy between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as the building and consolidation of economic and fiscal institutions in Portugal. He was Visiting Scholar at Appalachian State University (North Carolina, USA) during the Fall Semester 2016, and is referee of Medieval and Early Modern History Journals and Economic History Journals in Portugal, Brazil and the United States. Farelo Mário is Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the ERC-funded project VINCULUM: Entailing Perpetuity: Family, Power, Identity. The Social Agency of a Corporate Body (Southern Europe, 14th– 17th Centuries) [agreement ID 819734]. He also developed between 2009 and 2014 a Postdoctoral Project at the Institute for Medieval

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Studies (NOVA FCSH), Centre of Religious History Studies (Portuguese Catholic University) and LAMOP (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and CNRS) concerning the kingdom of Portugal and the interventionism of the Papacy of Avignon (1305–1377). His research relies on the institutional study of the entailment information system in Portugal (14th to 17th centuries), along with the history of the relations between the realm of Portugal and the Papacy of Avignon; the history of Medieval Lisbon; ecclesiastical, urban and cultural history of medieval Portugal. Garnier Florent is Professor of the History of Law and Institutions at Toulouse 1 at the Faculty of Law, member of the Center Toulousain d’Histoire du Droit et des Idées Politiques (CTHDIP) laboratory (2018). Aggregate in economics and administrative management. Aggregate in Law. He was also Professor of legal history at the University of Auvergne-Clermont 1 (2006). His current research focuses on medieval urban institutions, taxation in the Middle Ages (learned rights and practice), commercial doctrine (19th–20th centuries), norms, cultural heritage law. Miranda Susana Münch is Assistant Professor in the History Department at Nova University of Lisbon. Her current research interests comprise Colonial Governance (Iberian Empires), Fiscal History and Business History. With Leonor Freire Costa and Pedro Lains, she is the author of An Economic History of Portugal, 1143–2010 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016). Moore Tony K. is Lecturer in Finance at the ICMA Centre. He is Programme Director of the MSc in Financial Regulation, a part-time degree for practising regulators offered in collaboration with the Financial Conduct Authority. He is currently the programme director of the MA by Research in Economic History in the Centre for Economic History and has taught for the Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies and the Department of History. His chief research areas are the history of finance and medieval history—and especially the history of finance during the Middle Ages. Other interests include contemporary perceptions of finance, the social utility of finance and the history of regulation. Ortego Rico Pablo is Assistant Professor in the Medieval History Area at the University of Málaga, Spain. Graduated in History from the Complutense University of Madrid in 2007, with a specialisation in Medieval History, he obtained the Extraordinary Degree Award and the

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Third National Degree Award for the 2006/2007 academic year. University Specialist in Archives from the UNED, between 2013 and 2015 he carries out his professional activity as Archives Technician at the Library of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. He has carried out research stays at the “Simancas History Institute” of the University of Valladolid, the CIHAM-UMRS 5648 Laboratory of the University of Lyon II (ENS / LSH—CNRS—University of Lyon II), and the “Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica Francesco di Marco Datini” from Prato (Italy). Pezzolo Luciano is Associate Professor of Modern History at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari University, in Venice. He has his PhD in Economic History from Milan—Bocconi, 1989. Researcher in Economic History at the Faculty of Economics of Ca’ Foscari (1993– 2006), he has been Visiting Scholar at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the Department of Economics of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA). He was also Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He is a member of the editorial board of Acta Histriae. His main fields of interest are military institutions and financial structures in medieval and early modern Europe; the economic and social history of the Republic of Venice; relations between institutions (formal and informal) and economic dynamics in pre-industrial times. He is currently completing a monograph entitled Mars and Pluto. War and Finance in Italy, 1350–1700, under contract to Oxford University Press. Reixach Sala Albert has a PhD in History at the University of Girona (2015) with international mention and extraordinary award of the doctoral programme on Human and Cultural Sciences, after being trained as predoctoral researcher at the Institució Milà i Fontanals of the Spanish National Research Council. From April 2021, he is Juan de la Cierva— Incorporación Researcher at the Department of History of the University of Lleida. He has been Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Girona. He has been visiting scholar at Ghent University and University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. His area of expertise combines studies on several aspects of the society and economy of Late Medieval Crown of Aragon, with a special attention to finances and local institutions. ‘t Hart Marjolein is Head of the History Research Department of the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands in The Hague and

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Professor of the History of State Formation in Global Perspective at VU University Amsterdam. In 1989, she obtained her PhD degree in History at the University of Leiden with a thesis on the rise of the fiscal-military state of the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, supervised by Prof. Charles Tilly (New York) and Prof. Wim Blockmans (Leiden). She was Visiting Scholar at Trinity College Dublin, Fellow of the New School for Social Research at New York, Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Wassenaar and Visiting Professor (Queen Wilhelmina Chair) at Columbia University. She was also a member of the editorial board of a number of periodicals, among others of the International Review of Social History, which she chaired. Her research topics privileges social and economic history, with focus on State formation, warfare and bureaucratisation, Revolts and revolutions, Environmental history, Institutional economic history, in particular the role of finance. Verdés Pijuan Pere has been a tenured scientist at the CSIC’s Institución Milà i Fontanals since 2005. PhD in Geography and History (Medieval History) from the University of Barcelona (2004), he is currently in charge of the line of research “Taxation and Public Finances in the Crown of Aragon (13th–15th Centuries)”. With regard to his research subjects, to date he has concentrated fundamentally on the study of the origins, the structure and the evolution of the municipal tax office in Catalonia during the Middle Ages. In relation to this subject, he has also studied the origin of public debt, the making of the fiscal discourse and the construction of political identity in Catalan cities from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Mention should be made of his particular interest in the processes of urban fortification. He also directs the Critical Glossary of Medieval Taxation, together with D. Menjot, and he belongs to the management committee of the thematic research network “Arca Comunis”, dedicated to the study of taxation in the Hispanic kingdoms since the thirteenth century. Vilar Hermínia Vasconcelos is Assistant Professor with Aggregation at the University of Évora. She has published 20 articles in specialised magazines and 13 works in proceedings of events, has 27 book chapters and 9 published books. Her works privilege the Humanities area with an emphasis on History and Archaeology. In her professional activities, he interacted with 15 collaborators in co-authorship of scientific works, privileging topics as the Portuguese Medieval elites, medieval urban history, economic and social practices and Religiosity.

List of Figures

The ‘Resource Curse’ of Mediaeval English State Finance, C.1155–1453 Fig. 1

Payments made to Burgundian knights (Source Calendar of Liberate Rolls, vol. III–V)

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Public Finance and Fiscal Policy. The Papal States in Early Modern Age Fig. 1

Fig. 2 Fig. 3

Papal debt in the long run. Interests paid (left) and Chamber’s incomes (right). Papal scudi. (Sources check footnote 24) Yearly Chamber’ surplus and losses, 1729–1793. Papal scudi (Sources check footnote 24) Financial contribution to Chamber accounts from Rome (left) and periphery (right). Papal scudi (Sources check footnote 24)

309 315

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List of Tables

The Collection of Annates in Portugal During the Papacy of Avignon, c. 1316–1377: Just Another Case of Apostolic Tax-Collecting in a Realm at the Back of Beyond? Table 1

Volumes of AAV, Collectoriae, with accounts of papal collectors related to Portugal (1309–1377)

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Taxes and Fiscal Institutions in a Maritime Empire, 15th–16th Centuries: A Comparative View of Overseas’ Territories Under the Portuguese Crown Table 1

Madeira’s revenue (in millions réis )

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The ‘Resource Curse’ of Mediaeval English State Finance, C.1155–1453 Table 1

Number of surviving membranes in the principal series of enrolled royal records

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Fiscal Tradition and Innovation in Italy, 1350–1650 Table 1 Table 2

Graduated taxes at Florence, 1442–1481 A graduated tax proposal at Florence in the 1490s

208 210

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LIST OF TABLES

A Treasury in Transition: Changes and Continuity in the Management of Castilian State Finances During the Reign of Isabella I (1474–1504) Table 1

Ordinary and extraordinary income of the Castile Royal Treasury in maravedis (1479–1504)

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Introduction Amélia Aguiar Andrade and Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

During the second half of the twentieth century, European historiography developed a vast and diversified set of studies of late medieval and early modern economic history, in which those of fiscal themes were one of the most innovative ones, engaging breakthrough aspects.1 No wonder that, in the final decades of that century, it was possible to produce important syntheses or comparative approaches, in which, however, Portugal was not included.2 This is not surprising given the current state of knowledge on Portuguese medieval and early modern taxation, which led to 1 Strayer (1970), Brewer (1989), Tilly (1990), Blockmans and Tilly (1994), Hoffman and Norberg (1994), Parker (1996), Epstein (2000), Bordo and Cortés-Conde (2001), Glete (2000, 2002) and Winch and O’Brien (2002). 2 Bonney (1995), Bonney (1999) and Ormrod et al. (1999).

A. A. Andrade (B) Institute of Medieval Studies—NOVA FCSH, Nova University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] R. da C. Dominguez Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_1

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a reading, still persistent in many other themes, that the Portuguese medieval kingdom follows models and practices from the kingdom of Castile, something that, however, more recent investigations have been contradicting. With no wish to advance a more detailed explanation of the past situation regarding research on Portuguese medieval taxation that will be presented in a specific chapter—put the title?—we believe that this omission was fully justified but can be explained by different but complementary causes that are important to know. On the one hand, a scarcity and both chronological and thematic asymmetry of the primary tax sources then known and/or published, made the study of certain thematic lines unfeasible, since they were limited mainly to acquittance letters (cartas de quitação) and scarce records regarding the imposition of extraordinary contributions.3 On the other hand, the lack of interest in economic and fiscal history particularly in Portugal can also be explained by the consequences of a political and ideological dictatorship that prevailed in Portugal between 1926 and 1974, which very clearly conditioned the guidelines of the Portuguese historiographical production, especially regarding medievalism. Based on an apologetic vision of the past that favored themes such as the political autonomy of the kingdom in the twelfth century or the discoveries made from the fifteenth century onward, the official historiography was especially refractory to economic issues that it tended to associate with Marxist perspectives, then strongly repressed. Furthermore, the political isolationism of the Portuguese dictatorship within the European framework made it difficult for researchers to make contact with their foreign peers, contributing to their association to tendentially nationalist perspectives.4 However, in the 1960s, there were perceptible signs of openness, led by figures such as Virgínia Rau5 or A. H. de Oliveira Marques,6 responsible for introducing lines of research on economic history, in line with the guidelines then followed by French historiography, the one to which the Portuguese academy was culturally more connected.

3 Dominguez (2015a) and Gonçalves (1964a, 1964b). 4 Torgal (1996, pp. 241–275). 5 Fernandes (2017). 6 Marques (1962) and Homem (2007).

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However, the knowledge about medieval and early modern taxation was still mostly based on studies produced in the context of the implantation of positivist historiography in Portugal in the nineteenth century7 and on publications of primary sources in an unsystematic and sometimes late manner. Only the preliminary studies by Virgínia Rau on tax institutions such as the Casa dos Contos 8 and the early works written by Iria Gonçalves on extraordinary taxation,9 in line with the European historiography of the time, as well as the entries she prepared on taxes for a collective work,10 contradicted the desert that was the study of medieval taxation. Yet, none of these authors published outside Portugal, so their work had a very limited dissemination. The post-1974 period meant an opening up of Portuguese historiography and, consequently, of Medievalism, not only regarding contacts with the outside world, but above all to a plurality of themes and problems to which it was not easy to respond with consistency and continuity, given how much there was to investigate, the limited human resources available and unstable funding for university research. In this renewal of issues and methodologies that took place from then on, fiscal history continued to be a merely marginal topic.11 However, fiscal studies benefited from the development of research strands launched at that time and present within Portuguese Medievalism. This growth provided the discipline not only with a broadening of perspectives in relation to the primary sources that could serve to support research on fiscal themes but, above all, promoted a renewal, eliminating the history of institutions, moving the topic away from the exclusive view of law historians, or those resulting from the study of urban societies and their political role in the context of the complex of powers in question.12 The reinterpretation of Portugal’s formation process allowed, in turn, a new way of equating the dimensions of royal power and its strategies of affirmation throughout the medieval

7 Barros (1945–1954), reprint of the 1885 edition. 8 Rau (1951). 9 Gonçalves (1964a, 1964b). 10 Iria Gonçalves wrote 40 entries on medieval taxes for the collective work Dicionário

de História de Portugal published between 1965 and 1971. Serrão (1963–1971). 11 Read more on the chapter “The study of Medieval Fiscal History in Portugal: results and problems (1951-2020)”. 12 Mendes (1996, pp. 277–343).

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period, in which taxation emerged as an important element of support and, therefore, a constant concern.13 From the end of the twentieth century onward, the consolidation and expansion of university education and the creation of financial support systems for research made it easier for Portuguese researchers to participate more frequently in scientific meetings and in national and international projects. Moreover, it enabled their integration in European research teams, which contributed to a revival of interest in economic history and fiscal history, which allowed the presence of studies on medieval and early modern taxation in works published abroad14 to become more visible since 2012. A new generation of researchers interested in economic history is being able to combine a wider and more diversified primary information with the economic, social and political conjunctures of the Portuguese kingdom, major theoretical lines in the meantime developed by European historiography, thus integrating the Portuguese case with a vision wider and more systemic, in European terms. The recent situation that we have just mentioned has contributed to nuance and even sometimes to lead to opposing interpretations of Portuguese medieval taxation as an almost mimetic of Castilian taxation. Undoubtedly, there are common heritages shared by these two kingdoms, such as Roman, Visigoth and Islamic, the latter still insufficiently studied for the Portuguese case.15 Portugal and Castile also shared a common process of territorial gains—the reconquest (Reconquista)—which had as a corollary social and economic specificities that were transformed in the medieval diachrony, and both starred in moments of opening to the world beyond the Pyrenees and to the influences that came from it, albeit with different chronologies and degrees of depth. However, these two political units also experienced significant discrepancies, such as those resulting from different territorial and social scales, from a non-coincidental form of articulation between the powers, since in Portugal, a more intervening presence and assertiveness from the monarchs was more evident during much of medieval chronology. All

13 Mattoso (1985–1986). 14 Mata (2012), Dominguez (2015b), Dominguez and Carrara (2018) and Henriques

(2014, 2015, 2017, 2021). 15 Fernandes (2011).

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of this, as demonstrated by José Mattoso, underpinned the counties’ political support of which they were lords and which constituted the overwhelming majority of the kingdom’s urban network.16 Divergences that justify that lexical similarities cannot be considered without much prudence and critical spirit, as is the case, for example, with Portuguese Alcavala and Castilian Alcabala, which despite being almost identical in their spelling, however, do not correspond to identical scopes.17 In the same way, these peninsular kingdoms differ in the role granted to extraordinary taxation or taxation on consumption—the sisas —in the structuring of the tax systems they implemented.18 The study of Portuguese medieval taxation and its consequent integration into global and systemic approaches to the taxation of medieval Christian Europe may have the potential to be an attractive contribution to the analysis of the problems of the relationship/tension between center and periphery. Indeed, the Portuguese kingdom appears in this chronology as a clearly peripheral space, both in the peninsular and in the European context. Yet, peripheral but not isolated, well-linked to other kingdoms, and favored by its pivotal position in maritime contacts between the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Additionally, throughout the medieval centuries, it was possible to establish political and cultural contacts with other kingdoms, although not always in coincident chronologies. Recollecting, for example, the stay of the future King Alfonso III (1248–1279) between 1227 and 1246 at the court of his cousin, Louis IX of France (1226–1270),19 the intense mercantile contacts with the European Atlantic façade since the second half of the thirteenth century,20 the political proximity to Aragon—its preferred ally in the context of disputes between Iberian kingdoms21 —or the close links with England were carried out by the Avis dynasty during the fifteenth century.22 All moments were capable of generating significant

16 Mattoso (1985–1986). 17 Ladero Quesada (1992), Asenjo (2006), Barros (1945–1954, vol. IX, p. 400) and

Farelo (2015). 18 Rosa (2020, pp. 138–161) and Menjot (2017). 19 Ventura (2006, pp. 44–51). 20 Andrade and Miranda (2017). 21 Branco and Farelo (2011). 22 Vigil Montes (2019).

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synergies and influences. Portugal can thus constitute a space for observation of the way in which a peripheral kingdom in the European and peninsular contexts received, assimilated and transformed influences from tax systems implemented in other European regions, economically and politically more capable of constituting dominant poles and, as such, of imposing models of taxation practices. The beginning of Portuguese maritime expansion which started with the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 provided a territorial expansion of the kingdom. An extension very different from those experienced by other European monarchies, which they would only undertake in later chronologies. Marked by a clear territorial discontinuity, it reached all known continents at the end of the fifteenth century, thus assuming itself as what we can consider as a global reality, it implied a capacity to respond to enormous challenges of military, political and economic deployment. It is not up to us here to detail these processes, which historiography increasingly elucidates in a more problematizing and detailed way.23 However, we want to point out that the diversity of military solutions and of occupation and colonization that had to be applied demanded a higher financial burden while the new products entered in the mercantile circuits proved to be highly resilient, as was the case with gold, African slaves and spices, as well as sugar from Madeira.24 All of them had repercussions on the tax system then in operation in Early Modern Portugal, overlapping with previous taxation practices, which had their roots back in the late middle ages. In some ways, the fifteenth century and the new territories will constitute the time and space for testing, the success and failure of adapting the tax system to the new needs generated by new products, by fragile administrative frameworks in a permanent ongoing change, and for social alterations that the expansive process had brought about. The implementation of new taxes, the management of the royal monopolies then established, the creation of new institutions for the economic framework of the new territories, such as the Casa de Ceuta or the Casa da Guiné, attest to this adaptation effort. We therefore believe that the medieval roots of Portuguese taxation and the adaptations put into practice in the

23 Pedreira (2007). 24 See the chapter “Taxes and fiscal institutions in a maritime empire, fifteenth-sixteenth

centuries: a comparative view of overseas’ territories under the Portuguese Crown”.

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expansive beginnings, still in the fifteenth century, constitute an indispensable element for understanding what will be, later, the tax framing implemented in territories such as India or Brazil. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought to light the rise of modern states and the necessity of a systematic organization of their finances, in order to cope with the competition between them for the domination in the first global age. Conquering, coand sustaining recently subjugated territories and supporting demanding warfare needs became the ultimate priority for Western European kingdoms. In this sense, the field of Economic History of warfare and state formation has been key to understand why economic policies—in which taxation was key to—were fundamental for their prosperity and growth.25 In this sense, Portugal was not different from other European powers in many structural ways. However, the Portuguese were different in the sense that they were the pioneers of the oceanic expansion. For this reason, much of their knowledge of fiscal and financial matters was built tapping into new features and challenges, creating ad hoc solutions for a worldwide empire in permanent change, developing new structures and institutions and embedding them with the existing ones without destroying them.26 Here, it is important to point out the intervention of the Portuguese crown as a determinant of a policy that redirected all the efforts toward the conquest, in search of an alternative for closing trade with Asia via the Middle East. The expansion of the colonization framework to Africa, Asia and South America was based on fiscal and commercial privileges. With this relationship, the Portuguese crown strengthened its links with colonizers, and expanded a patronage network that gravitated closer to the royal orbit. Likewise, the system of donatary captaincies made possible, at the same time, the occupation of the territories by the Portuguese, a fundamental fact to reinforce and justify before the other maritime powers the question of Portuguese sovereignty in these same spaces.27 However, this scenario of sovereignty and stability was disrupted by the Iberian Union (1580–1640), when much of the differences between Portugal’s and Castile’s fiscal practices would become 25 Hoffman and Rosenthal (1997), Dincecco (2011, 2017), Dincecco and Prado (2012), Dincecco and Katz (2016), Dincecco and Onorato (2018), Hoffman (2011, 2012, 2015) and Eloranta et al. (2016). 26 Pedreira (1998, 2007), Newitt (2005) and Disney (2009). 27 Silva (2015).

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evident, despite their political union and the maintenance of most of social and economic practices.28 The organization of this volume intends to point out what seems to us the most important of the set of situations mentioned above. The first part, under the responsibility of Portuguese researchers, focuses on the comprehension of Portugal’s medieval and early modern fiscal roots, analyzing fundamental aspects of the Portuguese taxation practices by a set of relevant case studies done in a comparative perspective to what was happening in Western Europe. In this sense, Amélia Andrade’s chapter on the study of Medieval Fiscal History in Portugal, its results and problems provide a broader scenario of what has been done in terms of research in terms of the study of taxation practices, financial institutions and economic-administrative practices over the last seven decades. It is a complete and fundamental state of the art regarding the construction of Portuguese fiscal historiography for the later Middle Ages, a period that underpins the assembling of further modern fiscal institutions within the Portuguese empire. Besides, it discusses the long path gone by Portuguese scholars so far and debate some of the blanks that are still to be filled in. Next, Mario Farelo approaches one of the least known features of Portugal’s fiscal history: the ecclesiastical taxation. His case study regarding the Annates collection procedures in the Portuguese collectorate, gives us precious details about the interaction between the Crown and the papacy of Avignon. Moreover, it addresses one of the bigger challenges of our historiography, which is to assess the big picture in terms of a larger operability of apostolic taxation within the Portuguese kingdom in a comparative way to what happened in other cases within the Western Christendom. Following the sequence, Hermínia Vilar engages the Portuguese fiscal framework from the law’s perspective. Her view of the legal structures provided the cornerstones to the first fiscal practices in Portugal. It addresses the importance of political economy in the construction of a body of legislation which will endure along the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in a key period when the Reconquista was finished

28 Diffie and Winius (1977) and Yun-Casalilla (2019a, 2019b).

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and the reconfiguration of fiscal institutions were fundamental to redirect economic practices and separate the king’s treasury from the State’s revenues. Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez’s chapter engages the analysis of a specific context of an “organic institutional development”, i.e., a key period for the Portuguese fiscal constitution, regarding the transition toward a tax state. Based on indirect taxation, the Portuguese Crown put in practice a policy of permanent state of war and an active trade with different European ports, in order to underpin the State’s finances. However, those revenues served most to a redistribution process that hampered some of the empire’s needs and the improvement of fiscal institutions. Last but not least, Susana Miranda enlightens in her chapter how the Portuguese dealt with the challenges of exercising fiscal jurisdiction in non-European territories and settlements in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. By using the cases of Madeira Island and the Estado da India, it demonstrates how the Portuguese fiscal institutions served as a baseline and were adapted to the local circumstances. Moreover, it elucidates how those models served to Portugal’s ultimate goal, which was raising fiscal revenues to sustain imperial desires. In the end, the editors provide an afterword with an overview of the development of Portuguese state finances. Overall, this part aims to offer the readers, above all, an unprecedented broader and detailed overview of Portugal’s most significant features regarding its fiscal history. Moreover, it is intended to assemble studies that produce interaction between Portugal and Western Europe, following many of the issues previously discussed here. We are pleased to offer this volume which reflects a solid tentative of putting Portugal in the map of Western European Fiscal History.

References Andrade, A. A., & Miranda, F. (2017). Lisbon. Trade, urban power and the king’s visible hand. In W. Blockmans, M. Krom, & J. Wubs-Mrozewicz (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of maritime trade around Europe: 1300–1600 (pp. 333–351). Routledge. Asenjo González, M. (2006). Los encabezamientos de alcabalas en la Castilla bajomedieval. Fuentes de renta y política fiscal. In M. Sánchez & D. Menjot

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(Eds.), Fiscalidad de Estado y fiscalidade Municipal em los reinos hispânicos medievales (pp. 135–170). Casa de Velázquez. Barros, H. G. (1945–1954). História da administração pública em Portugal nos séculos XII a XV (11 vols). Sá da Costa. Blockmans, W. P., & Tilly, C. (1994). Cities and the rise of states in Europe AD 1000 to 1800. Westview Press. Bonney, R. (Ed.). (1995). Economic systems and state finance. Oxford University Press. Bonney, R. (Ed.). (1999). The rise of the fiscal state in Europe, c. 1200–1815. Oxford University Press. Bordo, M. D., & Cortés-Conde, R. (2001). Transferring wealth and power from the old to the new world: Monetary and fiscal institutions in the 17th through the 19th centuries. Cambridge University Press. Branco, M. J., & Farelo, M. (2011). Diplomatic relations: Portugal and the others. In J. Mattoso dir., (Ed.), The historiography of medieval Portugal: c. 1950–2010 (pp. 231–259). IEM-NOVA FCSH. Brewer, J. (1989). The sinews of power: War, money and the English state, 1688– 1783. Unwin Hyman. Diffie, B. W., & Winius, G. D. (1977). Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580. University of Minnesota Press. Dincecco, M. (2011). Political transformations and public finances: Europe, 1650– 1913. Cambridge University Press. Dincecco, M. (2017). State capacity and economic development. Cambridge University Press. Dincecco, M., & Prado, M. (2012). Warfare, fiscal capacity and performance. Journal of Economic Growth, 17 (3), 171–203. Dincecco, M., & Katz, G. (2016). State capacity and long-run performance. Economic Journal, 126(590), 189–218. Dincecco, M., & Onorato, M. (2018). From warfare to wealth: The military origins of urban prosperity in Europe. Cambridge University Press. Disney, A. R. (2009). A history of Portugal and the Portuguese empire: From beginnings to 1807 (2 vols.). Cambridge University Press. Dominguez, R. da C. (2015a). Das finanças locais às finanças do Estado: as cartas de quitação em Portugal entre os séculos XIV e XVI. História Econômica & História de Empresas, 18(1), 61–92. Dominguez, R. da C. (2015b). La réalité: les pedidos du Portugal et la collecte de recettes extraordinaires à la fin du Moyen Âge. In K. Béguin (dir.), Ressources publiques et construction étatique en Europe XIIIº-XVIIIº siècle (pp. 49–66). Comité pour l’Histoire Économique et Financière de la France – IGPDE. Dominguez, R. da C., Carrara, A. A. (2018). Taxation in Brazil in the Napoleonic Wars: Neutrality, economy and the outcomes of a royal court in transit. In J. Eloranta, E. Golson, P. Hedberg & M. C. Moreira (Eds.), Small

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and medium powers in global history: Trade, conflicts and neutrality from the 18th to the 20th centuries (pp. 95–115). Routledge. Eloranta, J. A., Golson, E., Markevich, A., & Wolf, N., (Eds.). (2016). Economic history of warfare and state formation. Springer (Studies in Economic History). Epstein, S. (2000). Freedom and growth: The rise of states and markets in Europe, 1300–1750. Routledge. Farelo, M. (2015). “Alcavala I” ;“Alcavala II”, Glosario Crítico de Fiscalidad Medieval, Institucion Milá y Fontanals. http://www.1minut.info/glosariofisc alidad.org/wp/ Fernandes, H. (2011). The Gharb al-Andalus—Three decades of historiographical renewal. In J. Mattoso (dir.), The historiography of medieval Portugal (c.1950–2010) (pp. 547–561). IEM - NOVA FCSH. Fernandes, H. (2017). Virgínia Rau: Algumas variações sobre um cosmopolitismo. Faces de Eva. Estudos sobre a Mulher, 37, 23–39. Glete, J. (2000). Warfare at sea, 1500–1650: Maritime conflicts and the transformation of Europe. Routledge. Glete, J. (2002). War and the state in early modern Europe. Routledge. Gonçalves, I. (1964a). O Empréstimo concedido a D. Afonso V nos anos de 1475 e 1476 pelo almoxarifado de Évora. Ministério das Finanças. Gonçalves, I. (1964b). Pedidos e Empréstimos Públicos em Portugal durante a Idade Média. Ministério das Finanças. Henriques, A. C. (2014). The rise of a tax state: Portugal, 1371–1401. e-Journal of Portuguese History, 12(1), 49–66. Henriques, A. C. (2015). Plenty of land, land of plenty: The agrarian output of Portugal (1311–20). European Review of Economic History, 19(2), 149–170. Henriques, A. C. (2017). The Reconquista and Its Legacy, 1000–1348. In D. Freire & P. Lains (Eds.), An Agrarian history of Portugal, 1000–2000 (pp. 13– 44). Brill. Henriques, A. C. (2021). A thirteenth-century fiscal constitution. In L. Brites Pereira, M. E. Mata & M. R. de Sousa (Eds.), Economic globalization and governance: Essays in honor of Jorge Braga de Macedo (pp. 51–59) Springer Cham. Hoffman, P. T. (2011). Prices, the military revolution, and western Europe’s comparative advantage in violence. Economic History Review, 64(S1), 39–59. Hoffman, P. T. (2012). Why was it Europeans who conquered the world? Journal of Economic History, 72(3), 601–633. Hoffman, P. T. (2015). What do states do? Politics and economic history. Journal of Economic History, 75(2), 303–332. Hoffman, P., & Norberg, K. (Eds.). (1994). Fiscal crises, liberty and representative government, 1450–1789. Stanford University Press.

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Hoffman, P. T., & Rosenthal, J.-L. (1997). The political economy of warfare and taxation in early modern Europe: Historical lessons for economic development. In John N. Drobak & John V. C. Nye (Eds.), The frontiers of the new institutional economics (pp. 31–55). Academic Press. Homem, A. C. (2007). A.H. de Oliveira Marques (1933–2007). Historiography and citizenship. e-Journal of Portuguese History, 5(2), Winter. Ladero Quesada, M.-A. (1992). Los primeros pasos de la alcabala castellana, de Alfonso X a Pedro I. Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 22, 785–801. Marques, A. H. O. (1962). Ideário para uma História Económica de Portugal na Idade Média. Revista de Economia, XIV (III), 181–197, republished and enlarged in Marques, A. H. O. (1980). Ensaios de História Medieval Portuguesa (pp. 17–50). Vega. Mata, M. E. (2012). From pioneer mercantile state to ordinary fiscal state: Portugal, 1498–1914. In B. Yun-Casalilla, P. K. O’Brien & F. Comín Comín (Eds.), The rise of fiscal states: A global history, 1500–1914 (pp. 215–232). Cambridge University Press. Mattoso, J. (1985–1986). Identificação de um país : ensaio sobre as origens de Portugal: 1096–1325 (2 vols.). Estampa. Mendes, J. A. (1996). A renovação da historiografia portuguesa. In L. R. Torgal, J. A. Mendes, & F. Catroga (Eds.), História da História em Portugal. Séculos XIX e XX (pp. 277–343). Círculo de Leitores. Menjot, D. (2017). Taxation and sovereignty in medieval Castile. In Y.-G. Liang and J. Rodriguez (Eds.), Authority and spectacle in medieval and early modern Europe. Essays in honor of Teofilo F. Ruiz. Routledge. Newitt, M. D. (2005). A history of Portuguese overseas expansion, 1400–1668. Routledge. Ormrod, W. M., Bonney, R., & Bonney, M. (Eds.). (1999). Crises, revolutions and self-sustained growth. Essays in European fiscal history, 1130–1830. Shaun Tyas. Parker, G. (1996). The military revolution: Military innovation and the rise of the west, 1500–1800 (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Pedreira, J. (1998). To have and to have not. The economic consequences of empire: Portugal (1415–1822). Revista de Historia Económica/Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 16(1), 93–122. Pedreira, J. (2007). Costs and Financial Trends in the Portuguese Empire, 1415– 1822. In F. Bethencourt & D. R. Curto (Eds.), Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400–1800 (pp. 49–87). Cambridge University Press. Rau, V. (1951). A Casa dos Contos. Universidade de Coimbra-Faculdade de Letras. Rosa, C .(2020). Fiscalidade régia: o caso da Lisboa medieval (Master’s Thesis). NOVA FCSH.

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Serrão, J. (Ed.). (1963–1971). Diccionário de História de Portugal (4 vols). Iniciativas Editoriais. Silva, F. R. (2015). Portuguese empire building and human mobility in São Tomé and Angola, 1400s–1700s. In D. Vigneswaran & J. Quirk (Eds.), Mobility makes states: Migration and power in Africa (pp. 37–58). University of Pennsylvania. Strayer, J. R. (1970). On the medieval origins of the modern state. Princeton University Press. Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, Capital, and European states, AD 990–1990. B. Blackwell. Torgal, L. R. (1996). A história em tempo de «ditadura». In L. R. Torgal, J. A. Mendes & F. Catroga (Eds.), História da História em Portugal. Séculos XIX e XX (pp. 241–275). Círculo de Leitores. Ventura, L. (2006). D. Afonso III . Círculo de Leitores. Vigil Montes, N. (2019). «Tractados de pazes, aliança e concordia entre as duas coroas de Portugal e Inglaterra», un cartulario realizado a comienzos del siglo XV para consolidar el Tratado de Windsor entre los reinos de Inglaterra y Portugal (1386), la alianza permanente más prolongada de la historia. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Revista de la Facultad de Geografía e Historia, 32, 469–498. Winch, D., & O’Brien, P. K. (2002). The political economy of British historical experience. Oxford University Press. Yun-Casalilla. B. (2019a). Iberian world empires and the globalization of Europe, 1415–1668, Palgrave Macmillan. Yun-Casalilla, B. (2019b). Historia Global, historia transnacional e historia de los imperios: El Atlántico, América y Europa (siglos XVI-XVIII). Institución Fernando el católico-Diputación de Zaragoza.

Medieval and Early Modern Portuguese State Finances: Sources and Evidence

The Study of Medieval Fiscal History in Portugal: Results and Problems (1951–2020) Amélia Aguiar Andrade

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Introduction

The essentials of the fiscal system in Portugal began to emerge in the medieval period together with a regulatory framework and certain institutions and practices facilitating its operation, albeit with degrees of effectiveness that are yet to be determined. Nevertheless, it was this fiscal system—subsequently adapted and modified—that became the model for the fiscal structure in the extra-European territories subsumed into the kingdom of Portugal in the sequence of the early maritime expansion initiated in the fifteenth century and which, as is well-known, preceded the expansion of other European kingdoms, notably neighbouring Castile. These processes justify the pressing need to study the taxation system of medieval Portugal since, as in other medieval polities,

A. A. Andrade (B) Institute of Medieval Studies - NOVA FCSH, Nova University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_2

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it was a fundamental element in the financial stability of the polity, especially concerning the administration of its political, military, and economic institutions.1 A royalty that had won prestige through victory in the wars of the Portuguese Reconqista, brought to a close with important territorial gains in the mid-thirteenth century, put into practice a diverse set of strategies with the principal aims of strengthening royal authority and the kingdom’s political apparatus as a means of ensuring not only royal ascendency domestically over competing powers among the clergy and the nobility, but also in order to achieve external political consolidation in the face of the ever-complicated chess-board of Iberian political units.2 At a conspicuously transitional juncture involving a complex transformation from an economy and a society organised for war to a progressive market economy with its obvious social consequences, the Portuguese monarchs found in the township communities, to whom they granted charters of rights, important allies in the bringing under their authority of communities that could simultaneously ensure settlement, promote economic development, and serve the military defence of the kingdom.3 In the texts of these charters, which as José Mattoso has highlighted,4 set out in writing the division of duties and rights as between the king that grants them and the communities that receive them, the taxation system, which is carefully expounded therein, reveals to be an important element in the obtaining of revenue capable of ensuring the Crown’s financial ability to develop the administrative institutions that it sought to establish, and to cover a cluster of different expenses the most important being military affairs, the maintenance of the court, and further to achieve an economic redistribution through donations and the granting of privileges, especially to those receiving them, which avoided possible situations of social and political conflict.5 Conditions during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries inevitably meant that this fiscal framework had to be extended in terms of objectives, people, and taxable income, and redistributive processes. Indeed, 1 Galán Sánchez and Carretero Zamora (2013). 2 Mattoso (1985–1986, vol. 2) and Mattoso (2001). 3 Andrade (1999: 164–167, 171–174). 4 Mattoso (1987). 5 Mattoso (1985–1986, vol. 2: 630–632).

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besides the broader issues facing Portugal, for example, Iberian political disputes, the Hundred Years War, the consequences of the Black Death, and an imbalance between demographic growth and available agricultural produce, there were internal situations which space forbids be detailed herein, which nevertheless had important consequences.6 A question of succession led to a war that was decisive for the maintenance of Portuguese political independence between 1385 and the first decade of the following century, which gave rise to a new dynasty whose origins in bastardy bore significantly on the actions of the monarchs of the 1400 s, involving various practices of legitimation, including the resumption of crusading warfare with the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 and the need for a policy affirmative of royal authority.7 Further, a moment of conflict at the end of the fourteenth century had led to a process of reconfiguration of the nobility which subsequently increased their dependence on royal favour for obtaining income and prestige, and which soon found one of its principal scenarios in the war of conquest in the Maghreb.8 On the other hand, in the political relationship between cities and towns under baronial governance and the monarch, there was also a progressive change that was simultaneously marked by two distinct situations: firstly, a greater interventionism on the part of the monarchs in township management through a prescriptive regulation of the functioning of municipal government, especially in Lisbon, the most important city of the kingdom and of average European size9 and, secondly, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, in the lordship of royal cities and towns on account of grants of seigniory to members of the royal family or, to nobles engaged in military service in the fortresses of North Africa.10 The fifteenth century was also a time of new revenues favoured by the institution of royal monopolies resulting from the Maritime Expansion, from the trade in gold and African spices, in sugar from Madeira and in slaves.11 However, it was also a time of novel and sizeable expenses such as those occasioned by the maintenance of the Portuguese strongholds 6 Marques (1987: 204–220). 7 Coelho (2008: 40–45). 8 Sousa et al. (2009: 156–192). 9 Andrade (1999: 160–162). 10 Silva (2020: 137–149) and Gomes (2006: 119–139). 11 Pedreira (2007).

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in Morocco, by significant Portuguese activity in the South Atlantic in the defence of navigation and trade monopolies, by the complexity of the administrative institutions, now specialised and autonomous and entailing voluminous corps of officials12 and further by the more ritualised court life which thereby became more extravagant and expensive.13 The foregoing very brief and accordingly incomplete picture nevertheless bespeaks the importance of taxation. Indeed, many of the scenarios enumerated can only be fully appreciated when their financial underpinnings are understood which, in large part, were supplied through the levying of taxes.14 One would therefore expect Portuguese historiography to have favoured the study of medieval taxation. Yet, this has not been the case. Rather, for a considerable time, it remained a minor, even marginal, topic in the more global context of Portuguese historiography, making it difficult to include it in broader discourses around medieval fiscal history and with only a diminished contribution where more expansive interpretations were called for.15 Beginning from the above observations, the reflections in this paper are woven around three basic questions for which it will be sought to provide answers: Why has Portuguese historiography not concerned itself with fiscal history? What are the main lines of research undertaken so far and what place do they occupy within the broader global historiography on the subject? To what extent can the sources available allow new investigations and can these investigations be inserted into the wider context of the debate on the history of medieval taxation? Reasons for the scant interest revealed in Portuguese historiography in the study of medieval taxation are rooted in two distinct yet complementary factors: the availability of specific primary sources, and the thematic pathways travelled by Portuguese medievalists, with a due appreciation of the latter requiring the consideration of a lengthy time period and the contemplation of several discrete factors. It is these two elements that have been important obstacles in the thematic orientation of research undertaken so far, while the availability of primary sources continues to influence the possible lines of study of medieval taxation.

12 Homem (1980: 119–131, 171–172). 13 Pedreira (2007) and Gomes (2003). 14 Dominguez (2012). 15 Barata and Henriques (2011).

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Primary Sources: Availability and Problems

The idea of the survival of fiscal primary sources in insufficient quantity and quality to permit the study of medieval Portuguese taxation and the concomitant addressing of themes that are, in other historiographies, clearly present and intensely studied, is a notion resulting partially from a vision inherited from the nineteenth-century positivist authors, including Gama Barros who was responsible for a substantial corpus of work on the history of administration.16 This impression of paucity of sources has also been conditioned by the persistence, until only recently, of a view of documentary survival predicated on old archival inventories such as those promulgated by the Lisbon Academy of Sciences at the end of the eighteenth century,17 a general picture that has been exacerbated over the years by a somewhat unsystematic publication of medieval sources that has occasionally lacked continuity.18 However, especially since the end of the twentieth century, the landscape has been changing with the reorganisation of national archives in accordance with international directives and classification systems, a process that has been accompanied by an extensive digitalisation programme, making many thousands of documents available to researchers on free and open access.19 Even so, these changes have been slow in reaching some archives such as those of the municipal authorities, or reserves under the stewardship of the Church, the latter being repositories of important documental collections pertaining to the religious institutions, especially the secular.20 Nevertheless, the lack of fiscal records is real and permanent, and results from circumstances that are tangibly concrete, if not always amenable to satisfactory justification. On the one hand, the earthquake and tsunami that struck Lisbon in 1755 exacted a devastating toll on the administrative institutions of the capital situated close to the River Tagus.21 Buildings including those of the Casa dos Contos, the Casa da Índia, and the Alfândega (customs house) were either severely damaged

16 Barros (1945–1954). 17 Ribeiro (1798). 18 Mattoso (1988: 70). 19 Gomes (2011: 25–44) and Mattoso (1988: 69–78). 20 Sousa et al. (2016). 21 França (1977) and Silva (2007: 103–106).

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or completely obliterated resulting in irreparable documentary loss. The specialisation of these bodies had led to the keeping of economic and fiscal documentation in places outside the royal archive of the Torre do Tombo located inside the Castle of Lisbon, and it is clear from the inventorying process of the royal archive launched in the early sixteenth century, that this situation was already subsisting at the time the inventory was begun.22 On the other hand, almost all the medieval documentation produced by intermediate fiscal institutions, such as the almoxarifados (revenue offices), in existence since the thirteenth century, and the customs houses, has not been preserved. In the present state of knowledge, it has not been possible to determine the reasons for the disappearance of this considerable volume of documentation which we certainly know to have existed through the numerous references to its production, made by specific corps of scribes. Mention should also be made of the near total loss of the royal notaries’ books—the few copies we possess date from the end of the fifteenth century. These were the ledgers that from the early thirteenth century had assured the authentication and consequent validity of documental production, which hampered the survival of private documentation and of registers of copies of documents issued and authenticated by them.23 A similar situation arises, although to a lesser extent, with documentation resulting from township management such as books of town-council decisions, account books, and ledgers and/or books produced in the course of collecting extraordinary taxes deriving from the need to cover certain unexpected expenses of the community—the fintas —or at the behest of the monarchs, such as the pedidos e serviços (requests and services).24 If the non-preservation of this last type of documentation can be justified by the fact that they are records subject to recurrent and indispensable updating, both concerning the identity of the taxpayers and their taxable income, and the amounts to be collected and/or in fact collected, the same justification cannot serve for the rest of the council documentation. This circumstance stands in contrast (in varying degrees) to

22 Pessanha (1905: 287–303). 23 Sá-Nogueira (2008). 24 Coelho (2021: 25–29).

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the continued existence of medieval urban administrative documentation in other European and even Peninsular cities, which has been carefully preserved in significant volume.25 This “specificity” in the preservation of Portuguese council documentation was already evident in the late eighteenth century, when a survey was carried out of the state of the kingdom’s archives,26 and contrasts with the relatively frequent documental references to the concerns of council authorities when it came to the preservation of their documental collections, which clearly formed part of the symbolic heritage of the municipality.27 The above losses have as a corollary, a timely survival of specifically fiscal quantitative documentation, even though very recent archival research has revealed the existence of previously unknown fiscal documents.28 In fact, there are document types known through single copies, such as the livros de almoxarifado (local fiscal branch books), of which the unique survival is that of a fifteenth-century exemplar for the city of Silves.29 The most numerous documents are those resulting from the application of extraordinary taxes—the aforementioned fintas, and pedidos or serviços —predominantly in response to royal initiative. This is the case, for example, with the records relating to the collection of fintas undertaken by the city of Oporto—after obtaining the monarch’s approval—for the meeting of large-scale expenses, such as those incurred in the opening of a prestigious new street in 1438,30 or to pay the expenses of the ceremonial entry of Manuel I (1495–1521) into the city when he passed through on his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.31 At the same time, such records can also shed light on large-scale royal requests to cover military expenditure, such as the so-called pedido dos 60 milhões (request for 60 million) granted by the Cortes in 1478, or the serviços that the Crown obtained from the municipalities to pay certain expenses of the

25 Garnier (2008). 26 Ribeiro (1798). 27 Fonseca (1998: 109). 28 Rosa and Pinto (2021: 123–128). 29 Livro do Almoxarifado de Silves (século XV) (1984). 30 Amaral and Duarte (1985) and Ferramosca and Duarte (2001). 31 Cruz (1970).

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royal family, such as weddings, or the establishment of private households for the royal children.32 Another type of tax documentation, letters of acquittance/discharge, and receipts corresponding to the moment of the closing of the tax collection process, are preserved in significant numbers, above all in the so-called livros de registo (record books) produced in the Chancellery of the fifteenth-century monarchs, although it is not possible to reconstitute cohesive series that are geographically and chronologically extensive. While the receipts are typically laconic in terms of information about the amounts received or paid,33 the letters of discharge provide more extensive details, revealing the names of the tax officials, the tenants, the amounts collected, the types of taxes, and even the destination of the revenues obtained, thus disclosing the use of the funds and also the beneficiaries.34 Of the municipal accounting books, only a very small number have survived in relation to the number that must have been produced, given that municipal accounts had to be confirmed annually by royal officials. To date, merely a few examples are known for small urban centres,35 and it is only the city of Oporto36 and the town of Loulé37 that have kept, for the fifteenth century, more substantial sets of this type of documentation, although they are chronologically dispersed. The contents of these books permit an assessment of the weight of taxation within the total municipal revenue and an understanding of the pressure that the demands of extraordinary taxation exerted on municipal management and on communities. Where it is possible to merge this information with records of council decisions, which happens rarely and again only for the localities mentioned above, it becomes possible to get a more detailed picture of these fiscal processes and the involvement of the urban elites in their implementation.38

32 Gonçalves (1964: 205–210) and Faro (1965: 163–164, 165–167, 189–197, 234– 242). 33 Gonçalves and Rosa (2020). 34 Dominguez (2015). 35 Fonseca (1998: 109–111). 36 Gonçalves (1987). 37 Silva (2022). 38 Botão (2001–2002).

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Any documentary survival capable of elucidating royal accounts or budgets is hopelessly fragmented making it difficult to gauge the proportion of taxation in the kingdom’s overall revenue and expenditure. Here, the sources are sparse in time and diverse in content and, sadly for the medieval period in Portugal, represent little more than casuistical and singular pieces of information from which it is impossible to gain any overall view of the balance or imbalance of the kingdom’s finances.39 More fruitful are the prospects for recovering the regulatory documentation relative to taxation, thanks to the production of careful compilations recording the legislation enacted by Portuguese monarchs since the thirteenth century. The Livro das Leis e Posturas,40 produced in the fourteenth century, was followed in the fifteenth century by the Ordenações de D. Duarte 41 and the Ordenações Afonsinas 42 and thereafter, at the dawn of the sixteenth century, the so-called Ordenações Manuelinas 43 was produced. The issue of more specific regulations on the functioning of institutions and the activities of their officials, the so-called Regimentos,44 still awaits a systematic charting for use as a tool for the analysis of the processes and practices of the medieval fiscal system. In summary, the availability of primary sources for the study of medieval Portuguese taxation is marred by the absence of a series of quantitative nature, by a marked spatial dispersion, and by clear chronological asymmetries, with the more substantive information being available only for the fifteenth century. Favouring predominantly exceptional situations, such as those associated with extraordinary taxation, the sources are insufficient to inform details of ordinary taxation and those of a manorial nature. Largely focused on the relationship between the municipalities and the monarchs, for the most part the sources reveal the urban reality and the power relations between monarchs and municipal institutions. It is therefore to be acknowledged that just as the availability of documental information has conditioned the lines of research pursued by Portuguese taxation researchers in the past, it looks set to continue to do so. 39 Pereira (2013b). 40 Livro das Leis e Posturas (1971). 41 Ordenações del-rei Dom Duarte (1988). 42 Ordenações 43 Ordenações 44 Rau (1951).

Afonsinas (1984). Manuelinas (2002).

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3

Available Knowledge: Guidelines and Problems

At a time when Economic History and, along with it, tax-related themes were undergoing profound changes in problematisation and methodology under the rejuvenating impulse of the Annales School, Portugal was experiencing a political and cultural environment that was hostile to innovation due to the implementation of a totalitarian regime, the so-called New State implemented by Salazar (1933–1974). In the two faculties of Humanities in existence at that time, the History and Philosophical Sciences course had a reduced number of students and a teaching staff that was mostly unspecialised and very aligned with the prevailing political ideology which valued an apologetic history of the great deeds of the Portuguese that could justify the political choices of the regime and, therefore, cut-off from the more global contexts of research in History that was then being practised in Europe.45 During those leaden years, Economic History was mostly done outside the universities and tended to focus on the modern era, given the greater wealth and volume of available primary sources. Such was the case of Armando Castro who, having been dismissed from his university career due to his Marxist proclivities, continued his research to the point of producing, despite not being a specialist in medieval history, a detailed study of Portugal’s economic development between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, which in fact was only published in the 1960s.46 Meanwhile, the lack of facilities adequate to his work in the Lisbon Faculty of Letters prompted Vitorino Magalhães Godinho to go to Paris as a researcher of the CNRS where he embarked on a vast, pioneering work of in-depth research into economic themes associated with the period of the Expansion, subsumed within the propositions of French historiography and under the direct influence of historians such as Marcel Bataillon, Lucien Febvre, and Ferdinand Braudel.47 Outstanding as absolutely singular is the career of Virgínia Rau, the first woman in Portugal to become a full professor of History, and who can be considered the principal mover in the introduction of an economic history into Portuguese academic medievalism. Having benefited from an unusual educational path stemming from stays in countries such as 45 Andrade (2006: 59). 46 Castro (1964–1980). 47 Godinho (1962, 1970).

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France and Germany from the late 1920s, she returned to Portugal at the beginning of the Second World War. Thereafter, beginning with her Bachelor’s degree in 1943, she pursued a scholarly career which carried her to academic heights in the Faculty of Arts in Lisbon in 1952. Financially self-sufficient and therefore to be consistently able to maintain a good deal of independence relative to the regime, Rau carried out research that had Economic History as its main axis, but which was not necessarily limited to a specific period, producing pioneering works including an extensive study of medieval fairs48 and an analysis of the Casa dos Contos.49 However, just as important, or even more so, than her personal research was the plan of action she put into practice in her institution, partly favoured by the separation in 1962 of History education from Philosophy, which led to the formation of a generation of historians, not exclusively medievalists, dedicated to Economic History. Thus, in 1958, she was able to create a research centre in the Faculty of Letters with an associated specialised library where she promoted the association between research and teaching through teamwork with young researchers that was built around a scholarly programme sustained by rigorous archival research, a reading programme of foreign bibliography, and the encouragement of contacts with foreign researchers.50 During this time, A. H. Oliveira Marques, a young lecturer hired in 1957, began research with the support of Virgínia Rau in Economic History and, in 1960, he presented a doctoral thesis on economic relations between Portugal and the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages,51 supervised by Hermann Kallenbenz in what can be seen as a sign of the thematic openness of Portuguese medievalism and of the perception of the need to integrate interpretations and analyses of the Portuguese Middle Ages into wider and scientifically more up-to-date contexts. Oliveira Marques subsequently went on to produce another major work with a strong economic slant in which he analysed medieval agriculture and, most especially, the problems arising from the cereal crises that afflicted the Portuguese kingdom.52 48 Rau (1943). 49 Rau (1951). 50 Fernandes (2017: 27–29). 51 Marques (1959). 52 Marques (1968).

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In due course, Virgínia Rau’s profound knowledge of medieval archival collections led her to steer one of her students towards themes of fiscal history. In this way, Iria Gonçalves, based on solid archival research complemented by a rigorous interpretation of the data obtained thereby, produced the first study of extraordinary taxation surpassing the merely positivist works of the nineteenth-century authors and the simple publication of primary sources of previous generations.53 At the same time, she produced another, smaller work based on the collection of a loan by Alfonso V (1438–1481) in a tax district in southern Portugal in 1475 and 1476.54 These works enabled an understanding of the process of levying taxes, the justification used by the monarch, the negotiations that had to be carried out with the municipalities, the different stages of the collection process, especially the valuation of the goods on which the tax was levied, the human element involved, and the role played by the municipalities in the entire process. We also owe to this researcher the first attempt, still only in the 1960s, to define the scope and nature of more than 40 different duties, taxes, and fees, in as many entries that she produced for the Dicionário de História de Portugal.55 In these short texts, she dealt mainly with ordinary taxation of the manorial type, in what may be considered a collateral result of the in-depth research she was then carrying out for her doctoral thesis in rural history. The post-revolution of April 25, 1974, introduced a new cultural dynamic which, in the field of History, was characterised by an intellectual effervescence revealed, for example, in polemics and discussions around the ideological and methodological proposals of Marxist thought, especially in Economic History, or in approaches that sought to establish connections between History and other social sciences such as Anthropology and/or Geography. At the same time, contacts with other historiographies were encouraged, but above all, notable was the openness to new themes and methodologies, such as those proposed by the Nouvelle Histoire, expressed in the interest in the History of Mentalities or in the renewal of the problems of Cultural or Institutional History, introduced in the new university education curricula in History. The return of Portuguese historians who had been sojourning abroad for political

53 Barros (1945–1954) and Herculano (1985: 411–452). 54 Gonçalves (1964). 55 Gonçalves (1965).

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reasons was an important element in establishing currents of contact with other European historiographies.56 At the same time, the number of university students increased exponentially, not only because economic conditions were more favourable to young people accessing higher education, but also because there was an increase in the number of public universities, and the first private universities were created.57 The corollary of this was an expansion of teaching staff and a consequent increase in the production of scientific work and doctoral theses which were a requirement for a university teaching career. MA courses made their appearance in the early 1980s, with those in Medieval History providing continuity of study with a strong research component, thus contributing to a regular and, ever since, continuing flow of MA dissertations. Towards the close of the twentieth century, a new public policy of financial support for research made it possible to set up research units in universities according to European models which, since then, despite funding irregularities, have functioned as centres of collaborative research, of promotion of internationalisation and of support for the training of researchers. The effects of these profound changes have been felt in a very positive way in Medieval History, which gained in thematic breadth and achieved a broadened approach to problematisation and methodology more in accordance with the other European historiographies. Indeed, while a substantial element in these studies has revealed that themes of taxation have continued to represent an important lacuna in our knowledge of the Portuguese Middle Ages, they have simultaneously made an indispensable contribution to a more integrated and meaningful interpretation of the primary data that is available, as will be seen below. The studies of the nobility undertaken by José Mattoso and, above all, his innovative interpretative synthesis concerning the formation of Portugal between the twelfth and early fourteenth centuries have revealed the importance of understanding the process of change which took place after the end of the war of reconquest, in the financing of royalty and the elites and the role played by taxation.58 Mattoso was also the first to highlight the need to go beyond a merely juridical reading of the texts of the

56 Andrade (2006: 60). 57 Andrade (2006: 60–61). 58 Mattoso (1985–1986).

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charters (forais ) granted during that period in view of the fact that they established, as between the grantor—usually the king—and the communities that received them, a contract for sharing revenues and rights that immediately consigned some fiscal prerogatives to the monarchs which they never relinquished throughout the Middle Ages, while at the same time it provided the communities concerned with the possibility of collecting some taxes under royal protection within their jurisdiction.59 The lines of research on the nobility opened by José Mattoso also had as a corollary the chronological and thematic extension of continuing studies on the nobility and relations with the monarchs consolidating one of the most dynamic thematic areas in Portuguese medievalism and providing important data for approaches to the usufruct of taxation and associated redistributive processes.60 Urban History and the History of Municipalities have experienced a renewal and an increased dynamism that is reflected in numerous recent studies on medieval towns and cities dissertating upon such important problems as the asymmetry in urban scale which generated a predominance in the kingdom of small urban nuclei in contrast to the macrocephaly of Lisbon, the city that since the second half of the thirteenth century was considered the “head of the kingdom”, a quality that was reflected in the constitution of its urban societies and in the formation of the oligarchies that governed them, and consequently in their relations with the powers that were present, especially the power of the king.61 Studies concerned with municipalities and their governance, fundamental for any analysis of taxation given the role these institutions played in ordinary and extraordinary taxation procedures, now follow a methodology less associated with the Legal History and closer to prosopographical studies and have substantially elucidated the constitution of urban oligarchies and their economic and institutional roles.62 The interpretative analysis of Cortes assemblies and the political dialogue established between the king and the groups in attendance is the result of a ground-breaking and wide-ranging work by Armindo de Sousa concerning the Cortes of 1395–1495, which presents not only an

59 Mattoso (1987). 60 Mattoso et al. (2011). 61 Andrade and Costa (2011). 62 Costa (1993) and Farelo (2008).

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overall view of the incidence of fiscal and monetary issues in the Cortes,63 but also an analysis of the argumentation of the township (concelho) representatives and their relations with officers of the Royal Court, which the author considers played a key role in the arguments advanced at General Chapters, from which emanated many decisions of global scope as well as important regulatory instruments.64 António Manuel Hespanha’s publication in 1982 of a History of Institutions for the medieval and modern65 eras was an interpretative milestone which greatly influenced medievalists dedicated to institutional evolution. Espousing a clear comparative approach framed in the longue durée, the work went beyond the more traditional cut-off point of a history of laws in favour of an analysis of legal practice, the impact of legislative production on the society of the time, and in exploring the connection between law and social facts, but without allowing the History of Institutions to become bogged down in Social History. Carvalho Homem incorporated these principles to great effect in his seminal studies of the royal officers of the Desembargo (superior court in the kingdom) and their praxis,66 as well as into his examination of the legislative production of the monarchs, works in which likewise evident is the theoretical influence of French historiography.67 The study of religious minorities, i.e., the communities of Jews68 and Moors69 settled mainly in urban centres, made it possible to establish the designations, nature, and application of a very varied specific taxation, applied through a double taxation levied on goods and individuals. In the case of the Jews, the studies by Maria José Ferro Tavares also yielded a great deal of information on Jewish tax collectors (rendeiros ), who from the fourteenth century up to their expulsion in 1496, actively participated in the process of tax collection both within their community and in the rest of society.70 63 Sousa (1990: vol. 2, 225–499). 64 Sousa (1985, 1989). 65 Hespanha (1982). 66 Homem (1980). 67 Homem (2017). 68 Tavares (1982: 159–214). 69 Barros (2005, 2007: 385–454). 70 Tavares (1984: 630–654, 725–768).

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Iria Gonçalves, meanwhile, maintained her interest in the study of taxation, coming to focus on two different aspects, royal taxation and municipal accounting books. By mining the text of the great royal Inquiries of 1258 into usurpation (of rights and/or land, etc.), she sought to elucidate certain royal prerogatives of a manorial and rural nature, such as the Colheita (harvest tax), the Jantar (hospitality), or the Entroviscada (fishing rights).71 Her investigations into municipal accounting, drawing on comparisons with other cases elsewhere in Iberia, were again pioneering and revealed with regard to taxation, the frequent recourse on the part of municipalities to the possibility of levying extraordinary direct taxes—the fintas —for the financing of major expenditure, and the way in which municipal prerogative taxation emerged as an important element in their annual budgets.72 Although concerned with later periods, worthy of mention herein are the important studies on customs houses (alfândegas ),73 both maritime and those on the frontier with Castile, undertaken by João Cordeiro Pereira,74 which illuminates the functioning of this network of fiscal institutions. It is also to this author that we owe the exposition and analysis of the oldest known budgets of the Portuguese state, which are most revealing not only of the weight of taxation in the total revenues collected, but also of the fiscal asymmetries of the different almoxarifados (revenue offices) and the economic frameworks of the new territories resulting from the Expansion.75 Also, very informative is his examination, on the basis of unpublished documentation, of the role of the monarchy in creating the fortunes of the nobility in the early sixteenth century and its correlation with collection of taxes.76 Last but not least, it should be underscored that the dynamic of Portuguese medievalism from the 1980s onwards has been greatly boosted by a more systematic publication of sources in an environment of greatly improved palaeographic and diplomatic skill which has facilitated the publication of important documentary collections including 71 Gonçalves (2012). 72 Gonçalves (1987, 1996). 73 Lencastre (1981). 74 Pereira (1983, 2013a). 75 Pereira (2013a, 2013c). 76 Pereira (2013d: 235–240).

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a substantial portion of the ledgers of the Royal Chancellery,77 a very considerable portion of the documentation from the Cortes 78 from the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries and, further, the records of the various waves of grand inquiries undertaken by the Portuguese monarchs between 1220 and 134079 into the usurpation of property and rights. The creation of doctoral courses in Portuguese universities in 2005 and their compulsory association with a state accredited research unit, as well as a more assertive policy in the awarding of doctoral and postdoctoral grants, has made it possible to carry out full-time and continuous research. Additionally, funding allocated for research has made it possible to subsidise research trips, the organisation of scientific conferences, and the publication of results.80 These improvements in research conditions and dynamics, together with the advances now being made in Portuguese medievalism, have created conditions favourable to a turning point in the study of Economic History and the History of Taxation now that the latter has become the object of study per se, allowing for the production of more ambitious works tackling new issues and applying the most recent methodologies. The young historians now driving forward fiscal research are far more connected to the theoretical and methodological precepts of AngloSaxon historiography than previous generations of medievalists, tending to prefer a comparative and connected approach to their work which they are not shy in seeking to disseminate at conferences and in international publications. Notably, two doctoral theses have signalled this turning point in the study of taxation, both of which deal with royal taxation—which is to some extent inevitable given the availability of primary sources—although each makes use of different data. Through analysis of the taxation systems in force in European kingdoms, both seek to expatiate the processes of transition experienced in the fifteenth century.

77 Marques (1982, 1984, 1990–1992), Dias (1998–2002), Sá-Nogueira (2003), Marreiros (2012, 2019) and Ventura and Oliveira (2011). 78 Marques (1986), Dias (2001a, 2001b, 2002, 2004) and Dias and Pinto (2014, 2016). 79 Andrade, Sottomayor-Pizarro, Roldão and Fontes (2020: 48). 80 Andrade (2006: 60).

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The thesis of António Castro Henriques, presented at the University of York in 2008, takes a broad diachronic approach and applies foreign historiographical concepts and theoretical positions to the case of Portugal, viz: fiscal constitution; monetary constitution; ratchet effect; fiscal buoyancy; tribute state, domain state, and tax state.81 Meanwhile, Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez, in his doctoral thesis completed in 2013, subsequently revised and published,82 scrutinised the letters of discharge belonging to the best documented fiscal units in order to analyse the revenues received by the almoxarifados and their use by the monarchs in their relationship with the nobility. He also equated the changes in crown spending caused by the Expansionist surge, with the need to secure financial support in the pursuit of that objective. Both researchers have subsequently continued in various further contributions to tackle problems arising from the application of royal taxation, each following the theoretical framework proposed by Anglo-Saxon historiography.83 More recently, two MA dissertations have shown that the perspectives for studying medieval taxation can be broadened when known primary sources are subjected to interrogation capable of incorporating not only topics in the History of Taxation, but also the most recent scholarship concerning society, the economy, institutions, and powers in medieval Portugal. Ricardo Vicente’s dissertation on the almoxarifes (regional tax collectors) and almoxarifados in the reign of Afonso IV (1325–1357) represents a unique approach to these intermediary bodies in the fiscal framework of the kingdom which were the first specialised administrative institutions to become autonomous in medieval Portugal.84 It is a model work that should be replicated for other periods to obtain a diachronic view not only through compiling a roster of these institutions but also by examining their spatial structuring, as well as establishing details of the praxis and territoriality of the corps of officials who over time entered into the service of the almoxarifes. In another new study of Catarina Rosa, in her master dissertation, took the city of Lisbon as the observation space and the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the dominant chronology, seeking to establish the

81 Henriques (2008). 82 Dominguez (2019). 83 Dominguez (2012, 2013) and Henriques (2009a, 2009b). 84 Vicente (2013).

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constitution and evolution of the fiscal framework applied by royal power in the city from the time of the granting of the charter of 1179. She considered not only its framework in terms of the royal fiscal system but also the specificity of a city with an exceptional economic, social, and political dynamic in the overall context of the kingdom.85 The most recent studies on taxation reveal a change in the research paradigm that is likely to renew and broaden interest in the analysis of medieval taxation. However, it is clear that the primary sources available have steered researchers towards the study of royal and municipal taxation, leaving other tax systems, such as religious taxation, in the dark, something that is most surprising if we consider that the early medieval period was marked by conflict between royal power and the Church over tax issues—clearly a matter requiring analysis in greater depth.

4 Final Remarks: Some Perspectives for a Research Agenda on Medieval Portuguese Taxation Currently, the only constraint on the development of research into Portuguese medieval taxation is the unavoidable lack of quantitative primary sources with spatial-temporal continuity. Nevertheless, this can be mitigated if an even more systematic archival survey is carried out of the types of documents found so far, such as for example letters of discharge or livros de tença (ledgers of remuneration for services), in addition to overcoming the tendency of Portuguese historiography to prefer unpublished documentation over that which is already published. For example, there needs to be an appreciation of the value, as important sources of information for fiscal analysis, of the records of the great royal enquiries of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries or, indeed, the various town charters granted by the crown, both key documental collections that are already edited and published. Further, if one considers including other types of sources in research projects, such as the texts elucidating fiscal praxis that are contained in the Chancellery registers and the records of proceedings of episcopal hearings, other themes may be pursued, many of which may include lines of research already being followed in relation

85 Rosa (2020).

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to other medieval European kingdoms. In a necessarily concise way, some of these themes are itemised in the following. The Tax Men, i.e., compilations of the muster roll of royal officials connected to the tax system and their respective areas of activity. Prosopography of tax officials: origins, careers, networks of protection, and solidarity. Prosopography of the tax collectors (rendeiros ) and assessors both for royal and municipal revenues, and their sociological profiling. Analysis of the participation of members of urban oligarchies in these activities. Study of the role of Jews in the collection of fiscal revenues by determining their different spheres of operation, the county, or the kingdom, as well as the sociological profiling of this group and their relations within the community of their Jewish peers and/or with Christians. Attempts should be made to determine the process of substitution of Jews in the revenue system after their expulsion in 1496, for example, the timely appearance of “New-Christians” could be examined. Material Marks of Taxation, the mapping and reconstitution of the buildings associated with the fiscal activity, both royal and municipal, such as the casas de sisas, the casa de haver o peso, the customs houses (alfândegas ), the toll houses, the warehouses, and even the distinct “houses” associated with the maritime expansion, such as the Casa de Ceuta, or the Casa da Mina. Examination of how these material indicators of the practice of taxation were applied to the new territories during the fifteenth century. The Taxpayers, that is, determining how social status affected the tax burden, particularly in the case of the religious minorities of Jews and Moors. Analysis by means of the documentation preserved in the royal chancelleries of the importance and value of the royal practice of granting tax exemption privileges, including the tension between general law and privilege in the process of applying and collecting taxes. Determining signs of resistance to excessive levies, to inaccurate calculation, or to failures to respect established norms, through the analysis of any memoranda of pleadings or of judgements that may be preserved in royal and county archives. The Application of Tax Revenues, using the justifications advanced for extraordinary royal taxation and also the study of existing account books for the late Middle Ages, there should be an attempt to determine to what particular expenses various tax revenues were channelled and their political and social significance. Among these, we can highlight financially supporting the court and the royal family, the financial

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support of administrative structures and their officials, especially those of the central bureaucratic machine, and the funding of urban works or the construction or repair of fortifications and prestige buildings such as royal residences. Additionally, the theme mentioned earlier concerning the fundamental role of taxation in sustaining a nobility in line with royal interests should be pursued further while simultaneously seeking to specify more precisely which types of nobility benefited most from these revenues. Another possible avenue of research is related to assessing the weight of new expenses resulting from the maintenance of the crucial military strongholds in Morocco and the Gulf of Guinea, as well as those resulting from the colonisation of the Atlantic islands, in the process of redistribution of revenues collected. The relationship between King, Municipalities, and Taxation, i.e., perhaps due to the documentary resources available, kings and municipalities are the main players in the fiscal system and research carried out so far has shown that taxation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was a fundamental element in the political dialogue between king and municipal authorities, which is best documented in the Cortes.86 This line of research should be broadened and deepened by analysing the arguments used by both parties and, in particular, how taxation was used as a negotiating weapon by both kings and municipalities, making a correlation with political principles of governance. The phenomenon, in the second half of the fifteenth century, of urban seigniorage pioneered by Alfonso V (1438–1481) in bestowing the seigniory of towns and cities upon trusted noblemen directly in his service, raises questions of processes of replacement of royal jurisdiction by lordly jurisdiction and possible repercussions on systems of collection and enjoyment of tax revenues that had been previously enjoyed by monarchs. This line of research may well yield interesting answers, especially if framed within a broader perspective that includes a comparison with contemporaneous situations in other Iberian kingdoms. However, these suggested lines will only make sense and win consequence if studied in the light of more global theoretical contexts and through the application of practicable comparative approaches.

86 Dias (2014: 166–167, 171–172, 184–185).

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References Amaral, L. C., & Duarte, L. M. (1985). Os Homens que pagaram a Rua Nova: fiscalização, sociedade e ordenamento territorial no Porto Quatrocentista. Revista de História, 6, 7–96. Andrade, A. A. (1999). Estado, territórios e administração régia periférica. In M. H. C. Coelho & A. L. C. Homem (Eds.), A Génese do Estado Moderno no Portugal Tardo-Medievo (séculos XIII-XV) (pp. 151–187). Universidade Autónoma Editora. Andrade, A. A. (2006). Portugal. In R. Rodger & D. Menjot (Eds.), Teaching urban history in Europe (pp. 51–63). Centre for Urban History. Andrade, A. A., & Costa, A. M. (2011). Medieval Portuguese towns: The difficult affirmation of a historiographical topic. In J. Mattoso (dir.), The historiography of medieval Portugal, c. 1950–2010 (pp. 283–302). IEM - NOVA FCSH. Andrade, A. A., Sottomayor-Pizarro, J. A., Roldão, F., & Fontes, J. L. (Eds.). (2020). Dominus Rex: The medieval inquiries of the Kings of Portugal: Catalogue of the documental exhibition. CHUL/IEM - NOVA FCSH. Barata, F. T., & Henriques, A. C. (2011). Economic and fiscal history. In J. Mattoso (Ed.), The historiography of medieval Portugal, c. 1950–2010 (pp. 261–281). IEM. Barros, H. G. (1945–1954). História da administração pública em Portugal nos séculos XII a XV (11 vols.). Sá da Costa. Barros, M. F. (2005). Foral dos Mouros Forros de Lisboa, Almada, Palmela e Alcácer. In Os Forais de Palmela. Estudo Crítico (pp. 15–45). Câmara Municipal de Palmela. Barros, M. F. (2007). Tempos e espaços de mouros. A minoria muçulmana no reino português (séculos XII a XV). Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Botão, M. F. (2001/2002). A contribuição das fortunas louletanas nas despesas públicas do Portugal medievo. Al-ulyã, 8, 123–146. Castro, A. (1964–1980) A Evolução Económica de Portugal dos séculos XII a XV (11 vols.). Portugália. Coelho, M. H. (2008) D. João I, o que recolheu Boa Memória. Temas e Debates. Coelho, M. H. (2021). Práticas e memória da governança: escrever, comunicar, arquivar. In A. A. Andrade & G. M. Silva (Eds.), Governar a cidade na Europa Medieval (pp. 21–40). IEM - NOVA FCSH. Coelho, M. H., & Duarte, L. M. (1996). A fiscalidade em exercício: o pedido dos 60 milhões no almoxarifado de Loulé. Revista da Faculdade de Letras: História, II (13), 205–230. Costa, A. M. (1993). «Vereação» e «vereadores». O governo do Porto em finais do século XV . Câmara Municipal do Porto. Cruz, A. (1970). No V Centenário de Dom Manuel I. Revista da Faculdade de Letras do Porto-História, I , 1–75.

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Dominguez, R. da C. (2012). Echando la casa por la ventana: Alfonso V de Portugal y las demandas por crédito público a finales de la Edad Media. Revista Signum, 13(2), 59–78. Dominguez, R. da C. (2013). O Financiamento da Coroa Portuguesa nos Finais da Idade Média: entre o “Africano” e o “Venturoso” (Ph.D. Thesis). FLUPUPorto. Dominguez, R. da C. (2015). Das finanças locais às finanças do Estado: as cartas de quitação em Portugal entre os séculos XIV e XVI. História Econômica & História de Empresas, 18(1), 61–92. Dominguez, R. da C. (2019). Fiscal policy in early modern Europe. Portugal in comparative context. Routledge. Dias, D. J. T. (2014). As Cortes de Coimbra e Évora de 1472–73. Subsídios para o estudo da política parlamentar portuguesa (Master’s Thesis). FLUC-UCoimbra. Dias, J. A. (Ed.) (1998–2002). Chancelaria de D. Duarte (3 vols.). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Dias, J. A. (Ed.). (2001a). Cortes Portuguesas, reinado de D. Manuel I (Cortes de 1499). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Dias, J. A. (Ed.). (2001b). Cortes Portuguesas, reinado de D. Manuel (Cortes de 1502). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Dias, J. A. (Ed.). (2002). Cortes Portuguesas, reinado de D. Manuel (Cortes de 1498). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Dias, J. A. (Ed.). (2004). Cortes Portuguesas, reinado de D. Duarte (Cortes de 1436 e 1438). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Dias, J. A. (Ed.). (2004–2005). Chancelaria de D. João I (8 vols.). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Dias, J. A., & Pinto, P. (Eds.). (2014). Cortes Portuguesas: reinado de D. Afonso V: cortes de 1438. Centro de Estudos Históricos. Dias, J. A., & Pinto, P. (Eds.). (2016). Cortes Portuguesas: reinado de D. Afonso V: cortes de 1439. Centro de Estudos Históricos. Farelo, M. (2008). A oligarquia camarária de Lisboa (1325–1433) (Ph.D. Thesis). FLUL-ULisbon. Faro, J. (1965). Receitas e Despesas da Fazenda Real de 1384 a 1481: subsídios documentais. Instituto Nacional de Estatística. Fernandes, H. (2017). Virgínia Rau: Algumas variações sobre um cosmopolitismo. Faces de Eva. Estudos sobre a Mulher, 37 , 23–39. Ferramosca, F., & Duarte, L. M. (2001). Livro de abertura da Rua Nova. Patrimonia. Fonseca, J. (1998). Montemor-o-Novo no século XV (pp. 91–187). Câmara Municipal de Montemor-o-Novo. França, J.-A. (1977). Lisboa Pombalina e o iluminismo. Bertrand.

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Galán Sánchez, A., & Carretero Zamora, J. M. (Eds.). (2013). El alimento del estado y la salud de la res publica: orígenes, estructura y desarrollo del gasto público en Europa. Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Garnier, F. (2008). Fiscalité et finance médiévales: un état de la recherche. Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 86, 443–452. Godinho, V. M. (1962). A Economia dos Descobrimentos Henriquinos. Sá da Costa. Godinho, V. M. (1963–1970). Os descobrimentos e a economia mundial (2 vols.). Ed. Arcádia. Gomes, R. C. (2003). The making of a court society: Kings and nobles in late medieval Portugal. Cambridge University Press. Gomes, S. A. (2011). The editions of archival sources and documents. In J. Mattoso (dir.), The historiography of medieval Portugal, c. 1950–2010 (pp. 25– 44). IEM - NOVA FCSH. Gomes, S. A. (2006) D. Afonso V, o Africano. Círculo de Leitores. Gonçalves, I. (1964). O Empréstimo concedido a D. Afonso V nos anos de 1475 e 1476 pelo almoxarifado de Évora. Ministério das Finanças. Gonçalves, I. (1965) “Introviscada, ou troviscada”; “Jugada”. In J. Serrão (dir.), Dicionário de História de Portugal (Vol. II, pp. 564, 639). Iniciativas Editoriais. Gonçalves, I. (1987). As Finanças Municipais do Porto na Segunda Metade do Século XV . Câmara Municipal do Porto. Gonçalves, I. (1996). Despesas da Câmara Municipal de Loulé em meados do século XV. In Um olhar sobre a cidade medieval (pp. 191–209). Patrimonia. Gonçalves, I. (2012). Dant vitam maiordomo de quali habuerint. Apontamentos sobre um direito senhorial à luz dos inquéritos afonsinos. In Por terras de Entre-Douro-e-Minho com as Inquirições de D. Afonso III (pp. 149–177). CITCEM/Afrontamento. Gonçalves, P., & Rosa, C. (2020) Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1398). Fragmenta Historica. Revista do Centro de Estudos Históricos da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 8, 57–58. Henriques, A. C. (2008). State finance, war and redistribution in Portugal. 1249– 1527. (Ph. D. Thesis). University of York. Henriques, A. C. (2009a). A Primeira Constituição Fiscal Portuguesa (1254– 1369). In J. B. de Macedo, L. Amaral, A. F. da Silva, & A. C. Henriques (Eds.), Nove Ensaios na Tradição de Jorge Borges de Macedo (pp. 197–216). Tribuna da História. Henriques, A. C. (2009b). Finanças Régias e Reconquista. Em torno de uma hipótese de Iria Gonçalves. In M. R. T. Barata et al. (Eds.), Olhares sobre a História: estudos oferecidos a Iria Gonçalves (pp. 293–308). Caleidoscópio. Herculano, A. (1985). Apontamentos para a História dos Bens da Coroa e dos Forais. In Opúsculos (2nd ed., Vol. IV, pp. 411–452). Presença.

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Hespanha, A. M. (1982) História das instituições: épocas Medieval e Moderna. Livraria Almedina. Homem, A. L. C. (1980). O Desembargo Régio (1320–1433). Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica. Homem, A. L. C. (2017). Estado Moderno e legislação régia: produção e compilação legislativa em Portugal (séculos XIII-XV). In O Rei e a Lei. Estudos de História institutcional portuguesa (1279–1521) (pp. 281–301). U. Porto Edições. Livro do Almoxarifado de Silves (século XV). (1984). Moreno, H. B. & Leal, M. J. (Eds.). Câmara Municipal de Silves. Livro das Leis e Posturas. (1971). Silva, N.E.G. (ed.). Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa. Lencastre, F. S. (1981). Estudo sobre as Portagens e as Alfândegas em Portugal: séculos XII - XVI . Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Marques, A. H. O. (1959) Hansa e Portugal na Idade Média. Lisbon. Marques, A. H. O. (1968). Introdução à história da agricultura em Portugal: a questão cerealífera durante a Idade Média. Edições Cosmos. Marques, A. H. O. (Ed.). (1982). Cortes Portuguesas, reinado de D. Afonso IV (1325–57). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Marques, A. H. O. (Ed.). (1984). Chancelaria de D. Pedro I: 1357–1367 . Centro de Estudos Históricos. Marques, A. H. O. (Ed.). (1986). Cortes Portuguesas, reinado de D. Pedro (1357– 1367). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Marques, A. H. O. (Ed.). (1990). Cortes Portuguesas, reinado de D. Fernando I (1367–1383). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Marques, A. H. O. (Ed.). (1990–1992) Chancelaria de D. Afonso IV (3 vols.). Centro de Estudos Históricos. Marques, A. H. O. (1987). Portugal na Crise dos séculos XIV e XV . Presença. Marreiros, R. (2012). Chancelaria de D. Dinis: Livro II . Palimage. Marreiros, R. (2019). Chancelaria de D. Dinis: Livro III . Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra. Mattoso, J. (1985–1986). Identificação de um país: ensaio sobre as origens de Portugal: 1096–1325 (2 vols.). Estampa. Mattoso, J. (1987). Feudalismo e concelhos. A propósito de uma nova interpretação. In Fragmentos de uma composição medieval (pp. 139–148). Estampa. Mattoso, J. (1988). Renovar os arquivos para renovar a História. In A escrita da História- teoria e métodos (pp. 67–78). Estampa. Mattoso, J. (2001). O triunfo da monarquia portuguesa: 1258–1264. Ensaio de história política. Análise Social, XXXV (157), 899–935. Mattoso, J., Ventura, L., Sottomayor-Pizarro, J. A., & Sousa, B. D. V (2011). The medieval portuguese nobility. In J. Mattoso (dir.), The historiography of medieval Portugal, c. 1950–2010 (pp. 401–424). IEM - NOVA FCSH.

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Ordenações Afonsinas. (1984). Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 5 vols. Ordenações del-rei Dom Duarte. (1988). Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Ordenações Manuelinas. (2002). Centro de Estudos Históricos, 5 vols. Pedreira, J. (2007). Costs and financial trends in the Portuguese Empire, 1415– 1822. In F. Bethencourt & D. R. Curto (Eds.), Portuguese oceanic expansion, 1400–1800 (pp. 49–87). Cambridge University Press. Pereira, J. C. (1983). Para a História das Alfândegas em Portugal no início do século XVI: Vila do Conde – Organização e Movimentos. Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas. Pereira, J. C. (2013a). Organização e Administração Alfandegárias de Portugal no século XVI (1521–1557). In Portugal na Era de Quinhentos (pp. 9–107). Patrimonia. Pereira, J. C. (2013b). A receita do Estado Português no Ano de 1526. Um Orçamento Desconhecido. In Portugal na Era de Quinhentos (pp. 119–155). Patrimonia. Pereira, J. C. (2013c). O Orçamento do Estado Português no Ano de 1527. In Portugal na Era de Quinhentos (pp. 157–210). Patrimonia. Pereira, J. C. (2013d). A renda de uma casa senhorial de Quinhentos. In Portugal na Era de Quinhentos (pp. 235–260). Patrimonia. Pessanha, J. (1905). Uma Rehabilitação historica: inventarios da Torre do Tombo no seculo XVI. Archivo Historico Portuguez, 3, 287–303. Rau, V. (1943). Feiras Medievais Portuguesas. Subsídios para o seu estudo. Bertrand. Rau, V. (1951). A Casa dos Contos. Universidade de Coimbra-Faculdade de Letras. Ribeiro, J. P. (1798). Observação I. Sobre o estado actual dos Cartorios do Reino,e necessidade de acautelar pelos meios opportunos a sua total ruina. In Observações historicas e criticas para servirem de memorias ao systema da diplomatica portugueza (pp. 1–58). Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa. Rosa, C. (2020). Fiscalidade régia: o caso da Lisbon medieval (Master’s Thesis). NOVA FCSH. Rosa, C., & Pinto, P. (2021). Fragmento de livro de despesas de Martim Zapata, tesoureiro-mor em Lisboa (1440). Fragmenta Historica. Revista do Centro de Estudos Históricos da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 9, 123–128. Sá-Nogueira, B. (Ed.) (2003). O Livro das Lezírias d’el Rei Dom Dinis. Centro de História-FLUL. Sá-Nogueira, B. (2008). Tabelionado e instrumento público em Portugal: génese e implantação (1212–1279). Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Silva, G. M. (2020). As Portas do Mar Oceano: Vilas e Cidades Portuárias do Algarve na Idade Média (1249–1521) (Ph.D. Thesis). NOVA FCSH. Silva, G. M. (2022). Os Livros de Receita e Despesa de Loulé (1375–1518). Câmara Municipal de Loulé.

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Silva, R. H. (2007). Da destruição de Lisboa ao arrasamento da Baixa: terramoto urbanístico de Lisboa. In M. F. Rollo, A. I. Buescu, & P. Cardim (Eds.), História e Ciência da catástrofe- “50ª aniversário do terramoto de 1755 (pp. 103–111). Colibri/IHC - NOVA FCSH. Sousa, A. (1985). O discurso político dos concelhos nas Cortes de 1385. Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto - História, II (2), 9–44. Sousa, A. (1989). A estratégia política dos municípios no reinado de D. João II. Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto - História, II (6), 137–174. Sousa, A. (1990). As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490) (2 vols.). Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica. Sousa, B. V., Monteiro, N. M., & Ramos, R. (Eds.). (2009). História de Portugal. A Esfera dos Livros. Sousa, B. V., Pina, I. C., Andrade, F., & Santos, M. L. (2016). Ordens religiosas em Portugal: das origens a Trento: guia histórico. Livros Horizonte. Tavares, M. J. F. (1982). Os judeus em Portugal no século XV . Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Tavares, M. J. F. (1984). Os judeus em Portugal no século XV . Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica. Ventura, L., & Oliveira, A. R. (Eds.). (2011). Chancelaria de D. Afonso III: Livros II e III . Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra. Vicente, R. P. (2013). Almoxarifes e almoxarifados ao tempo de D. Afonso IV. Uma instituição em evolução (Master’s thesis). FLUC-UCoimbra.

The Collection of Annates in Portugal During the Papacy of Avignon, c. 1316–1377: Just Another Case of Apostolic Tax-Collecting in a Realm at the Back of Beyond? Mário Farelo

Apostolic taxation in the Middles Ages differentiated from monarchical and princely taxation, in the sense it was based traditionally on census linked to papal overlordship and ecclesiastical benefices management, and not mainly from the estate revenues and commercial activities in the territories under its domain as the latter were. Increasingly in need of more financing, the Avignon Popes (1305/1309–1377) gave course to a period of administrative and fiscal centralization, namely in terms of

For the abbreviations used for referring the École française de Rome analyses of papal registers, see the bibliography at the end of this paper. M. Farelo (B) IEM/FCSH-NOVA, CEHR/UCP, CH-UL, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_3

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expanding the capacity to impose taxes on the scale of the kingdoms and principalities of Christendom.1 Such interventionism has been understood as one side of the relationship between the Avignon Papacy and the Christian kingdoms that historical research has sought to clarify, from the more conventional approaches in terms of political-diplomatic and fiscal history, to the most recent perspectives on papal documentalization and archiving, on the relation between exercise of power and representation of space, most of these framed methodologically in studies on the practices of writing.2 In the Portuguese case, such interventions by the Popes of Avignon have been addressed mainly from the more standard beneficial, political and fiscal standpoints.3 And since the study of the scriptural, documental or even archival relations between Portugal and Avignon Papacy is somewhat far away on the horizon,4 short-term advances can be made on the abovementioned topics and, above all, in improving knowledge about the ‘fiscal’ presence of the Avignon Papacy in the Portuguese kingdom. Despite the advances made in history of the Portuguese collectorate (apostolic fiscal circumscription) and the characterization of the collectors and nuntii missions and recruitment, alongside a few monographic studies on revenues such tithes or spoils, we are still unable to assess the big picture in terms of a greater or lesser operability of apostolic taxation in the kingdom and, thus, to allow comparison with similar cases in other territories of the Christian West.5 This paper aims to address partly such challenge through the study of the various missions of annates-perception in Portugal during the Papacy 1 See Hélène Millet’s cunning discussion on the (in)distinct features of the Avignon Papacy. A very straightforward synthesis on these centralization aspects, namely the fiscal ones, is provided by Valérie Theïs (Millet, 2010: 17–24; Theïs, 2011: 33–44). 2 Zanke (2013) and Theis (2018: 329–364). 3 For periodic up-to-date analyses of the relations between the Avignon Papacy and

the kingdom of Portugal, see Díaz Ibáñez (2001), Farelo (2019: 24–47) and Linehan (2019). 4 Stéphane Boissellier edited some of the apostolic tax records relating to Portugal, within the scope of his study of bookkeeping processes and the mechanisms associated with their production (Boissellier, 2012). This research seemly wasn’t been picked up since then. 5 Glénisson (1947: 89–119), Renouard (1949: 29–51), Linehan (1983: 275–303), Saraiva (2001–2002: 197–228), Coelho and Saraiva (2005: 119–136), Farelo (2013a: 55–106; 2018: 532–556) and Williman and Corsano (2020).

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of Avignon and how it squares chronologically with other known cases. Firstly, however, a preamble is needed to historically characterize the referred tax and to present the sources of information available.

1

Features of Annates

Annates were one of the taxes imposed upon ecclesiastical benefices possessed by clerics, derived from the customary rights of bishops to oversee beneficial management in theirs (arch)dioceses. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, its perception was more and more common and allowed ordinaries (and even cathedral chapters and archdeacons) to tap into the income of a benefice during the first year following its collation.6 The Papacy quickly realized the potential of such perception, and from the thirteenth century onward, the Apostolic Chamber (fiscal division of the Papacy) was perceiving in curia a payment tied to the revenue (generally half) generated during the first year of a minor ecclesiastical benefice reserved and given to a cleric under pontifical authority.7 With the growing movement during the thirteenth century of taxing ecclesiastical benefices across Christianity to help finance the Crusades, more and more benefices were becoming estimated, by way of an evaluation (taxatio) established for tithes-perception. The Council of Vienne (1311–1312) determined that such taxatio should be used to calculate the annates, which fell on the net-worth of the benefice, after deducting the costs associated to its management and appraising the economic needs of the beneficiary.8

6 Known originally by different names or expressions, all of them linked to its yearlong referential (annata, annualia, annalia, fructus medii annii, fructus primi anni), the term ‘annates’ gradually imposed itself from the fourteenth century onward. Samaran and Mollat (1902: 23, 28), Kirsch (1903: X), Lunt (1909: 288) and Sedano (2016: 436). 7 Following the means at the pope’s disposal to ensure the right to such collation, which are presented in Samaran and Mollat (1902: 23), Lunt (1909: 287) and Hernando (2003–2004: 392). 8 Samaran and Mollat (1902: 23) and Favier (1964: 104). The papal collector had the choice to ask for the value of the tax, leaving to the owner the remaining (residuum) or to receive the latter and give the amount of the tax to the cleric. For the development of this question, see Samaran and Mollat (1902: 23, 28, 87), Mollat (1908: 211) and Lunt (1909: 289).

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2

The Sources of Information: From the Archivo Apostolico Vaticano (AAV) to the Portuguese Archives

Basic material is provided by the papal registers, in which are registered mainly letters issued in the name of the pope following a petition made to him (litterae communae) and from the pontiff’s initiative on more administrative and political subjects (litterae curiales ).9 While the former can detail the beneficial path of the cameral agents, the latter served to cast in writing reserves of annates and to appoint, to define or to change the jurisdiction of the agents in charge of their perception. Additional material concerning annates-collecting could also be conveyed, by means of letters issued by the Apostolic Chamber, in the name of its head officer, the camerlengo.10 For a more effective and technical knowledge of the perception of apostolic taxes in partibus, it is necessary to place our attention on the accounts produced by the aforementioned collectors, which detail normally the typology and the amounts of revenues received, as the expenses incurred during theirs missions.11 Unlike other cases studied, such the ones for Provence and the Germanic territories, generally well provided from the point of view of the survival of the accounts of the apostolic collectors, these accounts do not abound for the Portuguese case, especially in a published form12 . Table 1 summarizes the information known to us, which is essentially dispersed over four volumes of the Collectoriae (Coll.), an archival fund belonging to the Apostolic Chamber kept in AAV. As we can see from its analyses, while spoils and vacant documents were bound mostly in Coll. 275, the other three records show evidence of annates-collecting during the Portuguese missions of the collectors sent during the general levy determined by John XXII in 1316 (Coll. 111), during the missions accomplished under that same pope by William of 9 Zutshi (2021: 107–108). 10 See below. 11 Trenchs i Odena (1982: 629–652). Other funds at AAV can also be of help, such as the original pieces gathered in Instrumenta Miscellanea. 12 Schuchard (2000), Le Roux (2019, 2020). Papal and collectorate material related to Portugal has been published mosty in the last decade: Boissellier [2012]; Linehan [2013] and Williman and Corsano [2014].

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Table 1 Volumes of AAV, Collectoriae, with accounts of papal collectors related to Portugal (1309–1377) Coll

Identification of the account material

111

Fl. 1–80: Accounts of Raymond of Montrós (tithes in Castile, with a few mentions to Portugal) (1309–1311) Fl. 81–129: Accounts of Raymond of Serra (annates in Portugal and Castile) (1317–1321)13 [Annates material at fl. 81–129] Fl. 62–91: Accounts of William of Bos (mission to Portugal) (1329–1331)14 [Annates material at fl. 85–87v] Fl. 92–94: Accounts of Lisbon bishopric (1359–1360) Fl. 104–128: Accounts of Arnold of Saint Vincent (mission to Portugal) (1333–1337) [Annates material at fl. 104–105v] Fl. 140–172: Accounts of Bertrand of Mazel (mission to Portugal) (1361–1366) Fl. 3–233: Accounts of Bertrand of Mazel (mission to Hispania) (1368–1372) [Annates material at fl. 25–28, 34v–35v, 70–71v, 74–75, 83–85, 88–98, 112v–116, 131–137, 179–181, 188v–200] (verified by Maurice of Barca, clerk of the Apostolic Chamber) (copy without marks of verification in AAV, Arm. XXXIII , tome 18) Fl. 1–51: Accounts of Gundisalvus, archbishop of Braga (spolii and Lisbon bishopric vacancy) (1344–1345) Fl. 51–108v, 113–123v, 124–179v: Accounts of William Piloti and John Garrigue (spolii and Lisbon bishopric vacancy) (1356; 1364)15 Fl. 181–258: Account book of the chamber of Lawrence, bishop of Lisbon (1360–1362)16 Fl. 1–7v: Accounts of bishop Afonso Peres’ spolii (1372–1373)17

112

116 179

275

504

Bos (1329–1331) and under Benedict XII (1334–1342) by Arnold of Saint Vincent (1333–1337) (Coll. 112). Later, the reserves of annates by Urban V (1362–1370) were also collected during the mission of Bertrand du Mazel (1368–1371) (Coll. 179). 13 The Portuguese part of these accounts (fl. 81–98) is published in Boissellier (2012: 210–216) and fl. 90v-95 in Linehan (2013, vol. 2, 401–408). 14 Published in full in Linehan (2013, vol. 2, 438–481). 15 Fl. 51–90, 94–98, 100–108v, 177–178v were published in Williman and Corsano

(2014: 59–71, 172–222). Besides Collectoriae, accounts of the Portuguese mission of this collector were gathered in AAV, Armadio 33, tome 20, fl. 4–42 and Reg. Aven. 191, fl. 477–528. 16 Fl. 259–261 registers a calendar of letters authored by Jacques Duèze (future pope John XXII), bishop of Fréjus (1303–1305). 17 Published in Saraiva (2001–2002: 218–228).

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Subsidiarily, material on papal tax-collecting could also be kept at local level, within the archives of the institutions over which the apostolic fiscality was imposed. Access to these sources is now facilitated by the work of locating and calendarizing papalia, among which the survey carried out by the late Peter Linehan stands out.18 After such a rapid overflight of document sources available, what can it tell us about the rhythm of annates-collection in Portugal?

3

Annate-Collecting in Portugal During the Papacy of Avignon

The acts of a fiscal nature issued by the curial envoys sent to Portugal date back to the period of formation of the realm and to the collection of the census due to papacy by the king, certain institutions and certain Portuguese clergymen and laymen.19 Even if there was a diversification of papal impositions in the thirteenth century, only at the beginning of the following century, the cameral activity grew to a more intense stage, roughly between the end of the pontificate of Clement V (1305–1314) and the beginning of that of John XXII. The first is credited to be responsible for widening the papal collection of annates, by commanding their levy, in 1306, upon every ecclesiastical benefice fell under papal collation in the British Islands during the following three years.20 By doing so, he introduced a major innovation: annates could, from that time on, be requested in loco by the papal agents. This new possibility—thenceforth almost mandatory for most of the fourteenth century papal nuntios and collectors—was obviously explored by John XXII (1316–1334) by deciding a three-year general levy in 1316.21 The scope of this perception, entrusted to collectors generally bound to one or more ecclesiastical provinces, left a distinct written trail in papal registers.22 18 Linehan (2013). 19 Farelo (2013a: 63, 65–69) and Wiedemann (2015: 181–196). 20 Samaran and Mollat (1902: 23), Lunt (1909: 289; 1912: 57) and Petersen (2001:

16). 21 Samaran and Mollat (1902: 24), Baix and Uyttebrouck (1942–1960, CDXIV) and Le Roux (2010a, vol. 1, 67–68). For the translation in English of one exemplar, see Lunt (1965, vol. 2, 324–328). 22 Mollat (1908: 211); LSCJXXII (France), no. 82–99; LCJXXII , no. 4934–5071, 5473.

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At the time of this levy, the realm of Portugal was still under the obligation to pay a charitable subside promise by their own clergy to Clement V and the tithe for the recovery of the Holy Land, decided in the Council of Vienne in December 1312.23 Both duties were perceived by the Portuguese ecclesiastical secular authorities in place, seemly overseed by a papal nuntio called John of Soler.24 Due to the death of Clement V on April 1314, the collection process only picked up in the beginning of the pontificate of John XXII (November 1316), when he refurbishes the old team of collectors to relaunch the recovery of the arrearages of the tithes owed to his antecessor by the Portuguese clergy.25 By calling now upon John Soler and the bishop of Évora, John XXII assured that papal fiscal issues were to be dealt by officials with detail knowledge of Portuguese ‘intricacies’.26 These clerks were perfectly fit to a new commission, when the pope decided the following month to reserve the annates in ‘a large part of the Christian world’.27 The geography of perception given by Charles Samaran and Guillaume Mollat can be misleading, since it listed only the specific cases of Germany, the British Islands, Castile, Aragon and in the provinces of Vienne, Besançon, Tarentaise, Lyon, Aix, Arles and Embrun, thus excluding other realms, as one can see from the papal letters analyzed precisely by the latter of the two.28 Notwithstanding its omission in the geography of perception provided by these two authors, the western Iberian realms also become bound to this annates-levy. Following the papal chancery practice of defining geographically the collectors’ mission by ecclesiastical province and of including the respective prelate as one of the officials in charge of perception, Castile and Portugal each got its own commission. The appointment 23 Details on these two levies can be found in Farelo (2012: 98–100). 24 He passed to Hispania around February 1311, after collecting annates in the British

Isles and meddling in Scottish templars affairs two years before (Chaplais, 2003: 215; Lunt, 1912: 57; Nicholson, 2011: 382). 25 Samaran and Mollat (1902: 24); LCJXXII , no. 4914–4918, 4921–4923. 26 The inclusion of Raymond the Younger, canon of Périgueux, remains for now

inexplicable. 27 Lunt (1909: 289). The most notable exception is the reserve of the annates in the «French» territory since this tax had been alienated by the pope until 1320 (Samaran & Mollat, 1902: 25). 28 LSCJXXII (France), no. 82–99; LCJXXII , no. 4934–5071, 5473.

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of the Castilian team was perhaps very straightforward, since John XXII appointed another meridional with links to Coimbra, Raymond of Ébrard, the dean of that same cathedral chapter, joined by two other papal officials with apparently no previous presence in Iberia, Amiel of Beronie and Raymond of Serra, to collect the three-year annates in the LeónCastile ecclesiastical provinces of Toledo, Seville and Compostela, as in the northern exempt dioceses of León, Oviedo, Burgos and Cartagena.29 Portugal was seemly another story. In fact, from all the exemplifications of the curial letters Si gratanter advertitis kept in papal registers, the Portuguese realm was incidentally the one territory giving the most work to apostolic scribes. To tackle the annates-collecting of the nine Portuguese dioceses, John XXII assigned a three-man team formed by the diocesan ordinary with those already appointed for tithe-collecting, John of Soler and Raymond the Younger. The papal registers kept in extenso only the exemplars by which the bishop of Silves was appointed collector with his other two socii, i.e., the letters for the bishoprics of Silves and Guarda (AAV, Reg. Aven. 2, fl. 25b, 26b), since the copies for the other dioceses, without exception issued on behalf of the respective ordinary and the abovementioned tandem, were only inscribed in abbreviated fashion (in eodem modo), following the Guarda exemplar.30 Strangely enough, these letters were again registered in eodem modo in the same register volume, two folia ahead (AAV, Reg. Aven. 2, fl. 28b), this time from the exemplar transcribed in full for the Lisbon diocese.31 Clearly, the apostolic chancery wasn’t willing to repeat the mismatch occurred a few years before with the appointment of the apostolic commissions

29 LCJXXII , no. 4964–4965 (Toledo), 4970–4971 (Sevilla), 4980–4981 (Compostela), 5026–5027 (León), 5030–5031 (Oviedo), 5032–5033 (Burgos) and 5034–5035 (Cartagena). For their biographies, see Farelo (2010: 109, 144) and the referenced bibliography there. 30 LCJXXII , no. 5069–5070. The fact that the bishop of Silves was acting in dioceses with Castilian metropolitans could be the reason for its transcription in full in the papal registers. See below. 31 Therefore, from the analyses made by the École française de Rome, Reg. Aven. 2 keeps two references to letters in eodem modo issued to almost each Portuguese bishopric: LCJXXII , no. 5069, 5071 (Silves), 5070–5071 (Viseu, Coimbra, Évora, Lamego and Porto). Letter no. 5071 doesn’t show any exemplar for Guarda (for which was appointed the bishop of Silves), while the letters for Lisbon are transcribed in full (no. 5070) but in eodem modo (no. 5071) and Braga is not mentioned in no. 5070 but only in eodem modo (no. 5071).

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charged with the interrogation of witnesses in the Templar process.32 In fact, ecclesiastical geography between Portugal and León-Castile was tricky in those days, since there wasn’t a complete identity in political and ecclesiastical delimitation between the two realms: the Portuguese dioceses of Lamego, Guarda, Lisbon and Évora dependent ecclesiastically from the archbishop of Compostela, while the bishop of Silves remained suffragan of the metropolitan of Seville.33 Detailing the human and juridical components of the mission by diocese could have been considered the surest method to prevent any jurisdictional overlaps. Adjustments were additionally made to the «Portuguese» commission for the province of Braga and the diocese of Lisbon by way of switching Raymond the Younger with William of Saint-Géry,34 perhaps because of the appointment of the former as General Auditor of the Causes of the Apostolic Chamber, before June of 1317.35 The accounts of Raymond of Serra show that the levy was pursued throughout the period of validity of the apostolic reserve and that the members of the two commissions worked in concert. In fact, it was he who finally collected, in 1320, the amounts hoarded in Portugal during the previous three years by the clerics of the Portuguese commission. After four years of work, Raymond started his voyage back with the annates-money on July 28, 1321 arriving swiftly at Avignon on August 9. That same day, the Apostolic Chamber delivered to him a receipt of the sums then assigned.36 Despite everyone’s efforts, a large amount of arrears of annates were to be collected and the Chamber remained zealous to recover the revenues still to be paid. Soon enough, in January 1322, the pope ordered Peter

32 Farelo (2012: 78). 33 LCJXXII , Appendices, no. 5487. By then, Northwestern Portugal (Entre Douro

e Minho) belonged to the Galician diocese of Tui, which in turn depended on the Portuguese archdiocese of Braga. 34 Such change demanded the issuing of another two pair of curial letters (to the ordinary and prelates of the city + ordinary and both collectors) also dated from December 8, 1316, now registered, not only in Reg. Aven. 2, fl. 46b (Braga), 48a (Lisbon), but also in Reg. Vat. 63, ep. 184a–b (Braga) and ep. 211a–b (Lisbon) (LCJXXII , no. 4986–4987; 5040–5041, respectively). 35 LCJXXII , Appendices, no. 5487. 36 Boissellier (2012: 210–216), AAV, Collectoriae, no. 111, fl. 129, Göller (1910: 638)

and Goñi Gaztambide (1966: 81).

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Danrocha and the cahorsin Arnold of Roset to take care of the perception of the sexennial tithe, as well as the arrears of the annates in the province of Braga.37 In doing so, the pope and the Apostolic Chamber authorities wanted to resume the activity of perception, by then suffering with the casualties verified in the cameral staff with the death of William Saint-Géry, the move of Amiel of Beronia to perception in Castile and the eclipse from the sight of John of Soler, from the end of 1321 onward.38 To fulfill their mission, both Peter Danrocha and Arnold of Roset received the power to grant receipts in favor of Raymond and his colleagues.39 Nothing is known of their field work and what kind of help was provided by the Portuguese ecclesiastical and royal authorities. They were able to complete their mission, according to a receipt (August 9, 1322) of two payments to the Chamber, one for the 1316–1319 annates received by the bishop of Coimbra and the other concerning the spoils of the former bishop of Évora.40 Following this three-year reservation, John XXII took his time. Following the strong fiscal pressure imposed on the Western clergy in the first years of its reign, he seemly preferred a more low-key approach, managing nevertheless to reserve intermittently annates in some regions of Christendom up to 1326.41 From then on to the end of his pontificate in 1334, he reserved annates in a yearly rhythm, while restricting them to benefices whose provision fell under the power of the Holy See.42 During that time, Portuguese money deriving from annates-collecting found its way to Avignon, firstly through the work of Peter of Labrunia, a native of the diocese d’Agen who ensured cameral presence in the kingdom between 1325 until his death around 1329.43 As occurred with 37 AAV, Reg. Vat. 111, 61–61; Schäfer (1911: 421), Göller (1910: 468, 675); LSCJXXII , no. 375, 1197, 1592. 38 By letters of February 26, 1322, the pope orders the bishop of Coimbra to gather the written evidence (letters, cartularies) of Guillaume de Saint-Géry’s collection mission, in custody of his ancient notary and other persons in Portugal (AAV, Reg. Vat. 111, fl. 63v–64); for the Castilian mission of Amiel of Beronia, see LCJXXII , no. 12035, 12042, 12046, 12620, 13043, 13044, 14226, 14227. 39 AAV, Reg. Vat. 111, 61v–62. 40 Göller (1910: 478) and Williman and Corsano (2020: 199). 41 Le Roux (2010b: 47). 42 Housley (1982: 185) and Le Roux (2010a, vol. 1, 69–70). 43 Farelo (2012: 73, 76).

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other collectors in action in the French territory by then,44 he accumulated the collection of the subsidy on behalf of the Apostolic See contra haereticos (1326) with annates and vacants collecting, by virtue of the reserves upon them promulgated by the pontiff, the first reserve of annates being dated February 20, 1326.45 In that occasion, John XXII reserved one year the annates and the vacants of all ecclesiastical benefices who felt vacant at the Curia. It took six months for the camerlengo Gasbert of Laval to entrust Peter of Labrunia with this specific mission, to be executed throughout the entire Portuguese kingdom.46 This task was associated, in the same year, with the levy of the annates and vacancies upon the benefices belonging to the Order of Christ, ordered initially by Raymond of Ébrard in 1320. The collector was able to perceive 7000 Portuguese pounds, so the Master and the 31 friars were absolved from the excommunication they had incurred and therefore, could be brought back to the community of the faithful.47 Labrunia must have continued to collect Portuguese annates during the reservations promulgated the following three years by John XXII (February 15, 1328; January 19, 1329 and January 19, 1330).48 At least in the second case, we know of his commission from a letter of the camerlengo, dated February 5, 1329, stating that the annual reservation would initiate at the end of the next fortnight.49 After his death, such duties passed to William of Bos, the papal collector engaged in Portugal in the perception of tithes and other papal taxes from 1329 to 1331.50 During that time, the realm wasn’t the 44 Le Roux (2010a, vol. 1, 313). 45 Linehan (2013, vol. 1, 639 [no. 1055]; 660 [no. 1105]) and Samaran and Mollat

(1902: 25). 46 Gasnault (1957: 294), Samaran and Mollat (1902: 24) and Linehan (2013, vol. 1, 643–644 [no. 1066], 660 [no. 1105]). 47 Torre do Tombo, Mesa da Consciência e Ordens. Ordem de Cristo/Convento de Tomar, book no. 307, cover. 48 LCJXXII , appendices, no. 42430, 50767b. 49 Linehan (2013, vol. 1, 643–644, no. 1066). Surely, he received the other two. In

this document, detailing the judicial process concerning the payment of annates by the abbess of the Cistercian monastery of Arouca in 1330, one of the parts presented three letters of the camerlengo, which weren’t summarized, most probably the commission letters addressed to Labrunia. 50 For the biography of Guillaume de Bos, see Le Roux (2010a. vol. 3, no. 130) and Farelo (2010: 124). His accounts are mentioned in Table 1.

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only place under annates-collecting since other territories were also being visited by similar papal agents.51 At the liquidation of its mission at Avignon, on November 21, 1331, de Bos was finally able to compound with the Chamber for the sum of 2968 pounds, related to the fruits of annates.52 Annates-collecting remain in play in the final of John XXII’s pontificate with the reserve of this tax in 1332 and 1334.53 In Portugal, once the papal collector gone, ordinary activity was picked up by Raymond, bishop of Coimbra, styled in a letter of 1332 as collector in Portugal of the triennial tithes, of the annates of the benefices vacants in Roman Curia, of spolii of archbishop of Compostela Berengario and bishops Roderick of Lamego, Gerald of Évora and other papal business.54 The results of these perceptions by the bishop’s delegates were latter presented to the nuncio Arnold de Saint Vincent, canon of Montauban, whose accounts integrate such information and details about his mission in the kingdom from October 1333 to Christmas 1337.55 Freshly crowned, Benedict XII proclaimed the constitution Ad regimen (January 11, 1334) which organized the determinations of his two previous antecessors and added ‘to the pack’ of annates the benefices of a few more papal officials.56 As such, he recalled his antecessors’ annatescollectors to the Curia with all the money perceived and all written proofs of their work.57 After a four-month review of the material, a new letter was issued (Mai 23, 1334) by which a new mandate was issued, ordering the collection of the fruits of the first year of all the vacant benefices 51 Namely in 1329–1333, in various ‘french’ ecclesiastical provinces (LCSJXXII [France], no. 3826, 3860, 3983, 4142, 4312, 4521, 4992, 5130). Finally, John XXII reserved in favour of the king of France, in July 1333 and for six years, the annates of the ecclesiastical benefices in his kingdom, as a subsidy for the Crusade in Terrae Sanctae (LCSJXXII [France], no. 5218). 52 Göller (1910: 637). 53 By letters dated January 10, 1332 and January 12, 1334, analyzed in LSCJXXII

(France), no. 5355; LCJXXII , appendices, no. 58223, 63919. 54 AAV, Instrumenta Miscellanea, no. 2601 (June 16, 1332). 55 LSCBXII (Étranger), no. 83, 86, 289, 372, 3059; AAV, Collectoriae, no. 112, 126. 56 Lettres de Benoît XII (1910, no. 25) and Steiber (1978: 371, note 3). One exempli-

fication of this constitution was made in the palace of the archbishop of Braga on October 30, 1339, thus proving its use in Portuguese cameral affairs (Linehan 2013, vol. 1, 677 [no. 1138], 685 [no. 1154]). 57 LSCBXII (Étranger), no. 29; Le Roux (2010b: 49).

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at the Curia for the necessity of the Apostolic See, as well as the fruits belonging to the relatives and servants of the previous pope.58 Arnold of Saint Vincent, canonico ecclesie S. Stephani de Tescone Montisalban, was included in the recipient list, even if in last place and without connection to any collectorate.59 Is commonly accepted that Benedict XII was satisfied with collecting only the arrears of previous reserves and vacant benefices at the Curia.60 In fact, Arnold’s four years account only records as annates its arrears, in the sum of 6036 pounds 11 sols 1 deniers,61 a pretty good amount since the total sum sent to Avignon, by the Castilian collector in 1337, was little more than the double.62 By the end of 1338, with the undergoing parleys to end the war Portugal and Castile,63 it was possible for cameral affairs in the two kingdoms to resume and transfers of monetary species in destination of Avignon to be made. Benedict XII unleashed to both kingdoms another mandate to collect the arrears of previously reserved annates and vacants. The collector in Castille is instated from November 11, 1338, with the power to absolve excommunicated recalcitrant to payment.64 Gundisalvus Pereira, the Braga archbishop and, for the past decade, the cameral and apostolic go-to-guy in Portugal, is trusted with the commission to receive, in the name of the Apostolic Chamber, the fruits of vacant ecclesiastical benefices in the kingdom of Portugal, for the duration of the vacancy.65

58 LSCBXII (Étranger), no. 289. 59 Surely a result of the lack of a proper appointment as papal collector in Portugal,

was only confirmed on March 12, 1335 (LSCBXII [Étranger], no. 83). 60 Samaran and Mollat (1902: 25, 58, 64), Lettres de Benoît XII (1910: XXX), Lunt (1909: 289) and Carolus-Barré (1950: 180). 61 AAV, Collectoriae, no. 112, 126. 62 The 3115 regales sent by the Castilian collector could value 12460 (Portuguese)

pounds according to the higher end of the 1329–1331s ratio of “1 regalis = 68 – 74 – 80 s. portugalen” given in Schäfer (1911: 110). 63 Martins (2005: 75). 64 LSCBXII (Étranger), no. 2098 (November 17, 1338). 65 LSCBXII (Étranger), no. 2127 (November 30, 1338).

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For the next decade, cameral affairs—and apostolic business for that matter—will be in the hand (and at the mercy) of the archbishop Gundisalvus.66 Among its charges was the collection of annates and vacants, following the resumption of their double reserve across Christian territories from the beginning of the reign of Clement VI (1342–52): firstly, on May 20, 1342, followed by biennial reserves on July 11, 1344; April 30, 1346 and September 13, 1347.67 Nevertheless, his formal letter of appointment for that specific annates-collecting task is nowhere to be found in papal registers before 1346, unlike the cases of collectors in the province of Tuscany, the diocese of Genoa and in the kingdoms of Poland, Sweden, Norway in 1343; in Rome and surrounding dioceses, and in the diocese of Todi in 1344; in Scotland, in the provinces of Sicily and Prague, in the duchy of Spoleto and the diocese of Perugia in 1345.68 His appointment, abbreviated in eodem modo in the papal registers next to the exemplar addressed to the Castilian collector,69 was made alongside those of annates-collectors in Sicily and Corsica, Hungary, England, Ireland, Walles, in ecclesiastical provinces in the realms of France and Arles, in the Italian peninsula, in partes Romania and in Aragon.70 While appointments of annates-collectores continued across Christendom in 1347–1348,71 the death of Gundisalvus Pereira, in 1348/1349, made it possible to Clement VI to find another interlocutor, 66 He made money-envoys to the Apostolic Chamber in 1342 and in June 1346 (Moher, 1931: 474; AAV, Collectoriae, no. 275, 5ss; Instrumenta Miscellanea, no. 1753). 67 LSCCVI (France), no. 1, 344, 958, 2459, 3439. These reserves encompass a wider range of benefits than those reserved by John XXII. For the history of the increasing diversification of ecclesiastical benefits subject to payment of annates by the Avignon popes, see Samaran and Mollat (1902: 24–26) and Cockburn (1926: 177). 68 LSCCVI (Étranger), no. 243–244, 279, 365, 436, 673, 676, 825, 845; LSCCVI (France), no. 1752. 69 LSCCVI (Étranger), no. 986. Are also abbreviated there the appointments of collectors in the kingdoms of Sicily (et terries citra Farum) and Cyprus; in the provinces of Tuscia, Pisa and Genoa; in the Patrimony of Saint Peter in Tuscia and in provincia romana. 70 LSCCVI (France), no. 2490–2500, 2807, 2891–2892; LSCCVI (Étranger), no. 986, 912, 1154, 1239. 71 As of 1347 in the kingdom of Dacie, Sweden, Norway, Cyprus, England, Ireland; in the provinces of Tuscany, Pisa, Genoa and Riparia Januensi; in 1348 in the kingdom of Sicily citra Farum, Castile, Sweden, Norway, Cyprus, England and Ireland; in the provinces of Vienne, Lyon, Besançon, Trêves, Tarantaise (LSCCVI [Étranger], no. 1482, 1510, 1655, 1698); LSCCVI (France), no. 3997.

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now gifted with stabilitas as a permanent collector, as occurred in the others’ collectorates at the time.72 In the context of an appointment of collectors of annates ‘in bundle’, carried out on May 19, 1349—probably intending to replace the predecessors died from the Black Plague—Pierre de Martel is nominated by Clement VI to continue the collection of the annates throughout the kingdom of Portugal.73 He fixed a specific transfer of this tax worth 4000 golden scutos antiquos, which was received in Avignon on June 30, 1351.74 From a single blow, the Apostolic Chamber received more than the money of annates that his collector Arnold of La Caucina managed to raise, between 1350 and 1354, in the eastern provinces of Esztergom, Kalocsa, Transylvania, Pecs, Sirmium Sazreg, Vác, Veszprém, Eger, Oradea, Cenad, Notra Gyor and Bósnia.75 Afterward, by December 30, 1352, he was reappointed by the new Innocent VI in the commission to levy annates of Portuguese reserves benefices. It should be noted, however, that this letter was sent to him only on March 19, 1354.76 It remains difficult to ascertain when or if he received the following biennial extension of Clement VI’s reserve of annates for ecclesiastical benefices vacant in curia, promulgated by Innocent VI in May 1355.77 His last assignment to the Curia took place in February 1355, not very long before his own death, which occurred somewhere before March 30 of that year.78 His work, as his spoils, were gathered by John of Garrigue, the next cameral agent sent to Portugal as an apostolic commissary.79

72 Le Roux (2010b: 52) and Farelo (2019: 36). 73 LSCCVI (Étranger), no. 1995. The chancery scribes enacted in extenso into the

papal registers the copy made for the collector in England and in eodem modo the exemplars to be delivered to 12 others, the first being Pierre de Martel. 74 Moher (1931: 604) and Renouard (1949: 29–51). 75 Neagu (2015: 66). He collected 4739 florins, less than the 4000 golden scutos

antiquos sent by Pierre de Martel. These can be converted to florins, according to the conversion rate of 1 scuta antiqua = 1 florin 3 solidi 2 denarii attested in 1357 in the accounts of Jean de Garrigue (Williman & Corsano, 2014, xviii-xix). 76 LSCIVI , no. 8–9 (dated December 30, 1352); Samaran and Mollat (1902: 26). 77 LSCIVI , no. 1512. The letters of this new commission, sent to the papal collectors

across Christendom and exemplified in the apostolic registers, do not mention him as one of its recipients (LSCIVI , no. 1514–1516, 1614, 1710). 78 Farelo (2012: 85–86). 79 Farelo (2012: 85–87).

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Departed from the realm the following year, without having seemly collected anymore annates than those conveyed to him by the various dioceses sub-collectors,80 Garrigue left in place as the new collector the French William Piloti, who will work in the Portuguese collectorate until his death in 1367.81 It is only through the mission carried out by this other apostolic commissioner Bertrand du Mazel (1368–1372) that we have news on Piloti’s annates-collecting. In fact, he had to reconstitute his accounts, since the deceased collector, according to him, didn’t leave any book of receipts on the annates of the benefices reserved by Urban V in Portugal during the first five years of his pontificate.82 But the commissioner did more than accounting ‘archeology’. Armed with a letter from Urban V, which included even the formula to be used to reserve on his behalf the property of the prelates deceased, he had to deal with the reserve the vacant benefices in curia for the Iberian kingdoms.83 This one was extended in June 1, 1369 to a one-year reserve of all firstyear proceeds of all ecclesiastical benefices with healing or no healing of souls, exempt and not exempt.84 The results of his work are consigned in very detail accounts, which renders unfeasible here an exhaustive analysis of its richness. In terms of annates, he was able to recover 1860 pounds as arrears in the bishopric of Lisbon alone, certainly a sign of his resilience, in the face of resistance put up by some of the kingdom’s clergy.85 The pontificate of Gregory XI (1370–1378) did not affect Du Mazel’s endeavor. This is at least the idea that can be drawn from the existence, in the archives of the Braga chapter, of the letters Dum incumbentia, by

80 According to his register of the accounts presented to him (AAV, Arm. XXXIII , t. 19, fl. 24–27v; t. 20, fl. 13–16). 81 For his biography, see Farelo (2013b: 296–301). 82 See Table 1, Collectoriae, no. 179 and no. 116 for the commissary’s reconstruction

work. 83 AAV, Reg. Aven. 166, 27–28 (dated August 28, 1368). The following day, he and

Arnold de Vernols were ordered to publish, in the Iberian realms, the papal constitution Apostolicae Sedis debet concerning the collation of benefices vacant in Curia (LSCUV [France], no. 2833). 84 AAV, Reg. Aven. 166, 40–41. 85 AAV, Collectoriae, no. 179, 44. Examples of such resistances in Farelo (2018: 531–

532).

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which Gregory XI reserves on April 17, 1371 all the ecclesiastical benefits vacant in Curia, as determined by his predecessor.86 Renewed on May 19, 1373 and April 16, 1374,87 annates and vacancies were still included among the taxes which Jacobo de Sirano, canon of Narbonne, had to raise during his mission to the realm of Castile, León and Portugal in 1372–1374.88 The historical reconstruction here proposed clearly states that the Portuguese case aligned itself with the chronology and methodology of annates-collecting ordered by the Popes of Avignon. As occurred in most of the other realms of Western and Central Christendom, John XXII established the means to assure a ‘regular’ perception of annates and its arrears in Portugal. After a first ‘experiment’ with a general levy of 1316– 1319, such task was bestowed to papal collectors sent periodically to the realm in missions of 2–3 years long. Despite the scanty data available, the same perception was seemly assured during the long ten-year mission of Gundisalvus Pereira and then, with the establishment of a ‘permanent’ collectorate in the time after the Black Plague. Unfortunately, to make and to proof such argument for the entire duration of the Papacy of Avignon, the data provided by the few collectors’ accounts was only briefly sketched, thus not allowing for the exhaustive analysis it deserves. Such study should supply us with more detailed and sound data for a better understanding of the weight of annates in the broader financial picture of apostolic taxes collected in Portugal in the first three quarters of the fourteenth century. In addition, this data should allow to ascertain more in depth how the Portuguese case compares, in fiscal terms, to their Iberian counterparts and even beyond the Pyrenees, broadening the few fiscal comparisons stablished here based on the scanty international specific bibliography available. In doing so, one will be a few steps closer in answering a puzzling and insofar unanswered question: what was the value of Portugal for the Popes of Avignon?

86 LSCGXI (Etranger), 120; Linehan (2013, vol. 1, 722 [no. 1224a]). 87 LSCGXI (France), no. 2954, 3346; Barrell (2002: 33). 88 About the same time, in 1374, Gregory XI appointed specific annate-collecting to the province of Prague (LSCGXI [Étranger], no. 3049).

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References Primary Sources Vatican City, Archivio Apostolico Vaticano Armadio 33, tomes 19–20. Collectoriae, nº 111, 112, 179, 275. Instrumenta Miscelanea, nº 1753, 2601. Lisbon, Torre do Tombo. Mesa da Consciência e Ordens. Ordem de Cristo/Convento de Tomar, book no. 307. Regista Avenionensia, no. 166, 191 [Reg. Aven.]. Registra Vaticana, no. 111 [Reg. Vat.].

Studies AAVV. (Ed.). (1885–1892). Regestvm Clementis papae V ex vaticanis archetypis sanctissimi domini nostri Leonis XIII pontificis maximi ivssv et mvnificenta, nvnc primvm editvm cvra et stvdio monachorvm ordinis s. Benedicti. Romae: ex Typographia vaticana [Regestvm]. Baix, F., & Uyttebrouck, A. (1942–1960). La Chambre apostolique et les “Libri annatarum” de Martin V (1417–1431). Institut historique belge de Rome. Barrell, D. M. A. (2002). The Papacy, Scotland and the Northern England, 1342– 1378. Cambridge University Press. Boissellier, S. (2012). La construction administrative d’un royaume. Registres de bénéfices ecclésiastiques portugais (XIII e -XIV e siècles). Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa. Carolus-Barré, L. (1950). Benoît XII et la mission charitable de Bertrand Carit dans les pays dévastés du nord et la France (Cambrésis, Vermandois, Thiérarche). Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, 62(1), 165–232. Chaplais, P. (2003). English diplomatic practice in the Middle Ages. A & C Black. Cockburn, J. H. (1926). Papal collections and collectors in Scotland in the Middle Ages. Review Scottish Church History Society, 1, 173–199. Coelho, M. H. C., & Saraiva, A. (2005). D. Vasco Martins, vescovo di Oporto e di Lisbona: una carriera tra Portogallo ed Avignone durante la prima meta del Trecento. In AAVV (Ed.), A Igreja e o Clero Português no Contexto Europeu. Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa (pp. 119–136). Coulon, A., & Clémencet, S. (Eds.). (1900–1962). Lettres secrètes et curiales de Jean XXII se rapportant à la France (3 vols.). École française de Rome [LSCJXXII (France)].

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Deprez, E., & Mollat, G. (Ed.). (1960–1961). Clément VI. Lettres closes, patentes et curiales intéressant les pays autres que la France (3 vols.). Edouard de Boccard [LSCCVI (France)]. Díaz Ibáñez, J. (2001). El pontificado y los reinos peninsulares durante la Edad Media. Balance historiográfico. En la España Medieval, 24, 465–536. Farelo, M. (2010). Les clercs étrangers au Portugal durant la période de la papauté avignonnaise: un aperçu préliminaire. Lusitania Sacra, 22, 85–148. Farelo, M. (2012). Pro defensione iuris regis. Les relations entre la Couronne portugaise et le pape Clément V à la lumière du procès des Templiers. In J. C. Albuquerque (Ed.), 700 Anos da Extinção da Ordem do Templo (pp. 107– 153). Farelo, M. (2013a). Payer au roi et au pape. Les décimes pontificales imposées au clergé portugais pendant l’époque avignonnaise. In J. Morelló Baget (Ed.), Financiar el reino terrenal (pp. 55–106). Farelo, M. (2013b). O percurso eclesiástico e político de Afonso Domingues de Linhares, bispo da Guarda (1364–1394) e de Segóvia (1394–1397). Estudios Segovianos, 55(122), 277–323. Farelo, M. (2018). Um coletor apostólico in remotis finibus mundi. Bertrand du Mazel em Portugal (1368–1371). In in F. J. Hernández, R. Sánchez Ameijeiras & E. Falque (Eds.), Medieval Studies in Honour of Peter Linehan. SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo (pp. 532–556). Farelo, M. (2019). Perspetivas de trabalho em torno da fiscalidade apostólica em Portugal (1309-1377). População e Sociedade. CEPESE, 31, 24–47. Favier, J. (1964). Temporels ecclésiastiques et taxation fiscale: le poids de la fiscalité pontificale au XIVe siècle. Journal des Savants, 2(2), 102–127. Fierens, A. (Ed.). (1910). Lettres de Benoît XII (1334–1342). BretschneiderDewit-Honoré Champion. Gasnault, P. (1957). La perception dans le royaume de France du subside sollicité Jean XXII haereticos et rebelles partium Italie. Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire publiés l’École Française de Rome, 69, 275–319. Gasnault, P., Laurent, M. H., & Gotteri, N. (Ed.). (1959–1975, 2006). Lettres secrètes et curiales d’Innocent VI (pp. 5 vols.). École française de Rome. [LSCIVI ]. Glénisson, J. (1947). Un agent de la Chambre Apostolique au XIVe siècle. Les missions de Bertrand du Mazel (1364-1378). Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’École Française de Rome, 59, 89–119. Göller, E. (1910). Die Einnahmen der apostolischen Kammer unter Johann XXII . Ferdinand Schöningh. Goñi Gaztambide, J. (1966). El fiscalismo Pontificio en España en tiempo de Juan XXII. Anthologica Annua, 14, 65–99.

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Hernando, J. (2003–2004) ‘El «ius spolii» papal i llibres d’ eclesiàstics. Els llibres en les despulles del Bisbe de Barcelona Francesc de Blanes (+ 1410)’, Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia, 25, 389–422. Housley, N. (1982). The Italian crusades: The Papal-Angevin alliance and the crusades against Christian lay powers, 1254–1343. Clarendon Press. Kirsch, J.-P. (1903). Die päpstlichen Annaten in Deutschland während des 14. Jahrhunderts. Vol. I: Von Johann XXII. bis Innozenz VI . Ferdinand Schöningh. Le Roux, A. (2010a) Servir le pape, le recrutement des collecteurs pontificaux dans le royaume de France et en Provence de la papauté d’Avignon à l’aube de la Renaissance (1316–1521) (PhD Thesis), Université de Paris-Ouest Nanterre la Défense, 3 vols. Le Roux, A. (2010b). Mise en place des collecteurs et des collectories dans le royaume de France et en Provence (1316–1378). Lusitania Sacra, 22, 45–62. Le Roux, A. (2019). Pratiques comptables du gouvernement pontifical. L’histoire scripturale des comptes des collecteurs pontificaux provençaux (1274–1406). Comptabilités [En ligne] 10. http://journals.openedition.org/comptabilites/ 2545 Le Roux, A. (2020). Les comptabilités collectorales en terres d’empire, des ressources documentaires pour l’étude des pratiques de l’écrit, d’une histoire institutionnelle et culturelle de la fiscalité pontificale. Comptabilités [En ligne], 13. http://journals.openedition.org/comptabilites/4686 Lecacheux, P., & Mollat, G. (Eds.). (1902–1955). Urbain V (1362–1370). Lettres secrètes et curiales se rapportant à la France (2 vols.). École française de Rome. [LSCUV (France)]. Linehan, P. (1983). The Church, the economy and the Reconquista in early fourteenth century Castille. Revista Española de Teología, 43(2), 275–303. Linehan, P. (2013). Portugalia Pontificia: Materials for the history of Portugal and the Papacy (2 vols.). Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Linehan, P. (2019). At the edge of reformation. Oxford University Press. Lunt, W. E. (1909). The financial system of the medieval Papacy in the light of recent literature. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 23(22), 251–295. Lunt, W. E. (1912). The first Levy of Papal Annates. The American Historical Review, 18(1), 48–64. Lunt, W. E. (1965). Papal revenues in the Middle Ages (Vol. II). Octagon Books. Martins, M. G. (2005). A guerra esquiva. O conflito luso-castelhano de 1336– 1338. Promontoria, 3, 19–80. Millet, H. (2010). Qu’est-ce que la papauté avignonnaise? Lusitania Sacra, 22, 17–24. Moher, L. (1931). Die Einnahmen der Apostolischen Kammer unter Klemens VI . F. Schöning.

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Mollat, G. (Ed.). (1904–1947). Lettres communes du pape Jean XXII (1316– 1334). Lettres communes analysées d’après les Registres dits d’Avignon et du Vatican (16 vols.). École française de Rome [LCJXXII ]. Mollat, G. (1908). Procès d’un collecteur pontifical sous Jean XXII et Benoît XII. Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 6, 210–227. Mollat, G. (Ed.). (1962–1965). Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France publiées ou analysées d’après les registres du Vatican. École française de Rome [LSCGXI (Étranger)]. Morelló Baget, J. (2013). Financiar el reino terrenal. La contribución de la Iglesia a finales de la Edad Media (s. XIII-XV I). CSIC-Institución Milà I Fontanals. Neagu, R. M. (2015). Considerations regarding the beneficial policy led by the Popes of Avignon in the Diocese of Cenad in the fourteenth century. Journal: Philosophy, Communication, Media Sciences, 1, 56–71. Nicholson, H. (2011). The proceedings against the Templars in the British Isles (Vol. II): The Translation. Ashgate. Petersen, S. (2001). Benefizientaxierungen in der Peripherie: Pfarrorganisation Pfrundeneinkommen - Klerikerbildung im Bistum Ratzeburg. Vandenhoecj & Ruprecht. Pirot, L. et al. (Ed.). (1935–1957). Lettres secrètes et curiales de Grégoire XI relatives à la France (5 vols.). E. Boccard [LSCGXI (France)]. Renouard, Y. (1949). Un Français du Sud-Ouest, évêque de Lisbonne au XIVe siècle: Thibaud de Castillon (1348-56). Bulletin des Études Portugaises, 13, 29–51. Samaran, C., & Mollat, G. (1902) La fiscalité pontificale en France au XIV e siècle (période d’Avignon et Grand Schisme d’Occident. École Française de Rome. Saraiva, A. (2001–2002). O processo de inquirição do espólio de um prelado trecentista: D. Afonso Pires, bispo do Porto (1359–1372). Lusitania Sacra, 13–14, 197–228. Schäfer, K. (1911). Die Ausgaben der Apostolischen Kammer unter Johann XXII . F. Schöningh. Schuchard, C. (2000). Die päpstlichen Kollektoren im späten Mittelalter. Niemeyer. Sedano, J. (2016). Los fundamentos jurídicos de las anatas papales y la polémica com nas naciones a través de los tratados e informes redactados durante el Concilio de Trento. In D. Mayenburg (Ed.), Der Einfluss der Kanonistik auf die europäische Rechtskultur. Vol. 5: Das Recht der Wirtschaft. Böhlau Verlag (pp. 433–470). Steiber, J. W. (1978). Pope Eugenius IV, the Council of Basel and the Secular and Ecclesiastical Authorities in the Empire. E.J. Brill.

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Theïs, V. (2011). Les progrès de la centralisation romaine au siècle de la papauté avignonnaise (1305–1378). In M. M. Cevins & J.-M. Matz (Eds.), Structure et dynamique religieuses dans les sociétés de l’Occident latin (1179–1449). Presses universitaires de Rennes (pp. 33–44). Theïs, V. (2018). Se représenter l’espace sans carte. Pratiques d’écriture de la Chambre apostolique au XIVe siècle. In P. Boucheron, M. Folin & J.-Ph. Genet (Eds.), Entre idéel et matériel. Éditions de la Sorbonne (pp. 329–364). Trenchs i Òdena, J. (1982). La Cámara Apostólica y sus documentos (la mitad del siglo XIV). Boletín de la Sociedad Castellonense de Cultura, 58, 629–652. Vidal, J.-M. (Ed.). (1913–1950). Lettres closes patentes et curiales de Benoît XII intéressant les pays autres que la France (2 vols.). École française de Rome [LSCBXII (Étranger)]. Wiedemann, B. (2015). The papal camera and the monastic census. Evidence from Portugal, c.1150-1190. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 126, 181–196. Williman, D., & Corsano, K. (2014). The spoils of the Pope and the pirates, 1357: The complete legal dossier from the Vatican archives. The Ames Foundation. Williman, D., & Corsano, K. (2020). Records of the papal right of spoil (1316– 1412) (2nd ed.). The Ames Foundation. Zanke, S. (2013). Johannes XXII., Avignon und Europa: Das politische Papsttum im Spiegel der kurialen Register (1316–1334). Brill. Zutshi, P. (2021). Changes in the registration of papal letters under the Avignon Popes (1305–1378). In P. Zutshi (Ed.), The Avignon Popes and their chancery (pp. 107–138).

Is the Economy an Issue? Kings and Economic Legislation in Medieval Portugal Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar

1

Introduction

The period from the reign of Afonso III (1245–1279) to the end of that of Afonso IV (1325–1357) is probably one of the most prolific in terms of legislation production in Portugal. This was already highlighted by Carvalho Homem in his study of the legislation of King Dinis I (1279–1325) and King Afonso IV1 and the inventory drawn up by José

1 Homem (1994).

U. Évora—CIDEHUS. This paper was funded by the national programme of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia—Foundation for Science and Technology – under project UIDP/00057/2020 H. V. Vilar (B) CIDEHUS—University of Évora, Évora, Portugal e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_4

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Domingues in his study of the Ordenações Afonsinas —the Code of King Afonso V—demonstrates its importance.2 Other authors3 have also stressed the importance of this legislation, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, as well as the scope of the topics it covered. It should be noted that this phenomenon reflects the growing importance of the monarch as a producer of laws and signals the significance of the period from the mid-thirteenth century to midfourteenth century as a key stage in the process of the construction of the Portuguese Crown.4 Bearing this in mind, the title of this chapter must be taken with reference to an underlying question: how important was the economy in this extensive body of royal legislation? This assumes an understanding of what is meant by the economy as well as the limits placed on royal influence and intervention in this sphere. At the same time, we also assume that the legislation and, in the present case, the royal discourse on legislation, is a form of expression of the economic policy pursued by the monarch. As Steven Epstein wrote, perhaps economic policy is a too outdated concept to characterise the interface between politics and economics.5 As he states, “In a late medieval context, the paramount issues were fiscal—taxes, customs duties, public debt, and the money supply”.6 These were the concerns that marked the policies and action not only of central administration but also, namely, of urban power centres. However, as understood in this chapter, the role of crown legislation in the economy was not limited to the field of taxation but extended, in particular, to the definition of the ownership of property and the capacity for ensuring the existence of mechanisms working for social balance. The confidence that this legislation instilled or intended to instil in the community7 and doubtless the apparent stability it provided as regards certain aspects of economic life cannot be ignored, even when we consider the fact that the legislation introduced by medieval monarchs could be,

2 Domingues (2008). 3 Silva (2011: 276–288) and Caetano (1985: 344–346). 4 The importance of a similar chronology is also stressed by Henriques (2008) in his

PhD dissertation, although linked to a different scope of analysis. 5 Epstein (2009: 99). 6 Epstein (2009: 100). 7 Swedberg (2002: 47).

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in certain aspects, less significant or less effective than the role played by other power centres, in particular at the urban and manorial level.8 Yet, it is important to stress that this analysis focuses on a territory such as Portugal from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century, whose evolution is, many times seen as an ongoing and continuous process of construction of royal power. For that the examination of the content and scope of such legislation assumes a special degree of importance. Reflect on legislative production is also to consider how royal power was perceived and represented through the legislative discourse and how the crown viewed its intervention in economic life and in the formulation of economic policy, even if this concept was not formulated as such. To this end, we have taken into account the legislation that contained mainly two major collections: the Livro das Leis e Posturas, and the Ordenações de Dom Duarte, plus a few laws from other documentary sources.

2

The Collation of Legislation

Although the period under analysis extends from the second half of the thirteenth century to 1357, that is, the end of the reign of Afonso IV, the legislative universe considered here includes the so-called Leis Gerais de Afonso II —General Laws of King Afonso II (1211–1223)—dating from 1211 and also forming part of the collections mentioned above. The decision to include the laws of 1211 in this study derives not only from the fact that they are regarded and known as the first general laws in Portugal, even if his application was less effective than generally thought9 but also because some of the topics that we regard as key for assessing the scope and levels of intervention of the king in the economy are present in this body of legislation and thus constitute an early indication of these concerns. Besides, this legislative activity, it is based on the beginning of a reign marked by a series of innovative actions involving the exercise of royal power, in particular the appearance of the first chancellery register, the holding of the first inquiries in 1220 and the production of a large number of confirmation letters of privileges and rights to different

8 Boerner (2016). 9 Vilar (2015) and Branco (1997).

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institutions. Once again, legislative action features as part of a broader framework and this is also a criterion that was considered.10 About the collections in focus, both the Livro das Leis e das Posturas —LLP11 and the Ordenações de D. Duarte—ODD12 are the only Portuguese collections of laws known and produce, probably, during the last decades of the fourteenth century and the first decades of the fifteenth century, although it is uncertain when they were actually produced. They are collections of legislation enacted by the first Portuguese kings, beginning in the reign of Afonso II and extending, in the case of the former, up until the reign of Peter I (1357–1367). It is highly likely that there were other such collections; however, we have no record of their existence.13 Besides these two collections, we have also consider some other laws, taken from other sources, which appear in the list of medieval Portuguese royal legislation drawn up by José Domingues, which was the guide to the creation of our documentary corpus.14 It should be noted that the details of the production of the LLP and the ODD is a matter of considerable debate, and even the official character of these collections has been called into question. There are many doubts surrounding both the LLP and the ODD, which are seen as laying the groundwork for the great legislative campaign which resulted in the production of the code of King Afonso V (1438–1481),15 in the middle of the fifteenth century, undoubtedly regarded as the first collection of Portuguese legislative documentation made by the king. Thus, the profile of the two laws’ collections examined in this paper inevitably raises questions about their dates of production, as mentioned above, and about who was responsible for producing them; similarly, we have very little concrete knowledge of the reasons why these collections were produced. Undoubtedly, at least from the reign of John I (1385–1433), there were calls for royal legislation to be brought together in a single collection.16 The fact that in Castile a collection of laws had already been 10 About the importance and limits of these laws Branco (1997: 79–95). 11 Livro das Leis e Posturas (1971). 12 Ordenações D. Duarte (1988). 13 Silva (2011: 288). 14 Domingues (2008: 469–596). 15 Ordenações Afonsinas (1984). 16 Domingues (2008: 65).

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produced led to pressure being felt in Portugal to do the same, so it is not unreasonable to assume that attempts to do this were made only prior to the production of Ordenações Afonsinas. This has not lessened the intensity of the debate, mentioned above, on the profile and details of the production of these two collections, especially seeing that there is a clear degree of overlap in terms of content between the two, while they are organised differently. Without seeking to revive this discussion, what we need to keep in mind is that the legislative texts we focus on which are collated in these volumes are not originals but rather copies, any of which may differ from the original text or even from each other. In other words, there are variations between the same texts which appear in the two collections, which raise doubts as to how far they are true to the original texts, of which, for the most part, we have no knowledge. Such differences are particularly relevant in the introductions made to laws in which the reasoning behind their production is usually set out. This is also reflected in the type of discourse adopted17 and even in the list of laws included in each volume, despite the existence of a degree of overlap in terms of content. Historians seeking to carry out a critical analysis of these collections thus face serious difficulties. There is no doubt that the objectives which underlie the drawing up of these compilations, possibly along with the profile of the person responsible for drawing up each volume, led to choices being made as to what to include or omit. At first glance, the LLP is less organised than the ODD, since it contains a series of laws which have been copied, without any clear chronological order or sequence of topics. One might hazard a guess that this lack of organisation might indicate a degree of affinity with the original text or set of copied texts, somewhat in keeping with the way documents were drawn up. In contrast, in the ODD, laws are organised by reign and, in some cases, do not feature long introductions. The evidence currently available does not allow us to proceed with confidence in identifying protagonists or explaining production contexts specially in the framework of this chapter. In what concerns Ordenações Afonsinas, we have purposely omitted it from our analysis, which means that in cases in which laws were repeated

17 Homem (1994: 17).

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in the publication of Ordenações Afonsinas, we have considered only the texts included in the LLP and the ODD and not in Ordenações. This choice is explained not only by dates of production, but principally by the conditions surrounding the production of this first official collection. Undoubtedly, many of the texts included in the LLP, in the ODD and in Ordenações Afonsinas are reworked in the last of these, as already mentioned, but they are also now organised according to topical criteria on which the five books that make up the code are based. Hence, the organisation is quite different and thus our option for not considering this last collection in our analysis. Let us comment briefly on the eclectic character of these volumes, particularly that of the LLP. Although there is an evident degree of overlap in terms of content between the two collections, the full content is not entirely repeated in ODD, as already mentioned, which makes it difficult to establish a direct link between the two volumes. At the same time, it should be mentioned that despite the general character of many of these laws, that is, the fact that they are directed at the community at large, either the realm as a whole or its population, the truth is that some of them display a non-general character. Predictably, many laws are targeted at specific groups, while the justification for their enactment is couched in terms of serving the common good, that is, the way in which a given law may be applied may contribute positively to the community. However, some of the texts included in these collections can hardly be classified as legislation. Such is the case of the edict providing for the sentencing and execution of the infante João Afonso promulgated by his brother Afonso IV early in his reign and included in the LPP and the ODD.18 Since this text is not a general law, the truth is that the justification put forward for the conviction, the reaffirmation that it is based on a question of royal prerogative and its basis, may have provided grounds for the inclusion of this document in the collections. Something similar happened with the agreements signed by Portuguese monarchs, particularly accords between Dinis I and the clergy from the end of the thirteenth century to the early fourteenth century.19 Although restricted, at the outset, to ecclesiastics, drawn up on specific

18 LLP: 241–244; ODD: 334–337. 19 Pizarro (2005).

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occasions and subject to later reformulations, many of these agreements were included both in the LLP and the ODD, as indeed they were also later included in Afonso’s Code. In this case, the regulatory nature of these agreements may have been sufficient justification for their inclusion. How are we then to chronologically order and characterise the collection of laws under consideration as a whole? This is the second question raised in this part. Based on the data collected by José Domingues, the reign of Afonso III is the first reign that was marked by a notable degree of legislative activity. A total of 233 laws enacted were identified by the author, revising previous estimates by basing his analysis on the attribution of undated laws,20 while in the following reign, that of Dinis I, a total of 130 laws were promulgated, and a further 143 in the reign of Afonso IV. It should be noted that as many of these laws are undated, they were assigned to different reigns in accordance with a range of criteria based on the topics in question and a close analysis of the text, among others. As for the classification of the topics of these laws, this is the subject of some debate. Carvalho Homem highlights the prolixity of the legislative production of Dinis I and Afonso IV, which demonstrates a marked royal concern for intervention at multiple levels of society. Thus, a system of classification by topic is used by this author comprising 16 different topics, including justice, the topic with which most laws were associated, adultery and sexual morality, desamortisation and bureaucracy/taxes, among others.21 The classification produced by Carvalho Homem demonstrates the different nature of these laws and the difficulties that a classification of this type entails. It also serves to provide support to our research options as regards the selection of criteria determining the definition of the documentary corpus to be examined, all the more so when we take into account that deciding what to include in or omit from this corpus assumes 20 For more on the process associated with the construction of the list of laws, in particular, the discussion as to what to regard or not to regard as a general law, see Domingues (2008: 38–54). 21 Carvalho Homem classified the legislation of the period from 1279 to 1367 on

the basis of 16 topics: Justice; Adultery and sexual morality; laws of desamortisation; Court bureaucracy/fees; Jurisdictions/couto (noble-owned land exempt from taxes) and honras (noble-owned land); Jewish/Christian contracts; Jurisdictions/ecclesiastical; Royal officialdom; Usury; Gambling; aposentadoria; Reguengos (royal jurisdictions); Contracts; Taxation and Miscellaneous. Homem (1994: 102–103).

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an understanding of the limits of royal intervention in this field and an understanding that much of this is evidenced by the granting of special privileges to institutions or individuals and not in the promulgation of general laws. This means that unlike the field of justice, in which the profuse production of legislation signals a growing concern to standardise procedures and base to some extent the exercise of justice and the imposition of penalties on the king, royal intervention in the economic sphere was closely associated with privilege and the opportunity for granting privilege. This necessarily meant that the documents drawn up were included under the topic of reward and the granting of favours, with the recipients being privileged social groups and urban institutions. As regards legislation associated with economic matters, this is far less extensive than might be expected and less regulatory in character than one might assume. Royal intervention in the field of the economy is generally confused with concerns regarding crown income—the management of taxation and royal patrimony, the way in which they were collected and hence provisions relating to royal officials, and with checks and balances in terms of access to land purchase and ownership, and laws governing the desamortisation of property demonstrate this, along with the regulation of the market, evidenced in particular in concerns regarding prices and the supply of goods to urban centres and also, at a broader level, those regarding monetary circulation and the exercise of royal privilege regarding the minting of coinage. These are the topics that we regard as being representative of royal action, and while debatable, they are the basis of the collection of documents under analysis. The following section enables a better understanding of the importance of each of these topics in terms of the legislative production of Portuguese monarchs during the period under review.

3 The Property of the King and the Property of the Realm As mentioned above, the specific year in which much of the Portuguese legislation dating from this period was produced is not easily verifiable. This makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the pattern of production or even put forward theories that attempt to explain and contextualise it. The way in which certain laws have been attributed to

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specific reigns is also debatable, and certain trends can be established, but little else. Taking into account these limitations, the assigning of clearly dated laws to years and decades deserves some consideration. When laws are compared, for those which can be dated, more were enacted during the reigns of Dinis I and Afonso IV than in previous reigns, that is, more dated laws were enacted during the reigns of these two kings than those promulgated during the reign of Afonso III, which could derive from the profile of the source documents which provided the basis for the compilation of our two collections. A close analysis shows that these laws were produced during two periods: the first decade of the fourteenth century and the 1340s, during the reign of Afonso IV. The early fourteenth century saw the production of about 35 laws which can be dated from this period. The first decade of the century was particularly productive regarding royal intervention in the territory, with the launch of royal inquiries in 1301, 1303–1304 and 1307–1311, and the holding of Cortes in Lisbon in 1301 and Coimbra in 1304. The legislative campaign which was conducted is consistent with the strengthening of the profile of the king in his role as a legislator while it also reflects a growing concern regarding royal property and patrimony, not only from a political perspective as regards the control of the nobility, but also in relation to royal income. The 1340s are characterised by a number of specific features. 1348 marks the beginning of the first outbreak of the Black Death, which is likely to have lasted until early 1349.22 This outbreak may explain the origin of four laws dating from 1349, one of them aimed at curbing usury and the other providing for the continuation of the exercise of crafts and trades practised before the outbreak of the plague.23 But it is the year of 1340 that saw more legislation produced: 16 out of 44 documents. We do not seek to conduct a detailed analysis of these laws, which display concerns as regards the practice of justice, but once again it is worth noting that the 1330 s and 1340 s constitute the key period of government during the reign of Afonso IV. There is an impact deriving from the general request made by the monarch in 1334 for

22 Silva (2021). 23 LLP: 448–452; ODD: 526–529.

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lords of the manor to prove to the king the legitimacy of the ownership of their judicial rights, the holding of Cortes in 1340, the launch of new inquiries in 1343 and the worsening of problems with some bishops such the Bishop of Oporto. At the same time, this is a key period in the launching and consolidation of local and regional structures for tax collectors. We are talking about the almoxarifes, known since Sancho I (1185–1211) but whose functions and importance were review under the government of Afonso IV.24 As regards our target universe, which represents about 10% of the total legislation inventoried by José Domingues, that is, about 50 documents, without taking into account the laws of 1211, the general picture as regards distribution over time is the same, with the decades mentioned above accounting for the most important periods of production. As the fourteenth century progresses, the legislative discourse is increasingly presented as a priority stage for the political affirmation of the king and the power of the king, not only in terms of measures that legislation provides for but also through the inclusion of introductory texts of different lengths which seek to justify the production of the law in question and, at the same time, set out the basis for the justification and substantiation of royal action. And as might be expected, the laws under study considered are no exception. Given the fragmentary character of some texts, in many cases what survives does not go much beyond an outline of the legislation in question. In others, the reasons underlying the production of the law are clear, and usually associated with royal functions. In his study on the legislation of Dinis I and Afonso IV, Carvalho Homem highlights the importance of “serving God” as the aim of royal action combined with the defence of the common people and the presence, in particular from the reign of Afonso IV, of a “biological metaphor for the political community”.25 There is no doubt that the legislation of Afonso IV is particularly informative as regards characterising the role of the king and the functions he carried out. Combating evil and the defence of the common good26

24 Sousa (2005), Henriques (2008: 314–316), and Vicente (2013). 25 Homem (1994: 30). 26 Lecepre-Desjardin and Anne Laure Van Bruaene (2010: 1–19) and Vilar (2019).

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are arguments repeatedly used especially in laws that are intended to be applied to royal officials and are aimed at preventing corruption. It was also the king’s responsibility to ensure that the nobles did not fall into poverty or experience a reduction in income, as king Dinis I refers to in the law of March 1291 on the ban on monasteries and churches inheriting the goods of those who had taken religious vows.27 The king was responsible for ensuring social harmony and this concern is evident in much of the legislation, while often expressed in different ways. One of the topics in which the scope of content of royal functions is present most clearly as justification to produce the law is undoubtedly that which is related to the control of the acquisition of property by ecclesiastical institutions. In Portugal, the concern regarding the concentration of landownership in the hands of religious institutions was an important issue from at least the date of the introduction of legislation in 1211.28 This initial legislation, which marks the beginning of a long period of legislative production that continued throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, prohibited the purchase of property by religious institutions except for acquisitions linked to the celebration of the anniversaries of the birth of the father or grandfather of the reigning monarch, that is, the first two kings of the Portuguese dynasty. Purchases made privately by individual ecclesiastics were also authorised, a provision that led to a great deal of uncertainty during subsequent decades. Successive monarchs gradually reaffirmed the prohibition on the purchase of property by religious institutions, while they found noncompliance with previous provisions surprising as these had had the effect of progressively curtailing the ownership of property which had already been acquired. This is what occurred in 1286 as regards the law promulgated by Dinis I providing that property acquired from the beginning of his reign must be sold within one year counting from St Mary’s day in August.29 This was followed by a series of legislative acts dated 1291, 1294, 1305 and 130930 dealing with provisions governing the inheritance

27 LLP: 72–76; ODD: 179–180. 28 LLP: 13–14; ODD: 47. 29 LLP: 162; ODD: 173. 30 LLP: 72–76, 205, 209–210; ODD pp. 179–180, 182–183, 204–205, 213b.

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of the property of those who had taken religious vows by the institutions to which they belonged. In the law dated July 1305, the king alluded to purchases made through secular intermediaries who would donate the goods they had acquired to religious institutions. This led the king to demand that an oath should be taken by purchasers that the goods in question were intended for their ownership and not that of others, thus curtailing the purchase of goods by individuals in a way that the law of 1211 had not provided for. As far as the inheritance of assets by those who had taken religious vows is concerned, the king referred to the request made by ricos-homens (noblemen) as justification for the production of specific provisions to regulate inheritance and mentioned the concern demonstrated by nobles that many had experienced a reduction in their income and were “exceedingly poor and deprived of the benefits and inheritances of their forebears” (E muy pobres E exerdadas das posysoes E eranças de suas avoengas), a situation that would lead the Kingdom of not having anyone to defend it as “the king was lacking the servants he needed” (que hi mester fosse per mingua d’aver).31 Thus, the king appears also as the protector of the interests of the kingdom, and the guarantor of social balance between groups. In fact, this legislation, although it represents an effort to regulate the accumulation of landownership in the hands of the Church signals an attempt to meet the interests of groups with sufficient financial capacity and interest enabling them to play an active role in the property market and reflected the assumption by the king of the legitimacy of crown interference and regulation of the market in order to ensure the persistence of the dominant social and economic framework.32 As the king was also a key figure within the framework of the ownership of wealth, with an interest in landholding, this legislation also represented an additional attempt to protect the royal patrimony. In 1311, Dinis I reaffirmed the prohibition on the purchase of property by ecclesiastical institutions and extended it to nobles, providing that they

31 LLP: 72; ODD: 179. 32 Epstein (2007), Bavel (2016), and Wickham (2021: 2–40).

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must not acquire property within reguengos (royal jurisdictions) either by purchase or other means, at risk of losing them.33 Several measures, such as recurrent recourse to inquiries throughout all reigns from that of Afonso II to that of Afonso IV, demonstrate the importance attributed by successive monarchs to the control of the patrimony and income deriving from its exploitation. The ideal of a monarch dependent exclusively on his patrimony, so dear to medieval political theory,34 influenced crown action in Portugal, but as in other European spaces, at an early stage, royalty assumed that survival, and above all, strengthening their position would involve sources of revenue other than those deriving from manorial exploitation. Taxation and the theory on which it was founded, to which we will return later, would soon become the focus of royal interest in the face of increasing financial pressure. But first, let us resume our examination of the issue of control of royal patrimony. In addition to the aforementioned inquiries, carried out with the aim of identifying abuses and reconstituting the map of crown properties, the court decisions that Dinis I enacted, for the first time, at the end of the thirteenth century, as a result of the enquiries carried out in 1288,35 the legislative practice signals this concern from 1211. Similarly, the law of 1311 mentioned above deals with a twofold issue, already present in 1211: the problem of the accumulation of landownership in the hands of the Church and the protection of royal patrimony. Pointing to the religious orders’ misuse of certain privileges granted by previous monarchs, Afonso II forbade, in 1211, ecclesiastical institutions and other privileged institutions from preventing estates which became their property from paying royal taxes when these were due, arguing that there was a need for properties to maintain their previous status.36 This same provision was re-enacted by Dinis I in October 1309 and included in a long list of provisions that were recorded in the LLP.37 Previously, in 1302, the king had mentioned the problem of reguengos and the rights that the king enjoyed, legitimately exercised in these royal 33 LLP: 381–382; ODD: 208–210. 34 Scordia (2005) and Krynen (1993). 35 Pizarro (2015b). 36 LLP: 14; ODD: 48. 37 LLP: 132–133.

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jurisdictions but which were restricted by the nobles and ecclesiastics who appropriated these rights. This law was promulgated in Santarem in 1312, and, as on other occasions, Dinis I had it recorded by notaries in their registers, and established that it should be read once a year in each town and city council through the kingdom and that compliance should be monitored.38 In addition to the concern to limit abuses of royal property by the nobility and clergy, also featuring in legislation is the concern with the efficient collection of revenues deriving both from the exploitation of land owned by the king and the exercise of crown rights. In this field, the role played by almoxarifes was particularly important, even if their functions were not restricted to tax collectors. Hence the growing importance assigned to royal officials in legislation. Of course, the proliferation of rules governing officialdom raises further questions besides those related to the control of fiscal taxation. Representing the monarch, royal officials were key figures in the process of communication between kings and local communities, and their importance in the process of governance and the representation of royal power at the local level grew during this period. In the specific case of the field of justice, these officials were representatives of the king as judge in the territory of the kingdom, ensuring compliance with the law and seeing that sentences were carried out. At the same time, in the field of the economy, officials in charge of the collection of rents and royal taxes represented the king in his role as lord of the manor. In both cases, the effectiveness of the action of royal officials was often reduced by resistance at the local level and the question of the existence of local privileges, which were challenged by the intervention of these officials. The dilemma they faced was how to strike a balance between effectiveness of action and the observance of local privileges and rights in a fragmented economic and political sphere. Once again, the laws of 1211, making their mark in a seminal manner, contain provisions regulating the action of crown officials. Afonso II forbade his stewards and tax collectors from practising usury,39 stating that he sought to banish evil from his lands and pointing to his own

38 LLP: 188–190. 39 LLP: 17; ODD: 174–175.

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exemplary conduct. In other law, he condemned all those identified as the perpetrators of theft or deception in the performance of their duty.40 Afonso IV reaffirmed, in a particularly striking manner, provisions regarding crown officials, introducing regular inspections to ensure they were accountable, condemning those accused of oppressing the people, and introducing regulations with the aim of defining the scope of action of each official, for example rent collectors, tax collectors and justice officials, and regarding corregedores (magistrates) the measures introduced were even more extensive.41 Oddly, in many of these laws, in particular those dating from the reign of Afonso IV, the language of moral condemnation was used as justification for the implementation of provisions. Without seeking to further examine the importance of ethics and moral conduct in the formulation of legislation focusing on officialdom, this is worth mentioning because on the one hand, it reinforces the notion already referred to of the importance of officials as representatives of the crown42 while on the other hand, it throws light on the incorporation of moral values in the discourse regarding officialdom and the formulation of a code of ethics for officials in the performance of their duty. The king’s scope of action also extended to the protection of other social groups and their assets because should this protection not be effectively provided, it was ultimately the stability and harmony of the kingdom that were jeopardised. Here, we do not just refer to those who Afonso II mentioned in a law as “mesquinhos” who he held the king should protect against the powerful. This was a group which was undefined in economic and social terms, representing the reaffirmation of a dichotomous perspective based on poverty rather than function,43 which was powerless to survive in a world controlled by those who wielded power. In fact, all social groups were able to find in crown edicts a means of seeking recourse for the righting of wrongs done to them and thus harmony and stability among different strata of society was ensured.

40 LLP: 18; ODD: 51–52. 41 Vilar (2021). 42 Pérez-Alfaro (2004). 43 Aladjidi (2008).

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Similarly, legislation to curb usury and the usurious activity of the Jews marks this period. Condemned by the church, usury was a priority target for royal action. At times, divine condemnation was invoked and warnings were issued pointing to the risks of contracting of loans with interest payments, and during this period monarchs produced devised specific measures aimed at curbing and prohibiting the practice. Once again, Afonso II’s laws of 1211 were pioneering, as we have already mentioned, in nature in the way they prohibited the practice of usury by royal officials, introducing a discourse seeking to raise moral standards and setting ethical standards to be followed by officials. Both Afonso III and Afonso IV were active in this regard, particularly the latter, who banned the practice in April 1340, claiming that it was contrary to God’s will and harmful to the souls of men44 and reaffirmed this stance in July 1349. In the wake of the first outbreak of the plague, Afonso IV resumed his divinely inspired condemnation of usury and warned of malicious contracts that were being offered, in which usury clauses were buried, which led wealthy nobles, boni homines, peasants and craftsmen into poverty and thus caused them to cease serving the king as they were bound to.45 The harm caused by usury was thus felt across society, which was increasingly eclectic in nature. Thus, it was up to the king to prohibit the practice of usury, and Afonso IV proceeded by prohibiting Jews and Moors from lending money and forbade Moors from entering into contracts with Jews. Excluded from prohibition were contracts and loans between Christians, as long as they did not involve interest payments. A year later, in October 1350, Afonso IV revoked this law in response to a request from the nobles and from towns and cities councils, who once again resorted to the argument of poverty, claiming that if Christians could not establish contracts with Jews and Moors, the nobles could not serve the crown in the way they were bound to and most of those who lived on the manor would not be able to work their farms and harvest produce and rural areas would become even more depopulated than they already were. The monarch agreed to the request while mentioning that the previous law had been formulated “after careful preparation and

44 LLP: 322–334; ODD: 444–445; Ferro (1970). 45 LLP: 443–448; ODD: 5218–522.

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involving the good regulation of my lands” (por bom paramento E rregimento da minha terra),46 a statement that hints at some reluctance on the part of the king to accede to it, while the prohibition of usury was reaffirmed. The introduction and almost immediate repeal of this law, the use of the same argument to justify both its introduction and repeal, and the concern to record these two events in the collections we focus on are worthy of note. There is no doubt that underlying the formulation of this law was the concern with noble indebtedness, the role of this group in society, and also the important role played by religious minorities in the financial system. This system was the object of specific royal legislation, especially regarding the minting of coinage and the value of the currency, reflecting the growing importance of the sector, the monetisation of the economy, urban groups and trade for the economy. These transformations called into question the importance of traditional sources of income and led to inevitable changes in the level of social recognition of the groups in question. In this context, the importance of the role of the monarch as the distributor of benefits and guarantor of social stability increased, while the financial difficulties of the crown grew.

4

Currency, Borders and Taxation

“The basic task of political economy is to explain how government found the money to pay for war”.47 In accordance with other authors, Epstein highlights the main problem confronting kings in the late Middle Ages: how to finance war. After the period of so-called profitable war during the Christian expansion, there followed a stage marked by the Hundred Years’ War and the proliferation of wars between kingdoms, in which new technical and strategic developments led to greater military effectiveness but involved a greater commitment of financial resources. Defending the kingdom increasingly became an essential function of the king, while in the regal discourse, the concept of the kingdom coincided with a territory whose political boundaries were gradually drawn

46 ODD: 522–523, 47 Epstein (2009:122) and Dominguez (2019).

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and on the basis of which a community of inhabitants was defined, assumption that was particularly important from the reign of Dinis I onward.48 The introduction of laws of a general scope assumes the image of a power exercised in a continuous way, which does not sit well with the reality of fragmented power. But the affirmation of the established nature of a territory over which the king exercises power is prevalent in regal legislation, demonstrating a close association between political theory, the representation of regal power and the formulation of economic policy implemented by royalty. This conception is particularly clear in the laws concerning the prohibition of the export of products from the kingdom, as is the case of a law of Afonso III dated from 1273.49 In accordance with this law, the monarch forbade the export of bread and flour by land and sea, and this was reaffirmed on several occasions, especially in times of crisis when the indications are that the supply of cereal was low. These laws, quite frequent during the Middle Ages, were answers to the problems posed by urban supply in a kingdom normally short of cereals. But there is no doubt that just as important as cereals, or even more important, were precious metals. The monarchs who reigned in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries repeatedly imposed restrictions and prohibitions on the exodus of these goods. Afonso III was one of the first to do this by means of the introduction of a law which is undated but attributed to the mid-1250s prohibiting the export of gold and silver bars, currency and objects, that is all gold and silver items, while extending this ban to coloured textiles, hides, wax and honey. He defined all possible points of exit by land and sea in the south of the kingdom, thus establishing both geographical and commercial restrictions and charging crown officials with the enforcement of the provisions of the law.50 Succeeding monarchs reaffirmed this ban, especially Afonso IV, who strengthened it on several occasions: at a session of the Cortes of 132751 ;

48 Lachaud (2020). 49 Portugaliae Monumenta Historica- Leges, I-2, 226–227 and Ordenações Afonsinas,

V, titulo XXXXVIII: 174–176. 50 PMH ~ Leges, I- 2: 253–254. 51 Cortes Portuguesas (1982:19–20).

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in a letter sent to the alcaide and judges of Elvas in 134152 ; and most notably in 1347 in a letter sent to all the alcaides, judges and justices of his realm53 in which he reinforced the prohibition on the export of gold and silver, extending the ban to weapons and horses, while holding officials responsible for enforcing it, rewarding informants of violations and granting exemption from the ban for those who carried small silver knives. Once again, Afonso IV is seen to pay great attention to the details and formulation of procedures and, as with previous laws, offered some justification for a measure which did harm to the kingdom and leading to shortages. Remedying the deficit of precious metals, preventing the exodus of gold and silver as well as other goods necessary for the war effort such as livestock, and securing the supply of goods such as cereals to the population were economic problems the crown faced, while they were also bound up with the process of establishing the kingdom. Gold and silver, which was so jealously guarded by the monarchs who reigned in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, who sought to retain these metals within the borders of the kingdom, were the basis of the monetary system, and the king’s monopoly on the minting of coinage represented an important additional source of royal income. The imposition of the monetágio—a tax imposed by the king in exchange for promising to maintain the value of the currency—in particular from the reign of Afonso III, shows the effect of the privilege enjoyed by the king of this monopoly. The 1250s and 1260s are marked by the introduction of the first legislation aimed at controlling weights, measures and prices, the Lei da Almotaçaria, in 1253,54 while there is evidence of deliberations regarding the devaluation of the currency sought by the king and the first evidence of the payment of the monetágio,55 a tax that was imposed in all peninsular realms during roughly the same period.56 As holders of the monopoly on minting coinage, Portuguese kings jealously guarded the privilege and particularly were keen to regulate minting, demonstrated by the heavy fines imposed on forgers, including 52 Chancelaria Afonso IV, 1992, III, 198–201. 53 ODD: 498–501. 54 PMH-Leges, I-2: 191–196. 55 PMH—Leges, I-: 210–212. 56 Sánchez et al. (2008: 99–130), Henriques (2008), and Dominguez (2019).

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those who produced their own coins or altered the composition of crown coinage. The amputation of feet and hands that Afonso II decreed in 1211 as a punishment for forgers and the adulterers of gold and silver57 was reaffirmed in subsequent reigns and naturally involved the confiscation of goods.58 The confidence of economic agents in the currency that circulated seems to be a key element of crown monetary policy, as was trust in the king’s ability to prevent price rises and ensure the supply of goods to the domestic market.59

5

Conclusion

To conclude, the aim of this brief survey is to raise pertinent questions rather than draw definitive conclusions. However, some general ideas may perhaps be drawn as starting point for future investigation. The first of these is inextricably linked to the profile of the available documentation and options detected during the compilation of the documentary corpus under analysis. It should be noted that this legislation was formulated during the period from the early thirteenth century to the second half of the fourteenth century and has thus been subject to a series of filters. This means that the basis for our research is the result of recompilation whose scope is unknown. At the same time, there is no doubt that the criteria determining the selection of laws may be questionable, but it seems legitimate to conclude that the setting of the course of economic policy by monarchs by means of legislation can only be understood on the basis of the interface between the influence of political theory and the process of political construction of the crown and acceptance by economic agents of the existence of a space for the regulation and intervention of a political entity in the economy. That is, along with the financial problems that most realms experienced in the late Middle Ages due to the ongoing cost of war which led to the introduction of new measures to protect crown patrimony and the development of the tax system, during this period we are able to detect an

57 ODD: 52. 58 LLP: 121. 59 LLP: 125; ODD: 108.

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increase in the scope of the intervention of the monarchy in the economy, without putting in doubt the basis of a fragmented political reality. In this connection, the reigns examined in this paper, in particular those of Afonso III, Dinis I and Afonso IV are particularly paradigmatic. As society gradually retreated from war of conquest and the economic framework became more akin to that of similar political spaces, legislation introduced during the period achieved the goal of ensuring that measures were implemented across society while attempting to extend the scope for crown intervention. Afonso IV’s legislation is particularly important in this respect, just as the Ordenamiento de Alcalá of 1348 was for Afonso XI in Castile. What this legislation also shows very clearly is the role played by monarchs, or that the monarchs intended to assume, as the guarantor of harmony, protector and provider of stability. Of particular importance was providing social stability, despite the pressure of new groups and the emergence of new trajectories of social mobility, along with the challenges of a changing financial system and the integration of economic management in crown administration.

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A Difficult Transition: Portuguese State Finances Between Later Medieval and Early Modern Times, c. 1415–1530 Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

1

Mercantilist or Entrepreneurial? A Proposal of Historiographical Framing and the Debate of Theoretical Models for Portuguese Taxation

An archetype, a prototypical is vital to understand the cornerstones and structuring process of something larger and with implications for the collectivity, such as institutions. According to the Houaiss dictionary of Portuguese language, the term “archetype” means a “reproducible model or standard in simulacra or similar objects” or “model or original pattern, of a transcendent nature, which works as an essence and explanatory principle to all objects of material reality.”1 In the English language, according to the Cambridge dictionary, the entry entitles “a typical example of 1 Definition found on September 26th, 2021, in the Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa, online version—http://houaiss.uol.com.br/.

R. da C. Dominguez (B) Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences—University of Minho, Braga, Portugal e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_5

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something, or the original model of something from which others are copied.”2 Going further, it is possible to consider the idea of archetype as the essence of something that helps constructing an identity, bearing in mind that this building process is a “constant work in progress.” Regarding this subject, scholars affirmed that there is a natural tendency of kings and governments to overspend.3 Additionally, the maximization of revenues has been a real necessity and a central aspect of European countries’ fiscal policies since the later Middle Ages and beginning of modern times. However, during the second half of fifteenth century, states were pushed to take a step further in fiscal terms to amplify the State’s income, enabling their capacity to wage wars: they had to leave the “domain” or “seigneurial” state order toward to a “tax” state condition. Somehow, all Western monarchies experienced this transition toward to a tax state, at some point, during this transition between later Middle Ages and early modern times. The essence of such change relies, in a great deal, on the shift from direct to indirect taxation (taxation on private consumption, import and export of goods); in abandoning a specific form of taxation based on demands over agricultural outputs or other forms of extortion of wealth, utilizing force to format more sophisticated economic and fiscal institutions, which would allow accessing this same income. Though, there are two approaches4 about the tax state that are not compatible in a great deal. First, the “constitutional” point of view, which sees the transition from a domain state—as a manifestation of the exercise of royal power, defined as fiscalité féodale (feudal taxation)—to a system in which those powers would be subject to the exercise of fiscal authority by the sovereign in a transitory situation toward to the tax state. And that power was previously “negotiated” in representative assemblies, resulting in a fiscalité d’état (State finances/State taxation). Second, the “economic” point of view, which observes the tax state in a contrasting way, as the result of an economic policy based on the taxation of State’s renewable economic resources, which serves as a tax collection base.

2 Definition found on April 20th, 2021, in the Cambridge Online Dictionary. http:// dictionary.cambridge.org/pt/dicionario/ingles-portugues/archetype. 3 Körner (1995: 393). 4 Bonney and Ormrod (1999: 13).

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Our approach goes into the path of observing and analyzing those two contrasting tracks within the Portuguese context of an “organic institutional development” regarding its fiscal constitution. In order to achieve that, we used a combination of different sources: the remaining Royal “fiscal receipts” called Cartas de Quitação (acquittance letters), complemented with the description of parliamentary assemblies, some reports from royal chronicles and further studies on this topic, and the literature already produced for this period. About Some Criticism on the Sources and Approaches The main sources used to analyze the Portuguese case study, the acquittance letters, constitutes a particular type of documentation little explored—and of an enormous potential—by historians and researchers devoted to Medieval and Early Modern economic history in Portugal. Few studies utilized this group of sources in a systematic way,5 seeking to produce a more substantial study in a broader perspective. Respectively to some sources’ criticism, the Portuguese term itself quitação (acquittance) is, by itself, an indicative of its importance to this study of an economic/fiscal approach. It regards an act by which the creditor declares himself satisfied on his behalf, exempting the debtor from the financial obligation in contract. Objectively, it constitutes a receipt, a document where the creditor recognizes the debt as settled.6 From the law viewpoint, it ends a formal relation between the two parties (creditor and debtor), under the point of view of an exoneration or legal/conventional release of a debt or incumbency.7 Considering this specific case study, the source is a Royal release to all officers in charge of finances, in a general and more elevated way within the hierarchy—the almoxarifes, i.e., the local superintendent of royal income—and those responsible for the tax collection procedures and/or

5 See Dominguez (2019). 6 Definition found on June 12th, 2021, in the Dicionário Houaiss da Língua

Portuguesa, online version – http://houaiss.uol.com.br/. 7 Definition found on June 12th , 2021, in Silva 1813: 543. We utilized the traditional Portuguese language dictionaries’ set available at the website of the Center of Brazilian Studies Guita and José Mindlin (Brasiliana USP), at the University of São Paulo: http:// www.brasiliana.usp.br/dicionario.

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rents, in a specific and localized way—the recebedores (receivers), contadores (accountants), rendeiros (tax-farmers), feitores (foremen), tratadores (handlers), or cambiadores (moneychangers)—which dealt directly with the amounts raised and were in charge of account those resources to the superiors and witnesses designated to receive or hold that accountability—being that the escrivão dos contos (fiscal scrivener), the contadores das comarcas (counties’ accountants) or any other officer. Relatively to the content, the sources are reasonably uniform concerning the total amount received by the officer in cause/debtor, as well as the specification of values gathered. In most cases, sources even have the full list of all taxes collected in a local fiscal jurisdiction (almoxarifado) in each year, and expenditure described according to each different purpose. However, that designation can vary, depending on the case—for example, an almoxarife’s accountability procedures, a tax-farming account in a determined place, or even the collection of extraordinary revenues— and this could dictate the style of approach, considering all the elements reported: the typology of taxes indicated at the revenues’ section, how much can yield each tax in specific areas and during particular periods, how much can the State collect from the extraordinary revenues—the Pedidos and Empréstimos (loans and extraordinary requests), already analyzed.8 Concerning other essential element, expenditure is methodically pointed in the letters from 1450 onward, with some exceptions where is not possible to identify them due to some bad handwriting or conservation failures, which underpins the thesis of a careful government spending. Anyway, from 1480 onwards, the expenditure is no longer reported.9 In terms of framework, what the sources transmit us is that there is no restlessness related to that fiscal component, at least by the major shareholder/main creditor: the king. Even without enough elements in quantity and series, the sources allow us to trace a profile of the Portuguese late medieval/early modern finances, especially the expenditure from the end of fifteenth and beginning of sixteenth century. Furthermore, it is also feasible to compare the amounts received from tax-farming in various locations with the numbers

8 See Da Costa Dominguez (2015). 9 Portugal’s National Archives of Torre do Tombo (hereafter designated as ANTT),

Leitura Nova, Além-Douro, liv. 1, fl. 138v–139.

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raised on this same variant in Lisbon, for example. With this, it is possible to have an idea, of relevance and scale, of those totals and the significance of each local/fiscal unit to the Portuguese finances. Credit is something that can be explored by these sources as well. They can be direct or indirectly revealing, i.e., can disclose in its content borrowed resources to the monarch or, by other way, can offer indications of important tax-farming contracts and verify if they are active players about credit offering. Even the officialdom’s payment and the richness that circulated in a two-way path between Portugal and the conquered commercial outposts, all those elements can be analyzed through these set of sources. The Bonney-Ormrod model and Portugal State Finances: A Possible Match? Framing Portugal within the enquiry’s structure created by Bonney and Ormrod is not something straightforward neither simple, given so many restrictions and variables. Maybe (and exactly), that is why it worth search for an identity for the Portuguese case and comprehend its taxation dynamics. In fact, Portugal’s late medieval/early modern fiscal history would see its first pages written by historians “from essence and training” during the 1940s and 1950s.10 By that time, that “new trend” would be marked by a research agenda more dedicated to the Overseas’ expansion phenomenon, prices, and currency11 ; and by a historiographic production essentially focused on the economic aspects of production and distribution.12 From this new wave, yet during the 1960s, two breakthrough publications about the collection of extraordinary revenues in the later Middle Ages would become important milestones to medieval fiscal studies in Portugal.13 Moreover, another fundamental work on kingdom’s regular revenues and expenditure during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, based on new sources and data would arise as well.14

10 Rau (1949, 2009). 11 See Godinho (1962, 1963–1970; 2009). 12 See Marques (1980). 13 Gonçalves (1964a, 1964b). 14 Faro (1965).

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The 1980s and 1990s would testify a confuse and inhibited return of that subject, still very marked for the “institutionalism” that marks Portugal’s historiography, as some sort of a legacy left to historians.15 But the essential is still to be done, i.e., a wider/overall view, whereas the evidence that there are still missing many pieces in the puzzle of medieval and early modern taxation should not be ignored. Therefore, an in-depth view is indispensable, whose focus is not institutions and practices, but the quantitative and qualitative analyzes, to the extent of the possibility offered by the available codices. The celebration context of important Portuguese historiographic milestones opened the perspective for major edited collections, mainly dedicated to edited primary sources, in an attempt of a fiscal studies’ revival.16 Recent historiographic production about this topic has been trying to use new concepts and models for Portugal’s context.17 However, the difficulties with primary sources and the utilization of challenging theoretical models are some of the obstacles to be overcome by humanities’ students, as they started to be used, explored, and defied. New works and compilations of medieval18 —still timidly—and early modern19 economic history have been recently edited, in the sense to contribute with these efforts to the use of such concepts and tools, helping the resumption of economic and fiscal topics’ studies. There are a number of criteria in which Portugal does not entirely fit or represent an incomplete transition to a fiscal state, according to the model proposed by Bonney and Ormrod. The kingdom’s form of government was personal, centralized, and restricted in decision-making, but it also had some legal procedures that were moving toward to a different stage of a “fiscal constitution.”20 Portugal had a reasonable equipped central administration in terms of personnel, which did not comprise a large and highly specialized apparatus with clear and definite authority, but regularly disobeyed. Moreover, local administrations (municipalities) had a certain degree of autonomy, which suffered from frequent royal intervention; and 15 See Macedo (1996). 16 Matos (1999, 2000a, 2000b). 17 Henriques (2008) and Dominguez (2019). 18 Viana and Solórzano Telechea (2013). 19 Silva (2005), Henriques (2009), and Costa et al. (2016). 20 Bonney (1995: 2). See also Brennan and Buchanan (2006).

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a set of income in which collections and constraints played an important role, with a systematic degradation of coinage in times of war, but using both direct and indirect taxes at the same time, no longer limited to specific ends, with some attempts to unify the tax organization. All this to say that Portugal closely resembles the variant indicated by some Portuguese scholars, i.e., as an entrepreneurial domain state. Based on the sources and previous studies, it is possible to observe explicitly the evolution of a State that would start to seek for new income sources (indirect taxes and customs revenues), especially through a colonial commercial empire which would be the “alternative to the evolution toward to a true state-owned tax system”21 and, at the same time, would hamper the improvement of the existing one, in order to increase revenue and better manage its expenditure. With revenues flowing significantly from 1480s onwards regarding colonial monopolies on gold and slaves from Western Africa, the Crown would not have to worry about the development of an adequate model until the 1530s, when the decline trend in the commercial value of Indian commodities directed Portugal toward to the effective colonization of Brazil.22 The active approach to the territories in South America would then, firstly, lead the State to a necessary reformulation and adaptation. This effect had similarly an “innovative impact,” confirmed by the systematic implementation of customs and adoption of sales taxes, the sisas, yet in the fifteenth century, and previously identified by Vitorino Magalhães Godinho.23 However, the first steps of Overseas’ expansion relied on short-term debt. Furthermore, the whole financial logistics behind the Carreira da India accumulated more pressure for resources, now in a combination of public-debt issuing with loans and bills of exchange from Antwerp and Medina del Campo, driving the Portuguese realm into a state of difficulty, toward to bankruptcy.24 But the revenues from overseas softened this process and, in some moments, even reversed it partially, allowing Portugal the “privilege” of not building an adequate tax system. Consolidating the debt and negotiating the padrões de juro—government public-debt bonds—would then become the final solutions to a

21 Pedreira (2007: 78–79) and Costa (2009: 7–8). 22 Santos (2007: 85–86). 23 Godinho (2009: 148–149). 24 Costa, Miranda and Nogues-Marco (2021: 12).

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hungry and almost “global” administrative and fiscal system, from the point of view of the Empire’s amplitude. In this sense, Portugal stands out from the rest of Europe and brings an important question: the revenues of a centralized State helped to create a maritime dominance or the Portuguese imperial overseas’ trade helped build a consolidated State? This issue still remains to be answered,25 although it is quite perceptible that the Empire assembling left deep marks in Portuguese taxation.26

2

Difficulties of Building a New Fiscal Ethos

Our proposal of analysis focus, above all, on the period in which king Alfonso V (1438–1481) ascends to the throne, yet as a minor and in the need of tutoring by his mother, Queen Eleanor of Aragon, and his uncle, Infante Pedro of Avis, Duke of Coimbra (1392–1449). This is key to understand the financial directions that the Portuguese crown took toward a more seigneurial policy, respecting a more redistributive spending policy and little perceptive to the many signs in contrary transmitted in the past parliamentary assemblies (the Cortes ). Those indications were demands raised by the representatives of the urban groups, denoting other types of concerns from the people whose main means of creating wealth was work, merchandise and craft production. Between 1438 and 1460, the Courts in Portugal met 12 times, establishing an average of just over one meeting every two years. This fact portrays not only the importance of the period in political terms but also the lines of force that will be drawn in the administrative and financial guidelines of the Portuguese crown. While the social transformations that Portugal underwent during the fifteenth century, with the growth of urban centers and the development of a more robust economy geared toward trade and international exchange, the fracture that occurred in the heart of the Portuguese nobility consolidated a culture of prodigality. Alfonso V opened the strings of his pocket to please his political supporters, fundamentally the party of Alfonso, Earl of Barcelos and first Duke of Braganza (1377– 1461), after the political and military defeat of his half-brother Infante Pedro in the battle of Alfarrobeira (1449). His death distanced this urban

25 Mata (2012: 219). 26 Costa (2009: 8–10).

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group that supported him politically from the political-financial debate and decision-making processes. This becomes evident when we analyze the Portuguese documentary corpus, which portrays the debate on the state of finances before the military advances in North Africa, mainly the conquest of Ceuta in 1415, and how the financial situation developed above all between 1415 and the disaster of the military campaign of Tangier, in 1437. These twenty-two years were decisive in understanding a tendency to value chivalric activity and, consequently, a more intense military activity.27 Such propensity is part of a strategy of cultural and political affirmation of a new dynasty, in the process of consolidating its internal dynamics as a “center of power and diffusion of cultural trends.”28 On the other hand, Portugal was already connected to European trading networks, which gave its products a long reach and transformed, above all, the Portuguese coastal towns into points of attraction for a strong artisan and commercial production dynamic.29 These coastal urban centers were interested in another type of political agenda, one that favored greater participation and representation in central State issues, such as the debate around a more active role in defining economic and financial policies. Overall, what we notice is that this debate will not go away, much due to the imposition of the party of the new monarch Alfonso V, who tried to maintain the status quo and expand his economic domain by reinforcing and expanding the landlordships and institutionalizing of a redistributive income policy within the group of the king’s favorites. Nobility Strategies Around the Maintenance of Fiscal and Economic Power Here, we present a proposal for the analysis of an internal political dynamic of the Portuguese nobility in this period. A dispute that offered two different guidelines for the organization of Portuguese taxation in regard to better serve the interests of each group, and which will have

27 Aguiar (2016: 23–25) and Pereira (2016: 23–24). 28 Aguiar (2016: 30–31). 29 Cf. Melo (2009), Sequeira (2014), and Andrade y Miranda (2017).

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clear reflections on the way in which the Portuguese crown will structure its finances in the later Middle Ages and early modern times. One, more feudalizing and maintaining of an order that was supported by privileges that exerted excessive pressure on the Crown’s finances, but guaranteed cohesion and a network of strategic support among the high nobility. Another, more centralizing, but supported by a new mercantile economic dynamic, which provided the affirmation of a bourgeois class, fundamentally urban. Hence, this same separation of perspectives follows an internal family division in the Avis household. A division between legitimate heirs, on the one side, and illegitimate children on the other, which opens a deeper discussion about stimulating warfare practices, the values of chivalry and bastardy in the throne succession.30 In addition, these issues are inserted in a broader context of war and diplomacy that Portugal found itself in, by being a kingdom in the process of expansion, with the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. After a financially demanding military campaign, John I created the lordships of Coimbra and Viseu, in favor of his sons Pedro and Henry. Edward, being the first-born, took the throne and John assumed the status of Constable and Master of the Military Order of Santiago. Years before, Alfonso (John I’s son with one of his mistresses) had been legitimized to be able to marry the daughter of Constable Nuno Álvares Pereira, Beatriz. With that, he obtained a series of properties and the County of Barcelos, which created a large economic space under his domain. The whole decade of 1440 was marked by great levels of tension within the Portuguese nobility. Between 1442 and 1446, the future monarch Alfonso V would accompany thorny times, which would deeply forge his character. First, the deaths of his uncles’ John, Constable of the kingdom, and Ferdinand, taken prisoner in Tangier, in 1437.31 Second, the resistance and death of his mother after being exiled in Castile, in 1445. In the Cortes of Lisbon, in 1446, the delivery of the governorship to the new monarch is confirmed. With that, the field of action and political influence is free for his uncle, the Earl of Barcelos, now Duke of Braganza, ironically made duke by his half-brother, the Infante Pedro, who was withdrawing for his duchy in Coimbra.

30 Russell (2000: 48) and Pereira (2016: 23). 31 Gomes (2006: 63).

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Soon the king called the Duke of Braganza to court. In a clear attitude of affront to his half-brother Infante Pedro, he tried to cross the lands of the Duchy of Coimbra. One of the king’s squires and messenger is intercepted and arrested by the Infante’s group. Trying to demobilize the counties, the monarch sends a letter complaining about what happened, and how this threatened his honor. In any case, the confrontation tactics were already outlined: The Duke of Braganza and his troops would wait for the Infante to leave his domain and go down to Santarém. With reduced forces facing those of Alfonso V, the Infante’s army found itself surrounded at Alfarrobeira, where he fought and was defeated on May 20, 1449. After the defeat of Infante Pedro, and the way his body was treated in an undignified manner, considering particularly the rituals respected by the chivalric tradition, we verified that immediately after the tragic end of the war between uncle and nephew, the disputes between the political groups was heading toward to an aftermath. Moreover, the confiscation of movable property and land from the supporters of the Duke of Coimbra was the initial act of Alfonso V’s redistributive policy which, from now on, would not only be content to share the loot of the defeated, but would also be in charge of dividing the State’s revenues among his protégés. Family Affairs and Its Impacts on Fiscal Policies and State Finances Once the “victory without honor”32 was accomplished, the international repercussion of what happened in Alfarrobeira did not take long to produce negative political effects for Alfonso V. The monarch will soon take a series of measures in the sense of trying to compensate or reverse the situation to his favor, denigrating the memory of the Infante his uncle and his supporters, with a process of seizure of their properties, immediately distributed among the king’s supporters. This procedure was part of the new law compilation made during the regency, the Ordenações Afonsinas, with which the monarch also tries to affirm a new legislative dynamic of strengthening national norms against Roman law and canon law, policy established by this Avis dynasty.33

32 Gomes (2006: 780. 33 Hespanha (1982: 496–503).

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This process, analyzed in detail by other scholars, reinforces the beginning of the redistributive dynamic, in which it is already understood that the majority (more than 60%) of the assets will remain with the nobility closest to the monarch34 (knights, squires, and servants). However, the penalties’ harshness will be tempered by some pardon processes, some individual and others collective, through some alleged cases of coercion exercised by the Infante,35 until a general amnesty was published in 1455, which restored all the officials’ assets and positions, and the processes were scratched from the books.36 This was the small part of the plunder, since the main one was yet to be constituted. On the other hand, most of the reward comes with the instrumentalization of state’s finances. When we analyze in more depth the expenses of the local fiscal units, the almoxarifados, the expansion of the redistributive dimension regarding Portuguese Crown’s financial resources becomes very clear, and how a policy of privileges was developed for the members of the victorious political group. In this section, we examine some of the counties for which we have data already presented in detail in other works.37 By the sampling method, it was possible to collect data from some municipalities in different areas of the kingdom (north, center, and south) that allow us, generically, to draw a general description of what happens within the base layers of Portuguese municipal taxation, which constitute the substratum of state finances. As we perform the analysis, the expenditure reported by the almoxarifado of the city of Guarda in 1449 clarifies this institutionalized distribution already underway. The amounts spent on earnings in that acquittance are quite low—35,542 reais, or just over 3% of expenses—although the highest percentage that year was assigned to Álvaro Fernandes, receiver of the royal treasury. The officer received a sum of 663,648 reais, approximately 61% of the total income, to redistribute in payments directed to the nobility.38 Among those benefiting from these resources are some of the monarch’s supporters, such as Edward of Meneses, who will be captain-general 34 Moreno (1979, I: 586–617). 35 Moreno (1979, I: 617–619). 36 Moreno (1979, I: 619–620). 37 Dominguez (2015, 2019 [especially Chapter 4]). 38 Dominguez (2019: 90).

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of Alcácer Ceguer (Ksar es-seghir). Furthermore, Diogo and Stephen of Góis, sons of Nuno Gonçalves de Góis, one of the queen’s supporters during the crisis of the regency,39 and Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, first of the Counts of Marialva and marshal of the kingdom.40 All the payments have a direct explanation: all were political exiles41 during Infante Pedro’s government and, when they returned, they remained faithful to the queen’s cause and, consequently, to Alfonso V in the Battle of Alfarrobeira. In that same year (1449) and, after the victory, they reap the dividends of their political positions. Another 303,869 reais, or approximately 28% of the expenditure correspond to pension payments42 (tenças ), which again favored the same supporters, such as Edward of Meneses, as well as others such as John of Gouveia,43 Diogo Soares of Albergaria,44 Pero Lourenço of Almeida,45 among others. Adding the two mechanisms (salaries and pensions), leases, and other payments, we then have a significant total of 89% of the spending of that fiscal unit in 1449 consigned solely to stipends to the nobility that supported Alfonso V and his uncle, the Duke of Braganza. Here, we already have a first sample of how the king’s favorites will assault most of the kingdom’s income, which corroborates the thesis of redistribution discussed here. In the almoxarifado of Lamego, in the Douro area, the situation is similar, especially when we observe in sequence the expenditure between 1434 and 144146 : in the first year, it calls our attention the enormous amount reserved for the constitution of the new household of Prince Henry the navigator: the amount of 13,862,600 pounds—out of a total of 14,518,000 pounds allocated, 82% of total expenditure.47 Once again, the strategy of preserving income and the household’s economic power 39 Costa (2000: 204). 40 Freire (1921, I: 54–59). 41 Moreno (1999: 87–88). 42 Pensiones pagas por servicios, normalmente servicio militar, más comúnmente a los caballeros y la nobleza que servían al monarca. Dominguez (2019: 85–86). 43 Moreno (1979, II: 825–827). 44 Moreno (1979, II: 687–690). 45 Moreno (1979, II: 708–710). 46 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V , liv. 27, fl. 133–136 v. 47 Dominguez (2019: 90–92).

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is perfectly visible, especially considering that the respective fiscal unit is part of the Duchy of Viseu, created after the capture of Ceuta in 1415 and given to Infante Henry. It should be highlighted that the counties’ accounting units, intermediate instance of accounting verification, with that of Lamego unit subordinated to that of Viseu, had not yet been instituted. Fundamental financial questions already appear in the Cortes of Torres Vedras, in 1441. A reform in the sales taxes’ collection system (the sisas ), the indirect general tax of 10% on the sale and consumption of goods in Portugal, was urgent. This tax was, originally, an extraordinary contribution that became the main resource of royal taxation since the Cortes granted it to king in 1385, even temporarily, for the defense of the kingdom48 against Castile. While the sisas were the basis of income, their collection had dropped to a third of its total due to the concessions (relief) made in 1439, which reduced substantially the kingdom’s income.49 This fiscal relief made it impossible to pay the military costs to defend Portugal from other potential Castilian invasions and the maintenance of the king’s household and the houses of the Infantes, created after the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. It is also important to highlight the rhetorical dispute between the representatives of the councils and the central power regarding financial and political issues because when we carefully look at the debates in the Cortes during the proposed analysis period, it becomes very clear that there were two different moments. A first moment, during the regency of Infante Pedro, between 1438 and 1448, in which the representatives’ claims relative to political, economic, and fiscal guidelines are heard and deferred. Because they are in line with what the Avis monarchy outlined: a latent and «endemic» state of war between Portugal and Castile, which conditioned trade on an Iberian scale (except with Catalonia), but encouraged a trade on a European scale, with England, Bretagne, Burgundy, Flanders, the Hanse, and Italy. This dynamic privileged economically and politically the urban bourgeois and artisan classes. At the same time, it provided the new fiscal base for the collection of both customs excises and the sisas, essential to maintain the costs of the kingdom and the

48 See Duarte (2006). 49 Sousa (1990, II: 327), Dias y Pinto (2017: 19–20, 2º doc).

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Portuguese war machine. All this within the process of building an international and prestigious monarchy in Europe. On the other hand, a second moment, when Alfonso V effectively assumes the governorship in 1446, when he reaches the age of 14, and effectively in July 1448, when the Infante Pedro retires to the Duchy of Coimbra. From now on, the new monarch would dispatch alone, without the intervention of the Cortes, disregarding the meetings of Lisbon, of 1446, and Évora, of 1447, in which the Infante still exercises his role as regent in both. In the period between 1447 and 1451, the young king exercised his executive prerogatives ad hoc, in a punctual manner, with representatives of the councils, differently from what his uncle had done in previous years, “demonstrating a substantially different idea of exercising power.”50 Until 1448, the approval of demands that were sensitive to the representatives and the population in general is symptomatic of this policy, in tune with the requests of the members of the parliament, which were part of a mercantile, artisan, and financial elite of the urban centers. This is perceptive in the demands such as the reduction of collectable matter, the abolition of the tithes in horticultural goods (fruit and vegetables) and payment of sisas only in the respective transactions, and a series of demands of the Oporto country, especially fiscal ones, in the Cortes of Coimbra-Lisbon, of 1439.51 From 1449 onward, the change in perspective is drastic. Always interwoven with the discussion about the abolition of tax breaks and other types of tax relief, other important issues arise, such as maintaining outposts in Africa. In the Cortes of Lisbon-Évora, in 1459–1460, Alfonso V requested the extraordinary help of the municipalities to stabilize the finances, after the enormous expenses with the military campaign in Alcácer Ceguer (Ksar es-Seghir). It is essential to point out that the king himself, in his prayer to the representatives, recognized his inability to pay his debt due to the problems that afflicted the kingdom. In his reasoning, he begins by reflecting that, after the death of his father, and due to some works and other things that followed, the kingdom had gone through many difficulties, and that added to this, the expenses were so enormous that such debts became unavoidable, and the rewards that should be given

50 Gomes (2006: 69). 51 Sousa (1990, II: 331–334).

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to those who served the Crown.52 For these reasons, the Royal Treasury was so degraded and such was its state that the sovereign could not face the costs of the government of the kingdom and the maintenance of the African domains. Justifying wars and defensive actions in the Cortes is an easier task than enabling an offensive operation. How to normalize a tax for this purpose? And how to justify extraordinary collection measures in times of political stability? This dilemma remains essential to raise a central point of the transformation of the financial mechanisms of the Portuguese crown in the fifteenth century: the impact of offensive wars as a justifying element-base of a new fiscal ethos. With John II (1481–1495), there was an ongoing process of centralization, which has meanwhile been negotiated with representatives in the Cortes, in order to take into account the issue of a more balanced distribution of fiscal pressure among all social groups. The organization charts’ restructurings, started at the previous reign, continues, as a form of response to the counties’ claiming of excessive solicitations53 and fighting the revenue’s redistribution and dispersion as well. The monarch will, then, put in march his nobility contention’s plan, reviewing a number of privileges, forcing the fortresses and castles’ devolution in series, and implementing the magistrate’s entries in the noblemen’s lands, as well as the presentation, before him, of all donations, gifts, and privileges to be reconfirmed. With all these procedures, he incited a rebellion against himself, vigorously and effectively controlled.54 This quick response— which, in general lines, demonstrated to the people a rambunctious king before the nobility—by itself, would provide some immediate dividends to the ruler, which his father could not get from the people: from his extraordinary demand of 100.000 golden doubloons—or 50 million reais —requested in 148355 to pay the former king’s remaining debt and honor his testament, almost 38,000,000 were collected, whereas the 60,000,000 request by his father to go on war during the war of the Castilian succession (1475–1479) would only generate, effectively, little less than 27 million reais.56 To the people’s eyes, now there was 52 Dominguez (2019: 155–156). 53 Sousa (1989: 140). 54 Dias et al. (1998: 701–703). 55 Sousa (1990, I: 428). 56 Faro (1965: 243, doc. nº 28), and Sousa (1989: 142).

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an asserted monarch.57 Expenses which had not yet been reimbursed in 1481.58 It is not known if it was totally paid but it is confirmed the partial payment by two acquittance letters given to Álvaro Pacheco,59 one in 1502 and another in 1512, with money collected from the Royal Treasury’s local branch in El Mina (West Africa).

3

Final Remarks

Using the idea of warfare, that is, military operations between rival states60 or kingdoms, which promotes competition as a catalyst for fiscal innovations and an increase in fiscal/financial capacity (state capacity), this context of a more demanding financial solicitations needs, in contrast, a regulatory mechanism to avoid excesses. This role of counterweight and negotiation, played by the parliaments in Western kingdoms in the late Middle Ages, is also a prerogative exercised, above all, at key moments of the fragility of the monarch and of a royal need for greater political and financial support to foreign policy initiatives.61 On the other hand, in Portugal, this relationship happened in a very peculiar way, especially before the reign of Ferdinand I (1367–1383). The central power dealt with tax issues and extraordinary aids directly with each municipality, where each one was a “collective vassal” and, therefore, accepted the obligation to serve the king on some occasions. In this sense, when approached in this way, cities proved to be more receptive to the king’s fiscal interests. This individual approach stimulated competition among municipalities for greater privileges and tax exemptions.62 One of the examples of this dispute over exemptions is the dispensation from military service, except for crossbowmen and seamen, to the residents and neighbors of Lisbon, in 1373. This benefit was ceded in exchange for the implementation of a collection of sisas for pay the serviço (not municipal taxes, but grants awarded to the central power) that the

57 Sousa (1989: 143). 58 Marques (1989: 212). 59 ANTT, Leitura Nova, Livro dos Extras, fl. 26; ANTT, Leitura Nova, Místicos, liv. 6, fl. 112v. 60 Dincecco and Prado (2012: 174–175). 61 Stasavage (2011: 49). 62 Henriques (2008: 84–86).

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city had promised the monarch to help create the king’s daughter, Infanta Beatriz.63 On the one hand, Alfonso V put himself in a weaker position to negotiate with the Cortes since he moved toward a redistribution path, fading Portugal’s revenues. His crusadistic instincts took Portugal into a long and difficult route, proceeding with an oceanic conquest that he could not bear and dynastic wars against Castile that did not resulted in his favor, adding more debts to the treasury and fragilizing the Crown in political and financial terms. On the other hand, as observed by other Portuguese scholars, John II’s iron fist would build the path toward to a fiscal consolidation, the overseas’ expansion and its results.64 Above all, sustained on the crown’s monopolies regarding gold, slaves, ivory, and pepper. It would be this magnificence that would produce the necessary condition to the Portuguese fiscal-administrative system’s affirmation, simultaneously bureaucratic and mercantilist.65 Thenceforth, the reformist eagerness, previously curbed, would resume under Manuel I (1495–1521). A whole new world of possibilities came with the newly acquired economic capacity and concentrated not only to the contentment of nobility’s members—larger than it was with his predecessor—yet in full expansion. Moreover, it promoted, with a great deal of resources, interventions in assistance, art, urban renovation, wars in Africa, the Indian fleet’s maintenance and, last but not least, an administrative reform.66 Nonetheless, the fiscal system was not contemplated at all by this: on the opposite, remained static from a development perspective, but now enlarged and extended to other territories (Asia and South America) and with more positions and endowments to pay. About the resources to fulfill those demands, there would be no problem. Manuel I did not have to request extraordinary help to the people—vulgar practice among the previous sovereigns: he had been bathed by luck, with the Indian richness. The collection structure, with the tax-farming practices, remained the same, with a slight difference concerning the procedure’s composition, the Regimentos e Ordenações da Fazenda (Treasury’s rules

63 Livro dos Pregos, p. 148, doc. nº 71. 64 Magalhães (2007a: 112). 65 Magalhães (2007b: 98–99). 66 Costa (2005: 101).

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and ordinances), of 1516,67 which commanded from the top officers, the Vedores (top-rank supervisors) and all spheres of fiscal power, to the lower parts of the hierarchy; those officers’ conduct, in a great measure, was not substantially modified regarding the old fiscal praxis of previous governments.

References Primary Sources Lisbon, Lisbon, Lisbon, Lisbon,

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Bonney, R. (1995). Introduction. In R. Bonney (Ed.), Economic systems and state finance (pp. 1–18). Oxford University Press, 1995. Bonney, R., & Ormrod, W. M. (1999). Introduction: Crises, revolutions and self-sustained growth: Towards a conceptual model of change in fiscal history. In W.M. Ormrod, M. Bonney and R. Bonney (Eds.), Crises, revolutions and self-sustained growth. Essays in European fiscal history, 1130–1830 (pp. 1–21). Stanford: Shaun Tyas. Brennan, G., & Buchanan, J. M. (2006). The power to tax: Analytical foundations of a Fiscal constitution. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge Dictionary [Online]. [Accessed 20 April 2021]. Available at http:// dictionary.cambridge.org/pt/ Costa, J. P. O. e (2005). D. Manuel I: um príncipe do Renascimento. Círculo de Leitores. Costa, L. F. (2009). Fiscal innovations in early modern States: which war did really matter in the Portuguese Case? (Working Paper/Documento de Trabalho, 40). Lisbon: Gabinete de História Económica e Social. Costa, L. F., Lains, P., & Miranda, S. M. (2016). An economic history of Portugal, 1143–2010. Cambridge University Press. Costa, L. F., Miranda, S. M., & Nogues-Marco, P. (2021). Early modern financial development in the Iberian Peninsula (pp. 1–28). Paul Bairoch Institute of Economic History. Costa, P. P. (2000). A Ordem Militar do Hospital em Portugal: dos finais da Idade Média à Modernidade. Fundação Eng. António de Almeida. Da Costa Dominguez, R. (2015). La réalité: les pedidos du Portugal et la collecte de recettes extraordinaires à la fin du Moyen Âge. In dir. K. Béguin, Ressources publiques et construction étatique en Europe XIIIº-XVIIIº siècle (pp. 49–66). Paris, Comité Pour L’Histoire Économique et Financière de la France – IGPDE. Dias, J. J. A., Braga, I. M. R. M. D., Braga, P. D. (1998). A Conjuntura. In coord. J. J. A. Dias, dir. J. Serrão and A. H. de O. Marques, Nova História de Portugal – vol. V: do Renascimento a crise dinástica (pp. 689–760). Presença. Dias, J. J. A. & Pinto, P. (orgs.) (2017). Cortes Portuguesas. Reinado de D. Afonso V: Cortes de 1441–1447 . Centro de Estudos Históricos – Nova University of Lisbon. Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa [Online]. Dir. António Houaiss. São Paulo: Ed. Objetiva, 2002. [Accessed 12 June 2021]. Available at http://hou aiss.uol.com.br/ Dincecco, M., & Prado, M. (2012, September). Warfare, Fiscal capacity and performance. Journal of Economic Growth, 17 (3), 171–203. Dominguez, R. da C. (2015). Das finanças locais às finanças do Estado: As cartas de quitação em Portugal entre os séculos XIV e XVI. História Econômica & História De Empresas, 18(1), 61–92.

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Dominguez, R. da C. (2019). Fiscal Policy in Early Modern Europe. Portugal in Comparative Context, New York-London, Routledge. Duarte, L. M. (2006). A memória contra a História: as sisas medievais portuguesas. In dir. D. Menjot, M. Sánchez Martínez, Fiscalidad de Estado y fiscalidade municipal en los reinos hispânicos medievales (pp. 433–445). Casa de Velázquez. Freire, A. B. (1921–1930). Os Brasões da Sala de Sintra, 3 vols. Imprensa da Universidade. Godinho, V. M. (1962). A Economia dos Descobrimentos Henriquinos. Sá da Costa. Godinho, V. M. (1963–1970). Os descobrimentos e a economia mundial, 2 vols. Ed. Arcádia. Godinho, V. M. (2009). A Formação do Estado e as Finanças Públicas. In V. M. Godinho (Ed.), Ensaios e estudos: Uma maneira de pensar (pp. 123–174). Sá da Costa. Gomes, S. A. (2006). D. Afonso V: O Africano. Círculo de Leitores. Gonçalves, I. (1964a). Pedidos e Empréstimos públicos em Portugal durante a Idade Média. Lisbon, Cadernos de Ciência Técnica e Fiscal/Centro de Estudos Fiscais da Direção-Geral das contribuições e impostos, Ministério das Finanças. Gonçalves, I. (1964b). O Empréstimo concedido a D. Afonso V nos anos de 1475 e 1476 pelo almoxarifado de Évora. Lisbon, Cadernos de Ciência e Técnica Fiscal/Centro de Estudos Fiscais da Direcção-Geral das contribuições e impostos, Ministério das Finanças. Henriques, A. M. B. de M. de C. (2008). State Finance, War and Redistribution in Portugal (1249–1527) (Ph.D. Thesis). York, Department of History, University of York. Henriques, A. C. (2009). A Primeira Constituição Fiscal Portuguesa, 1250– 1370. In orgs. J. B. de MACEDO, L. Amaral, A. F. da Silva, A. C. Henriques, Nove Ensaios na Tradição de Jorge Borges de Macedo (pp. 197–216). Tribuna Da História. Hespanha, A. M. (1982) História das Instituições: Épocas medieval e moderna. Almedina. Körner, M. (1995). Expenditure. In E. Systems & S. Finance (Eds.), R (pp. 393– 422). Oxford University Press. Macedo, J. B. (1996). The Portuguese model of State Exportation. In W. Blockmans, J. B. de Macedo, & J. P. Genet (Eds.), The Heritage of the Pre-industrial European State (pp. 25–39). Arquivos Nacionais/Torre do Tombo. Magalhães, J. R. (2007a). A Guerra: os homens e as armas. In coord. J. R. Magalhães, dir. J. Mattoso. História de Portugal, vol. V – No Alvorecer da Modernidade (pp. 112–121). Círculo de Leitores.

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Magalhães, J. R. (2007b). A Fazenda. In coord J. R. Magalhães, dir. J. Mattoso. História de Portugal, vol. V – No Alvorecer da Modernidade (pp. 112–121). Círculo de Leitores. Marques, A. H., & O. (1980). Ideário para uma História Económica de Portugal na Idade Média. In A. H. De O. Marques (Ed.), Ensaios de História Medieval Portuguesa (pp. 17–50). Vega. Marques, J. (1989). O Príncipe D. João II e a recolha das pratas das igrejas para custear a guerra com Castela. In Actas do Congresso Internacional Bartolomeu Dias e a sua época (vol. I, pp. 201–219). University of Oporto – Comissão nacional para as comemorações dos descobrimentos portugueses. Mata, M. E. (2012). From pioneer mercantile state to ordinary fiscal state: Portugal, 1498–1914. In B. Yun-Casalilla, P. K. O’Brien, & F. Comín (Eds.), The Rise of Fiscal States: A Global History, 1500–1914 (pp. 215–232). Cambridge University Press. Melo, A. R. A. de S. (2009). Trabalho e Produção em Portugal na Idade Média: O Porto, c. 1320–1415 (Ph.D. Thesis). Braga: University of Minho. Moreno, H. B. (1979). A Batalha de Alfarrobeira. Antecedentes e significado histórico, 2 vols. Imprensa da Universidade. Moreno, H. B. (1999). Relações Castelhano-Portuguesas no século XV: Os exilados políticos. Revista De Ciências Históricas, 14, 81–92. Pedreira, J. M. (2007). Costs and Financial Trends in the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1822. In F. Bethencourt & D. R. Curto (Eds.), Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400–1800 (pp. 49–87). Cambridge University. Pereira, R. F. F. (2016). D. Alfonso, Duque de Bragança: da morte de D. Duarte a Alfarrobeira (M. A. Thesis in Medieval History). Oporto, Faculty of Arts. Rau, V. (1949). “O Regimento da Casa dos Contos de Goa de 1589”. Separata da Revista do Centro de Estudos Económicos, n.º 9, Lisbon. Rau, V. (2009). A Casa dos Contos: Os três mais antigos regimentos dos contos. Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Russell, P. (2000). Prince Henry «the Navigator»: A life. Yale University Press. Santos, J. M. (2007). O mar e a independência nacional: Relendo Jaime Cortesão. Revista De História Da Sociedade e Da Cultura, 7 , 259–274. Sequeira, J. (2014). O Pano da Terra: Produção têxtil em Portugal nos finais da Idade Média. University of Porto Press. Silva, A. F. (2005). Finanças Públicas. In P. Lains & A. F. da Silva (Orgs.), História Económica de Portugal (1700–2000): vol. I – O século XVIII (pp. 237–261). ICS. Silva, A. M. (1813). Diccionario da lingua portugueza. Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, [Online] [Accessed 12 June 2021]. Available at http://www.bra siliana.usp.br/dicionario. Sousa, A. (1989). A Estratégia política dos municípios no reinado de D. João II. Revista Da Faculdade De Letras: História, Série II, 06, 137–174.

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Sousa, A. (1990). As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490), 2 vols. INIC. Stasavage, D. (2011). States of credit: Size, power, and the development of European politics. Princeton. Viana, M., & Solórzano Telechea, J. A. (Eds.). (2013). Economia e instituições na Idade Média – Novas Abordagens. Centro de Estudos Gaspar Frutuoso.

Taxes and Fiscal Institutions in a Maritime Empire, 15th–16th Centuries: A Comparative View of Overseas’ Territories Under the Portuguese Crown Susana Münch Miranda

1

Introduction

Following fifteenth-century maritime expansion, early modern European states claimed sovereignty over non-European territories based on various legal acquisition titles, from conquest to simple use or occupation. Thus, sovereign rights paved the way for the building of empires, a process that required the transfer of a set of institutions to govern newly acquired territories. Depending on the local conditions and the colonisers’ objectives, economic, political, and fiscal institutions were selected, transferred, and possibly adapted to non-European institutions through processes of negotiation and conflict between taxpayers and the state. European fiscal institutions transferred in this way had to be flexible and adaptable to

S. M. Miranda (B) Leiden, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] FCSH—Nova University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_6

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exercise fiscal jurisdiction, from collecting taxes and allocating revenue for ensuring that tax revenue was used to sustain the empire. The Portuguese Empire provides a unique vantage point from which to observe the adaptability of fiscal institutions in colonial settings. First, building occurred in the early stages of expansion into nonEuropean territories. Second, by the mid-1550 s, fiscal institutions were markedly heterogeneous, reflecting the wide dispersion of settlements and strongholds acquired through various legal titles, from Brazil to the coast of South China. Although the Crown exercised sovereign rights over some lands, it was mainly a maritime and commercial empire organised into ‘two subsystems’: on the one hand, an Atlantic system that included the Atlantic islands, Brazil, and trading posts (feitorias ) on the west coast of Africa, and on the other, Portuguese Asia with a series of forts and coastal territories that stretched from the East African coast to the South China Sea. Before the arrival of the Portuguese, local conditions differed considerably, as did the economic objectives pursued by the central authorities and settlers in each complex. Accordingly, the Portuguese employed different institutional solutions to develop and tax economic activities. By examining two contrasting case studies from these subsystems, this chapter offers insights into how the Portuguese dealt with the challenges of exercising fiscal jurisdiction in different environments. This chapter focuses less on the transfer of European institutions and emphasises the process of decentralised institutional adaptability. Drawing from the ‘new fiscal history’,1 this chapter examines the extent to which novel fiscal systems effectively raised revenue to finance the growing expenditure of maintaining an empire, considering the economic and political variables that determine the tax structure and nature of tax administration. The first case study focuses on the island of Madeira, where fiscal jurisdiction emerged from the institutional framework of the donatary captaincy, which replicated, with some modifications, the royal grant of lordship prevalent in late medieval Portugal.2 Accordingly, Madeira’s 1 Inspired by the model of fiscal development put forward by Joseph Schumpeter, the ‘new fiscal history’ aims to integrate economic, political, and sociological perspectives to understand state finance and state making in early modern Europe. See Hoffman and Norberg (1994); Bonney (1999); Bonney and Ormrod (1999); Yun-Casalilla and O’Brien (2012); Monson and Scheidel (2015). 2 Hespanha (1982, pp. 282–302).

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early fiscal system was shaped by the donatary, in his capacity as lord of the island, before the island passed to the jurisdiction of the king of Portugal in the late fifteenth century, when sugar production peaked. Therefore, the Madeira experience allows us to observe the institutions and changing strategies of royal administration for tax collection in a cash crop economy. This experience was particularly relevant because it shaped the subsequent establishment of tax institutions in Portuguese America.3 The second case study examines the eastern part of the Portuguese Empire, known as Estado da Índia. According to Subrahmanyam and Thomaz, the Estado was a ‘complex of territories, establishments, goods, persons, and administrative interests in Asia and East Africa, generated by or subordinate to the Portuguese Crown’.4 Its economic and fiscal institutions have long attracted the attention of economic historians in search of explanations for the dominance and decline of the Portuguese in European-Asian trade via the Cape route. One influential strand of literature examined the failure of the Portuguese in the face of the Dutch and the English from an institutional perspective, portraying the Estado as primarily concerned with collecting taxes and extracting protection rents rather than promoting trade.5 Although this view touched on critical issues, it was also criticised. Some scholars pointed out that the strategies the Estado da Índia and the Dutch East India Company pursued were more similar than usually assumed.6 Others stressed that Portuguese expansion in Asia took different institutional forms depending on the specific conditions and situations to meet their objectives.7 This case study provides an overview of the Portuguese fiscal ‘constitution’ and financial organisation in the sixteenth century from the perspective of flexibility, adaptability, and willingness to negotiate.

2

The Island of Madeira

In 1515, the revised charter of rights (carta de foral ), which regulated the taxes and dues levied by the Crown on the settlers of Madeira, 3 Miranda and Stumpf (2018). 4 Subrahmanyam and Thomaz (1997, p. 304). 5 Steensgaard (1975, pp. 111–112). 6 Duncan (1975). 7 Subrahmanyam and Thomaz (1997, p. 300).

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had a unique feature. It contained a direct tax consisting of one-fifth of sugar production, which was essentially a seigneurial duty levied in recognition of lordship.8 Although the Crown levied some ‘royal rights’ in metropolitan Portugal, i.e. land rent and seigneurial dues, the primary source of revenue was indirect taxes, namely sales tax and customs duties.9 This recourse to indirect taxes contrasts with north-western European states, which still relied on direct taxes at this time.10 This testifies to the division of jurisdictional and taxation rights among the Portuguese king, the nobility, and ecclesiastical institutions, which had already been completed by the end of the fifteenth century.11 In this context, the direct tax on Madeira sugar seems odd. Moreover, it was unlike the Canary Islands’ sixteenth-century royal fiscal system, which relied heavily on customs duties.12 Although the monarch reduced the direct sugar tax to one-eighth of sugar production in 1688,13 it was not abolished until the mid-eighteenth century, despite the rapid decline in sugar production on the island after the 1550s. The prevalence of a unique tax regime in Madeira is a consequence of the institutional framework established for the settlement of the island in the early fifteenth century: donatary captaincy. Donatary rule in Madeira, however, was not formally established before 1433. By this time, Prince Henry was already promoting colonisation as a logical consequence of the accidental discovery of the archipelago by two members of his household in 1419. Nevertheless, the archipelago was part of the Crown estate (bens da coroa), as the Portuguese king claimed jurisdiction over the sea. This claim was probably based on texts authored by jurists from the School of Commentators, notably Baldus de Ubaldis (1327–1400), as they introduced jurisdiction over the sea and newly discovered land as royal prerogatives.14 In the present case, the Portuguese king claimed sovereignty over Madeira shortly after its discovery through effective occupation. Therefore, Prince Henry did not formally secure his claims 8 Azevedo (1873, p. 494). 9 Costa et al. (2016, p. 97). 10 Bonney (1999). 11 Costa et al. (2016, pp. 21–22). 12 Calderín (2021). 13 Vieira (2004, p. 145). 14 Miranda (2020, p. 314).

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over the archipelago until 1433, when his brother King Duarte granted him extensive seigneurial rights through a royal donation act (doação). These seigneurial rights were similar to those the king distributed in the later stages of the Reconquista in return for bearing settlement costs. They included civil and criminal jurisdiction (except in cases involving the death penalty), the right to levy seigneurial dues, and, importantly, the power to grant plots of vacant land to settlers through sesmaria, a medieval Portuguese land title.15 Granted in full ownership on the condition that the land was cultivated within a certain period (3–10 years), sesmaria was an effective tool to attract settlers.16 Thus, this land granting system developed into one of the building blocks of Madeira’s early plantation economy, which was based on sugar production and slave labour and dominated by a group of landowners. Not surprisingly, the strong growth of sugar in Madeira in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries brought considerable income to the donatary. While Prince Henry retained his lordship over Madeira, he entrusted the island’s administration to captains (capitães do donatário). Rooted in practices dating back to the Reconquista,17 captaincy was a novel institutional solution to the problem created by the absence of the ruler of the isle. In the 1440s, Prince Henry established three captaincies—Funchal, Machico and Porto Santo—each assigned to a specific territory. He then subdelegated the civil and criminal jurisdictions he had received from the king and empowered the captains to distribute sesmarias. Finally, to compensate the captains for administering the captaincies in his name, Prince Henry endowed them with two types of income. The first was seigneurial dues, such as the right to licence mills to grind sugarcane, and the second was a tenth of all revenue (redízima) due to the island’s lord.18 The latter included the direct tax on sugar production, customs duties, and tithes payable to the Order of Christ, an institution entrusted

15 On the practice of distributing unoccupied land, known as sesmarias, which developed in the later stages of the Reconquista, see Rau (1982). See also Henriques (2017, pp. 26–27). 16 Saldanha (2001). 17 Andrade (1999, p. 38). 18 Pereira (1991, p. 109).

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with spiritual jurisdiction over the archipelago, of which Prince Henry was the governor and administrator.19 Thus, Madeira’s early fiscal system was two-tiered, in which two seigneurial entities shared domain revenue and church dues following a delegation of power and jurisdiction that emanated from the king. In this sense, although the ruling Portuguese House of Avis did not relinquish any regalian rights (higher judicial prerogatives, coinage, and appointment of royal officials), it also did not draw any revenue from the colonising society, at least not before 1495. Until then, while Madeira remained in the estate of Prince Henry and his successors—the dukes of Viseu—the king once competed for its surplus in 1478 when he asked his vassals for a loan to meet expenditures for the war with Castile.20 By then, on the grounds that the king had retained eminent domain over the archipelago, his Madeiran vassals were not exempted from contributing to the war effort.21 While the Crown did not claim taxes in the early days, municipal taxation emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, when the seigneur created municipal institutions (concelhos ) in Funchal, Machico, and Porto Santo to fulfil the colonisers’ self-government aspirations. It consisted primarily of a special levy on wine consumption to support the expenditure of concelhos, which required the prior consent of the island’s lord.22 Notwithstanding these exceptions, seigneurial taxation shaped Madeira’s early fiscal system. While Prince Henry and his successors had the freedom to appoint officials to collect taxes and allocate tax revenue as they saw fit, economic and political variables also determined the broad outline of financial government. By the early 1490s, it had evolved into a two-tiered system with well-defined districts covering the entire island. Four administrative units, each headed by a local treasurer (almoxarife), comprised the lowest level: one for each of the three captaincies and the fourth coinciding with the customs house of Funchal. The growing integration of Madeira into the European trade routes explains the seigneur’s decision to separate the management of customs duties from other seigneurial revenue following the burgeoning

19 For an overview of King John I’s policy to endow his sons with lordships and offices, such as the administration of the Order of Christ, see Disney (2009, vol. 1, pp. 127–128). 20 Gonçalves (1964) and Pereira (1991, pp. 297–321). 21 Pereira (1991, p. 305). 22 Miranda (1994, pp. 31–32) and Rodrigues (2005, pp. 130–131).

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importance of Funchal as the nodal point of maritime trade underpinned by sugar exports.23 At the highest level, an auditor (contador) oversaw the collection of revenue and locally monitored the performance of the four local treasurers under the general supervision of the duke of Viseu.24 Together with the captain, the four almoxarifes and the contador acted as local representatives of the seigneurial lord. They played an essential role in his ability to enforce control over the surpluses obtained, which is why the duke recruited them from among the members of his household. However, this double-tiered government was not a novel solution. On the contrary, it essentially replicated the institutional network consisting of local treasures (almoxarifados ) and ‘regional accounting branches’ (contadorias das comarcas ) that governed royal tax administration in metropolitan Portugal since the early fifteenth century.25 In any case, this institutional network did not preclude the head of the House of Viseu from occasionally resorting to tax-farming arrangements.26 Madeira’s fiscal system retained most of its early seigneurial features when the duke of Viseu ascended the throne as King Manuel I (1495– 1521). The transition formally occurred in 1497, when the seigneur’s former sphere of taxation passed to the monarch, paving the way for the emergence of a royal tax administration in the archipelago. Of the few changes introduced, the most important concerned renaming the regional auditor as the purveyor of the treasury (provedor da fazenda) to standardise the designation these officials had adopted in the kingdom.27 Like his metropolitan counterparts, the Madeiran provedor reported to the overseer of royal finances in Lisbon (vedor da fazenda) and later, in the sixteenth century, to the treasury board (Conselho da Fazenda).28 Despite this transition, the new lord of the island continued to share the economic surplus with the captains on the same terms that 23 Ferraz (1986, pp. 46–47). 24 Rodrigues, 2005, pp. 127–128. 25 The grid of almoxarifados, covering virtually the territory of metropolitan Portugal, dates from the late fourteenth century. The network of regional accounting branches began to form in the early 1400 s to improve the integration of central institutions with the local treasuries. See Costa et al. (2016) p. 41, and Dominguez (2019, p. 26). 26 Dávila, 2016, pp. 93, 97–98. 27 On the provedor da fazenda and his tasks in metropolitan Portugal, see Hespanha

(1994, pp. 287–289). 28 Costa et al. (2016, pp. 39, 95).

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Prince Henry had established in the early days. Notwithstanding its legal complexity, the fiscal regime still revolved around two broad categories of taxes: 1) taxes on production, which were levied on agricultural and manufacturing activities; 2) taxes on trade, which included custom duties levied on imports and exports. The tax on sugar production and the ecclesiastical tithe levied on the total output of agricultural activities and primary industries, stood out in the first category. While the usual rate of the tithe—one-tenth—collected mainly on cereals, wine, fruit, pulses, and fishing remained untouched, King Manuel I reduced the sugar tax from one-fourth to one-fifth in 1515, when the sugar industry began to flag after its peak in the early 1500s.29 As for trade taxes, the tax rate for sugar exports to northwest Europe was 10%, and the same rate applied to all imports from abroad, while trade inflows and outflows to metropolitan Portugal were exempt.30 Except for import duties, the two general categories of taxes were payable in kind since the inception of the Madeira fiscal system. While this was not a new feature, the output taxes payable in kind—sugar and agricultural produce—continued to shape decision-making regarding the royal tax administration’s collection methods. Apart from being a complex business and a source of friction between farmers and the royal authorities, taxation in kind was further compounded by the need to transfer the net proceeds of taxation to the central treasury in Lisbon. Not surprisingly, the king, like the former lords of the island, relied mainly, though not exclusively, on contractual tax collection. Nevertheless, tithes and sugar taxes presented different challenges that determined the slight variations in the choice of tax administration. The collection of tithes (miunças ), which took place immediately after the harvest, was routinely decentralised and privatised, as it was carried out at the local level by several tax farmers. They were divided into 12 branches (ramos ) corresponding to the parishes of the archipelago. The branches were then put on the market, either individually or together in a contract, and awarded in public tender for two or three years for a fixed amount in cash. The administration of revenue and the disbursement of administrative and ecclesiastical expenses were the responsibility of the 29 Rodrigues (2005, p. 104). 30 Madeira could trade directly with European marketplaces since the 1470 s when

Lisbon ceased to be the obligatory port of call for the goods produced on the island. See Sousa (2005, p. 65).

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respective almoxarife, to whom the tax farmer directed the lump sum payment six months after the actual levy, as was the custom in the second half of the sixteenth century.31 Although also levied on output, the sugar tax was less demanding because the sugarcane fields and sugar mills to which the levy applied were geographically concentrated in certain areas in the south of the island. While this is true, the overwhelming weight of the tax on sugar production in Madeira’s total revenue nevertheless justified a more complex administrative structure, reflected in the introduction of another tier of the tax government. Indeed, under King Manuel I (1495–1521), the main almoxarifados were divided into five smaller tax districts called recebedorias. Coinciding with the bigger villages of Funchal, Ribeira Brava, Ponta do Sol, Calheta (captaincy of Funchal), and Santa Cruz (captaincy of Machico), the recebedorias were headed by a royally appointed official (quintador). He either collected the sugar tax directly or received the taxed sugar from tax farmers and stored it before forwarding it to the respective almoxarife. Herein lies a significant difference from the tithe, where the fixed amounts payable by the tax farmers were to be paid in cash. Thus, throughout the 1500s, the collection of quintos fluctuated between centralised administration by royal officials (e.g. 1548, 1556, 1559, 1563–1564, 1571, 1574–1575) and contractual forms of tax collection that became standard practice towards the end of the century.32 In a typical fiscal decentralisation system, the king allocated all cash revenue from tithes and import duties for the payment of ordinary expenses, such as the one-tenth (redízima) due to the captain, payment of local officials’ wages, pensions (for regular and secular clergy), and alms. Only when ordinary expenses exceeded the amount of taxes collected in cash were almoxarifes allowed to sell a portion of the taxed sugar to local merchants. This was the ruler’s way of ensuring that net revenue could be remitted to Lisbon in kind, as happened in 1557 and 1559. Alternatively, the net surplus could be remitted in cash. To this end, royal tax officers in Madeira commissioned the sale of all taxed sugar, a practice that became routine in the 1530s and 1540s. As this business required a high degree of liquidity, it is not surprising that Lisbon or Flemish merchants usually

31 Miranda (1994, pp. 91–93). 32 Pereira (1991, pp. 62–66) and Miranda (1994, pp. 43, 66–68, 74).

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took on these contracts and, with them, the responsibility for payments to the central authorities in Lisbon.33 In the late sixteenth century, tax collection took a new form when the king merged all Madeira’s tax revenues under a single tax-farming contract, as in 1581–1586, 1587–1592, and again in 1594. In the first case, the municipal councils of Funchal and Machico agreed to collect Madeira’s taxes for six years in return for a fixed sum, part of which was to be paid directly to the local tax administration, and another in the form of annual transfers to the king’s central institutions. This contract was part of a strategy that landowners and producers actively pursued to balance the role of non-Madeiran merchants as tax farmers of the quintos and avoid the friction that generally accompanied this process. However, their goals were only partially achieved. The following year, the same municipal councils agreed to sell all taxed sugar to a business partnership formed between Flemish, German, and Lisbon merchants to meet their cash payments to Lisbon. Although the municipalities fulfilled their end of the bargain and even made a net profit, the experience of 1581–1586 proved unrewarding and remained unrepeatable. The landowning elite found it challenging to reconcile the conflicting interests of simultaneously being tax farmers and sugar producers and realised that their private interests were better served by having non-Madeiran tax farmers.34 From the king’s point of view, favouring tax-farming contracts to the detriment of centralised administration overcame several problems. It shifted the burden of the business’ complexity and its transaction costs to the tax farmer and allowed for cash conversion, as was the case with tithes. In the case of quintos, it became a means of dealing with the agency problems created by direct collection by royal officials and provided a steady inflow of net revenue. Indeed, despite the multi-level government established on the island and the strict rules established for the collection of the levies, the supervision of local officials proved to be a difficult task, as evidenced by the routine side deals between producers and royal officials that led to the under-reporting of sugar production.35 Indeed, the levying of quintos remained a point of friction between the king and the

33 Pereira (1991, pp. 173–175) and Miranda (1994, pp. 76–78, 182). 34 Miranda (1994, pp. 86–91) and Miranda (1997). 35 Miranda (1994, pp. 46–47, 54).

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island’s economic and social elite until vineyards replaced sugarcane fields in the early 1600s. Throughout the sugar cycle, conflicts occurred regularly for obvious reasons. This cash crop underpinned the wealth of the island’s elite and supported their social aspirations, while the sugar tax accounted for an overwhelming share of the Crown’s total revenue in Madeira (46% in the 1580s).36 As studies on the fiscal sociology of taxation predict,37 the levying of the quintos bound the king and Madeiran planters in a dynamic relationship due to its potential for conflict. This dynamic is best captured at two moments in which political variables played a role in the evolution of Madeira’s fiscal regime. The first occurred in 1515, when King Manuel agreed to reduce the tax rate on sugar production to one-fifth. By foregoing a portion of his revenue, the king met the demands of a wealthy group of landowners and sugar producers, led by the influential Câmara family, who wielded political influence in the Lisbon court.38 The second incident occurred in 1550 when the Funchal Municipal Council strongly opposed a set of strict new rules for the collection of quintos. Consequently, the council decided to send a plenipotentiary to the royal court to present the planters’ grievances and negotiate new procedures. Although we know little about the negotiations and their actual outcomes, there is ample evidence that sugar growers enjoyed some leeway in their power relationship with the sovereign as far as tax enforcement was concerned. Indeed, in the 1560 s and the 1570 s, as sugar production declined at an accelerating rate,39 the monarch sought to compensate sugar producers by routinely ordering royal officials to suspend the enforcement of outstanding tax arrears for several years.40 Overall, despite these constraints, the Crown appears to have claimed a more significant share of Madeira’s surplus as the sixteenth century ended, as evidenced by the deflated total revenue figures after 1581 (Table 1).

36 Customs duties accounted for 35%, while the tithe accounted for 19% in the same period (Miranda (1994, p. 160). 37 Martin et al. (2009). 38 Vieira (2004, p. 434) and Salvado (2009, p. 140). 39 On the reasons underpinning the decline of sugar production in Madeira, see Vieira

(2004, pp. 140–141). For an overview, see Disney (2009, vol. 2, p. 90). 40 Miranda (1994, pp. 46–48).

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Table 1 Madeira’s revenue (in millions réis )

Year

Nominal revenue

Real revenue (1619 = 100)

Nominal/state revenue (%)

1506 1518 1526 1534 1557 1581 1588 1593 1607 1619

10.8 19.6 12.0 8.0 10.1 20.7* 25.3* 25.4* 23.1* 24.2

15.9 14.8 21.9 26.9 26.5 24.9 24.2

7.22 8.77 4.57 5.23 1.75 3.00 2.51 -

* Estimated revenue. The monetary value of sugar paid in kind, as

part of the tax-farming contract, was calculated using Lisbon prices from the project titled ‘Prices, wages, and rents in Portugal, 1300– 1910’, http://pwr-portugal.ics.ul.pt. Sources Madeira’s revenue from Godinho (1968), p. 49 and Miranda (1994), p. 144. Deflator: Portuguese CPI in Palma & Reis (2019). The state revenue (excluding the contribution from the empire) from Costa et al. (2016, p. 97)

Moreover, the increase in revenue seems to be an achievement, considering that it occurred under an unchanged fiscal regime and amidst the stagnation of the sugar industry. Therefore, a reasonable explanation lies in the merging of all Madeira’s tax revenue under a single tax-farming contract, which seems to have been the most efficient choice. Madeira’s financial contribution to the Crown’s total revenue declined significantly after the 1550s, when revenue in continental Portugal soared, as the empire drove the opening of the economy, and revenue from customs duties grew accordingly (Table 1). As a result, Madeira’s relative financial contribution played only a marginal role from the 1550s onwards. However, the figures compiled in Table 1 represent the nominal and real gross revenues derived from local Madeiran resources and say nothing about the net surplus that flowed into the central treasury of Lisbon.41 To date, information in this regard exists only for 1581–1586. According to the tax farmer’s accounts, about 50% of the value of the contract due to the king was spent locally on administrative, military, and religious obligations to maintain royal rule over the island, as was 41 For a different view, see Pedreira (2007).

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expected in a decentralised fiscal system. The remaining 50% was remitted in bills of exchange to the House of Mina and India, the state agency that held fiscal jurisdiction over the Portuguese Empire at the time.42 In this sense, Madeira’s fiscal regime can be considered successful.

3

´ The Estado Da India

The Estado da Índia dates to the early 1500 s, when the Portuguese conquered a few strategic sites (Goa, Malacca, and Hormuz) as part of their goal to replace Italian cities in the profitable role of intermediating the Asia–Europe spice trade via the Cape route. This goal, however, required the monopolisation of trade in the Indian Ocean, which was never fully achieved. Nonetheless, the Cape route generated substantial revenue for the king and private investors in the early decades of the 1500s.43 As an economic system, the Estado was rooted in two distinct, albeit interconnected, trade circuits: first, the sea route (Carreira da Índia) that connected Lisbon to Cochin and later to Goa, overseen by Casa da Índia, the Crown’s agency for Asian trade, and second, the intraAsian sea routes that connected port cities such as Malacca, Hormuz, Mozambique, and Macao to Cochin/Goa.44 Many settlers (casados )45 and soldiers residing in Portuguese-controlled settlements were engaged in intra-Asian trade, through which peppers, spices, and other commodities were brought to Goa before being loaded onto the Carreira ships. The task of overseeing Portuguese–Asian trade and collecting taxes was entrusted to a network of royal officials stationed at a handful of trading posts (feitorias ), forts, and territories stretching from the East African coast to southeast Asia by the mid-sixteenth century. This fiscal administration was the logical consequence of the incorporation, either by conquest or compulsory cession, of port cities and territories such as Goa (1510), Malacca (1511), Hormuz (1515), Diu (1535),

42 Miranda (1994, p. 181). 43 Boyajian (1993). 44 Pearson (2007) and Schwarz (2007). 45 Casado literally means ‘married person’. The term is legally related to the category of

homens-bons in Portuguese urban society and refers to permanent residents in the context of the Portuguese Empire of the East.

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Bassein (1534), and Daman (1559) into the Portuguese Crown.46 By gaining control over these territories, the king of Portugal took over the tax systems associated with various legal and political traditions that entitled him to generate surpluses in taxes and land revenues. Conversely, the ability to collect taxes was non-existent or limited to some tributes in places where Portuguese settlements were based on shared rule solutions negotiated with local political authorities (e.g. Cannanore, Mangalore). Although territorial acquisition may not have been the primary goal in the first decades of the incursion in the Indian Ocean, taxation was already an important source of revenue by the 1570s. The typology of taxes levied by the Estado da Índia and the tax rates varied considerably, as the Portuguese overall tended to preserve the basic features of the previous tax regimes. The result was a patchwork of different legal and political traditions united under the Estado and a peculiar and difficult-to-categorise fiscal constitution. At risk of oversimplification, the fiscal system of Portuguese Asia consisted mainly of two indirect taxes: customs duties and sales monopolies. Only a few settlements, including Goa, Salsete, Bardez, Bassein, and Daman, levied land rents, accounting for 25% of the total revenue in the 1580s.47 Customs duties accounted for the highest share of revenue. This characteristic resulted from a shift in the late 1560s, when the Portuguese king relinquished monopoly rights over spice trade in the Indian Ocean. After this change, the Estado da Índia’s financing became increasingly dependent on taxes levied on Asian shipping through the monopolistic control of intra-Asian trade. It translated into a system of licences (cartazes ), a handful of custom houses, and fleets of warships patrolling the seas. The cartazes equated to a protection fee and granted Muslim allies safe passage across the Indian Ocean, provided they called at one controlled by the Portuguese. By the late 1560s, over 90 ships patrolled the Indian Ocean to enforce control over Asian shipping and ensure that customs duties were levied at the major port cities of Goa, Diu, Hormuz, and Malacca.48 Although the Portuguese did not establish a monopoly over Asian trade, this policy resulted in high revenue. In fact, by the 1580s,

46 There is a large body of literature on the Portuguese presence in India in the early sixteenth century. For an overview, see Subrahmanyam (1993). 47 Godinho (1982). 48 Pearson (1976, pp. 45–46).

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customs duties accounted for 60% of the Crown’s total revenue, while sales monopolies accounted for approximately 13–15%. Other sources of revenue included tributes imposed on some Asian rulers (páreas ), war prizes (presas ), and trade profits, more specifically from monopolised intra-Asian routes (carreiras and concession voyages).49 The Portuguese controlled tax revenues through a multi-tiered decentralised government system that divided the territories and establishments of Estado into administrative units that corresponded to the feitorias. Its leading officers (feitores ) were key figures. Vested with jurisdictional powers similar to those of the almoxarifes on mainland Portugal and in the Atlantic islands, feitores were responsible for revenue collection and local disbursements. However, these officials had an additional function, as they also acted as commercial agents, establishing trade links or dealing with spices or other Asian commodities on behalf of the Crown.50 In this fusion of commercial agency tasks and fiscal responsibilities lies one of the peculiarities of the Portuguese tax government in the Estado da Índia. Depending on the complexity of the local tax structure, feitorias could be further subdivided into smaller tax collection offices such as customs houses, almoxarifados, and recebedorias. In most instances, these smallest subdivision units correspond to the incorporation of pre-existing tax administration structures fused with the metropolitan tradition. The case of the conquered Tiswadi Islands (North Goa), where subsistence agriculture was the predominant economic activity, illustrates this strategy well. The existing administrative position of the tanadar was equated with a recebedor and incorporated to ensure the collection of land revenue under the authority of the Portuguese, who also collected the same tributes and tax rates that the villages of Tiswadi paid to the preceding ruler, the sultanate of Bijapur.51 The same flexibility in adapting to local traditions and institutions was present in tax collection arrangements. Although indirect taxes such as

49 Subrahmanyam (1993). 50 As a form of commercial agency, the feitoria represented the extension into the Asian

world of a European instrument of mercantile intervention with links to the medieval Mediterranean trading posts and commonly used whenever there was some permanent presence in ‘foreign’ lands (Rau, 1984, pp. 143–149). The use of feitorias had already been tried out on the West African coast at the trading posts in Arguim and São Jorge da Mina (Silva, 2011, pp. 82–83). 51 Serrão and Rodrigues (2017) and Pinto (2018).

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customs duties were occasionally collected directly by recebedores, revenue farming predominated. According to Pearson, although the highest yielding rents were farmed out to Portuguese, Hindu merchants, either Saraswat Brahmins or Banyan, controlled about two-thirds of Goa’s tax revenue in the seventeenth century.52 Given its prevalence in the Estado’s capital, tax-farming arrangements may have served as collateral for shortterm loans, as prominent Brahmin and Banyan acted as tax farmers and creditors of the viceregal government of Goa. However, we find, to a greater extent, features that enabled the Portuguese to adapt to local conditions and constraints in the collection of land taxes. Pragmatism and flexibility are indeed reasons for the emergence of ‘Indo-Portuguese institutions’ in territories such as Bassein, Daman, and Ceylon, among others, for the collection of taxes. As scholars have pointed out, preexisting systems of land administration under Portuguese authority were subsumed by metropolitan legal categories and institutions (such as the foro from the emphyteutic contract) to form hybrid institutions. In these formal and informal negotiated arrangements with the colonised peoples, the Portuguese pursued a pragmatic policy to maintain power and avoid social unrest.53 Regardless of the collection methods, the tax revenue due to the Estado fed the feitorias. It was then incumbent upon the feitores to make local payments, including wages (civil administration and military structure), pensions (regular and secular clergy), and the purchase of goods and food, as is customary in a decentralised tax administration. Net surpluses were to be remitted to the central government of Goa as per a rule issued in 1576. Thus, Portuguese Asia’s tax revenue was not to revert to the mother country, as Philip II of Spain (I of Portugal) acknowledged in 1591. The extent to which the Estado’s total revenue was fragmented is reflected in the number of tax administration units. According to a snapshot of 1618, there were as many as 32 geographically dispersed administrative units: 20 feitorias and 12 tax-collecting offices (customs houses, almoxarifados, and recebedorias ), which were established in the territories of Goa, Salsete, and Bardez. Hormuz, Diu, Bassein, Daman, Goa, and Malacca yielded

52 Pearson (1973). 53 Miranda (2014) and Serrão (2014).

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the highest tax revenue. In contrast, others such as Barcelor, Cannanore, Quilon, and Mangalore had no taxing power or revenue.54 The network of feitorias and recebedorias was subject to the hierarchy of the central government of the Estado, which, since 1517, had enjoyed functional autonomy from the metropolitan government while duplicating the institutions of the metropolis. Headed by the viceroy and a treasury overseer (vedor da fazenda) and later by the treasury board (Conselho da Fazenda), this management structure was responsible for assigning expenses, overseeing tax collection, and the arrangements for revenue collection. It also comprised a chamber of accounts (Casa dos Contos ) that monitored the accounts of fiscal officials and assessed their net balances. From 1576, a central treasury (Tesouro de Goa), which managed the net surpluses channelled from the feitorias, was added to this set-up. Despite this structured set-up, the Estado’s fiscal system was characterised by weak budgetary control. The net balances shown in the estimates of revenue and expenditure in the 1570s and the 1580s, which were channelled through the feitorias, were usually delayed and rarely transferred in full to Goa. In addition to the geographical distance that separated the Estado’s administrative capital from the tax-collecting feitorias, net surpluses were often redistributed locally, either through legal or illegal means. Fraudulent practices included widespread complicity between royal officials and some members of the colonial elite, similar to what scholars have found for Spanish American treasuries (cajas ).55 Nevertheless, the metropolitan central government showed a high degree of tolerance for this redistribution of tax revenue, which was tacitly viewed as a means to obtain cooperation from bureaucratic and colonial elites.56 In the late 1500s, as military spending increased, the viceregal government acquired new means to monitor tax-collecting districts to ensure remittances to the central treasury. It dispatched commissioners vested with financial jurisdiction to the fortresses that generated the highest revenues, including Hormuz and Muscat in the Persian Gulf, the ‘fortresses of the North’ (Diu, Daman, Bassein, and Chaul), and Malacca in southeast Asia. In the early 1600 s, fiscal centralisation was further

54 Miranda (2009). 55 Bertrand (1999, pp. 63–67). 56 Miranda (2017).

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advanced when treasury overseers (vedores da fazenda) were appointed in Ceylon, Malacca, and Hormuz and became part of the local fiscal organisation. Both innovations provided an added means for the central government to control the Estado’s net surpluses, although existing primary sources do not assess the extent of remittances. Despite this tendency towards centralisation, the redistributive nature of the fiscal system remained unchallenged. Moreover, the financial strain placed on the Estado due to increasing competition from the Dutch and English East India companies in the early seventeenth century led to a renewed entanglement between the Crown and colonial elites. This occurred in a context marked by efforts to raise additional tax revenue through new customs duties to finance the war. Since taxpayers’ consent was crucial to the legitimacy of the new levies, the Portuguese king exchanged consent to levy these new taxes for the cession of their administration to colonial elites. This exchange eventually created opportunities for the latter to profit from short-term capital, which they could invest, or gain illicit advantages. Thus, it becomes clear that the Portuguese Crown was not primarily concerned with maximising fiscal efficiency but rather with ensuring the Estado’s survival.57

4

Conclusion

This chapter provides a brief overview of Portuguese strategies and institutions dealing with tax collection in non-European territories and settlements using two case studies. Despite critical differences inextricably linked to local circumstances that contrast an agrarian economy (Madeira) with a complex maritime empire (Estado da Índia), the two case studies are linked by similarities. First, fiscal institutions broadly replicate the metropolitan tax government and its territorial subdivisions. Both almoxarifado and feitoria embody the typical decentralised fiscal administration of early modern monarchies. While Madeiran almoxarifados show no differences from their metropolitan counterparts, the same cannot be said for Asian feitoria. With its mixed function of trade and tax collection, it represents a hybrid institution that grew out of the Portuguese Crown’s efforts to monopolise the spice trade in the Indian Ocean. In a context characterised by communication obstacles, this decentralised

57 Miranda (2017).

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government enabled central authorities to overcome the transaction costs of remittances but required close monitoring of tax agents. Therefore, the Portuguese also transferred supervising officials and institutions, which, in the case of Madeira, remained under the control of the central agencies in Lisbon. The Estado da Índia, on the other hand, required further development. Here, the physical distance and financial burdens of endemic wars shaped the main features of Goa’s central tax government, which became institutionally independent from the metropolis at an early stage. A growing trend towards centralisation accompanied this decentralised government relative to the king’s central institutions to provide Goa with better means of controlling and distributing the net surplus. By expanding to non-European territories and acquiring sovereignty, the Portuguese Crown generated fiscal revenue to finance its imperial ambitions. To this end, pragmatism and willingness to negotiate solutions were crucial. These can best be seen in the political economy constraints that governed decisions and strategies in dealing with acquired tax rights in territories and settlements after peaceful integration, conquest, or negotiation processes. Within certain limits, socioeconomic groups, such as the sugar planters in Madeira or the newly conquered populations in Goa, Bassain, or Daman, had some influence on the central government’s policies. This demanded flexibility from metropolitan institutions to adapt to different fiscal regimes and a willingness to trade-off higher revenues for the maintenance of peace and the prevailing social order. As with other European monarchies and empires,58 the constraints of political economy influenced the structure and practice of tax administration in the Portuguese Empire.

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A. Mehrotra, & M. Prasad (Eds.), The new fiscal sociology: Taxation in comparative and historical perspective (pp. 1–28). Cambridge University Press. Miranda, S. M. (1994). A fazenda real na ilha da Madeira. Segunda metade do século XVI . Funchal: Secretaria Regional do Turismo e da Cultura—Centro de Estudos de História do Atlântico. Miranda, S. M. (1997). Os municípios da Madeira e o contrato de arrendamento de 1581–1586 (2nd series, vol. II, pp. 61–82), Arquipélago-História. Miranda, S. M. (2009). The centre and the periphery in the administration of the royal exchequer of Estado da India, 1517–1640. e-Journal of Portuguese History, 7 (2), 1–14. Miranda, S. M. (2014). Property rights and social uses of land in Portuguese India: The province of the north (1534–1739). In J. V. Serrão, B. Direito, E. Rodrigues & S. M Miranda (Eds.), Property rights, land and territory in the European overseas empires. CEHC-IUL, 169–195. Miranda, S. M. (2017). Fiscal system and private interests in Portuguese Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580–1640. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 60(3), 202–232. Miranda, S. M. (2020). 1468: Monopólio da Guiné: Exploração económica pluricontinental. In C. Fiolhais, J. E. Franco, & J. P. Paiva (Eds.), História global de Portugal (pp. 311–316). Círculo de Leitores. Miranda, S. M., & Stumpf, R. (2018). O governo da fazenda no império português. In F. Palomo, R. Stumpf, & A. B. Xavier (Eds.), Monarquias ibéricas em perspectiva comparada (séculos XVI-XVIII) (pp. 325–349). Imprensa de Ciências Sociais. Miranda Calderín, S. (2021). La fortaleza del almojarifazgo em Canarias como principal renta real en la primera mitad del s. XVII, Anuario De Estudios Atlánticos, 67 (067–020), 1–28. Monson, A. & Scheidel, W. (Eds.). (2015). Fiscal regimes and the political economy of Premodern states. Cambridge University Press. Palma, N., & Reis, J. (2019). From convergence to divergence: Portuguese economic growth, 1527–1850. Journal of Economic History, 79(2), 477–506. Pedreira, J. (2007). Costs and Financial Trends in the Portuguese Empire, 1415– 182. In F. Bethencourt & D. R. Curto (Eds.), Portuguese Oceanic expansion 1400–1800 (pp. 49–87). Cambridge University Press. Pearson, M. N. (1973). Indigenous dominance in a colonial economy: The Goa rendas 1600–1670, Mare Luso-Indicum (vol. 2, pp. 61–73). Genève. Pearson, M. N. (1976). Merchants and rulers in Gujarat: The response to the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. University of California Press. Pearson, M. N. (2007). Markets and Merchant Communities in the Indian Ocean: Locating the Portuguese. In F. Bethencourt & D. R. Curto (Eds.), The Portuguese Oceanic expansion, 1400–1800 (pp. 88–108). Cambridge University Press.

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Pereira, F. J. (1991). Estudos sobre história da Madeira. Funchal: Secretaria Regional do Turismo, Cultura e Emigração—Centro de Estudos de História do Atlântico. Pinto, R. (2018). The foral in the history of the comunidades of Goa. Journal of World History, 29(2), 185–212. Rau, V. (1982). Sesmarias medievais portuguesas (2nd ed.). Editorial Presença. Rau, V. (1984). Feitores e feitorias. ‘Instrumentos’ do comércio internacional português no século XVI, in Estudos sobre história económica e social do Antigo Regime (pp. 143–199). Editorial Presença. Rodrigues, M. J. (2005). A economia: A agricultura e o comércio. A Propriedade. O regime fiscal e as finanças. In A. T. Matos (Ed.), A colonização atlântica (vol. 3, 1, pp. 102–137). Editorial Estampa. Saldanha, A. V. (2001). As capitanias do Brasil: Antecedentes, desenvolvimento e extinção de um fenómeno atlântico. Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses. Salvado, J. P. (2009). Nobreza, monarquia e império. A casa senhorial dos almotacés-mores do reino. Unpublished PhD thesis. Nova University of Lisbon. Schwartz, S. B. (2007). The economy of the Portuguese empire. In F. Bethencourt & D. R. Curto (Eds.), The Portuguese Oceanic expansion 1400–1800 (pp. 19–48). Cambridge University Press. Serrão, J. V. (2014). The Portuguese land policies in Ceylon: On the possibilities and limits of a process of territorial occupation. In J. V. Serrão, B. Direito, E. Rodrigues, & S. M. Miranda (Eds.), Property rights, land and territory in the European overseas empires (pp. 183–195). CEHC-IUL. Serrão, J. V., & Rodrigues, E. (2017). Migration and accommodation of property rights in the Portuguese eastern empire, Sixteenth-nineteenth centuries. In R. Congost & R. Santos (Eds.), Property rights in land: Issues in social, economic and global history (pp. 19–41). Routledge. Silva, F. R. (2011). Dutch and Portuguese in Western Africa: Empires, merchants and the Atlantic system, 1580–1674. Brill. Sousa, J. J. A. (2005). O povoamento: modelo, métodos e estímulos. Os povoadores. In A.T. Matos (Ed.), A colonização atlântica (vol. 3, 1, pp. 61–77). Editorial Estampa. Steensgaard, N. (1975). The Asian trade revolution: The East India companies and the decline of the caravan route. Chicago. Subrahmanyam, S. (1993). The Portuguese empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A political and economic history. Longman. Subrahmanyam, S., & Thomaz, L. F. (1997). Evolution of empire: The Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century. In J. Tracy (Ed.), The political economy of merchant empire (pp. 298–330). Cambridge University Press.

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Vieira, A. (2004). Canaviais, açúcar e aguardente na Madeira, séculos XV a XX. Centro de Estudos de História do Atlântico. Yun-Casalilla, B., O’Brien, P. & Comín Comín, F., (Eds.). (2012). The rise of fiscal states: A global history, 1500–1914. Cambridge University Press.

Portugal in a Broader Perspective: The Later Middle Ages and Some Remarks for a Transition Towards the Early Modern Period Amélia Aguiar Andrade and Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

After examining the case studies provided by this volume section, we do believe that some considerations on key issues of Portugal’s historiography are pertinent. First of all, the non-conservation of the varied quantitative fiscal documentation produced in Portugal—especially during the Middle Ages and not so problematic for early modern period—as well as the temporal and geographical dispersion that characterizes the primary

A. A. Andrade (B) Institute of Medieval Studies–NOVA FCSH, Nova University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] R. da C. Dominguez Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_7

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sources known so far,1 makes difficult and even sometimes impossible the treatment of certain issues, such as the sociological analysis of taxpayers’ lists, the analysis of main actors—institutions, regional officials, municipalities, or tenants—involved in the collection processes, the assessment of taxable matters, the weight of tax collections in the Crown’s budgets, or the taxation practiced in noble landlordships.2 Themes that in other historiographies, regarding other medieval peninsular kingdoms, have been developed in such a way that it is now possible for them to advance, if not towards global syntheses, at least towards sectoral syntheses.3 However, the possibility of resorting to other typologies of primary sources, combined with the development of available knowledge on thematic areas related to the History of Taxation—such as those provided in recent decades by the History of Institutions, Political or Urban History in Portugal4 —to which the importance of applying contributions from questions and issues already raised and even sometimes elucidated by other historiographies should be added, is making it possible to provide interesting and perhaps enriching knowledge for the research agenda in the History of European Taxation. The set of articles presented above, in their diversity of empirical sources used and in the glossed issues, seem to illustrate what we have just stated, i.e., the change in the research paradigm on the history of Portuguese taxation, which from a marginal object of investigation begins to gain centrality, thus acquiring not only a greater depth but also a better theoretical framework and integration of issues susceptible in comparison with results from other geographic areas, namely the Iberian Peninsula. In this sense, the use of primary sources preserved in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano on the collection of annates during the papacy of Avignon in the Iberian Peninsula and more specifically in Portugal allowed the analysis and integration of a peripheral area.5 A region that, 1 Recent investigations are revealing more tax sources held in municipal archives. Gonçalves & Rosa (2020) and Silva (2022). 2 See the considerations and bibliographical indications referred to in the chapter The Study of Medieval Fiscal History in Portugal. 3 Garnier (2008). 4 Teixeira (1993), Silva (2005), Andrade and Costa (2011), Brockey (2016), Neto

(2017) and Rodrigues (2017). 5 See the chapter The collection of annates in Portugal during the Papacy of Avignon, c. 1316–1377: just another case of apostolic tax-collecting in a realm at the back of beyond?

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until recently, was secondary or even not mentioned in the context of investigations already carried out in a more global fiscal framework that covered other European regions. This allowed us to review more traditional ideas about the insertion of the Portuguese medieval dioceses in the collections then imposed and to put into perspective, in a more connected way, the complexity of the Iberian diocesan network that in this chronology still did not accommodate the territorial borders already established for the Iberian kingdoms at that time. An investigation that confirms the potential of using primary sources on Portugal was preserved in foreign archives,6 articulating them with the information available in Portuguese archives,7 in order to develop studies on ecclesiastical taxation. This is a key element for understanding the difficult and complex relationship of Portuguese monarchs with the Church. Preserved with great care and being the subject of important compilations already during the Middle Ages, the Portuguese normative sources reveal a very early legislative framework in which the most central objective of reinforcing royal authority vis-à-vis competing powers prevailed.8 Concerns of an economic nature accompany the economic transformations brought about by the end of the Reconquista and by the challenges of establishing a market economy, for which reason they became more present from the fourteenth century onwards.9 In line with similar situations in other European spaces and already evidenced by available knowledge, Portuguese monarchs saw this legislative action on economic aspects as a fundamental element not only for asserting their authority but also for achieving balance between powers and protagonists that could guarantee social peace.10 This perspective is a sign that, for the analysis of economic issues contained in the legislative corpus, Portuguese historians rely much more on the most recent theoretical frameworks of

6 Linehan (2013). 7 Boissellier (2012). 8 See the chapter Is the economy an issue? Kings and economic legislation in medieval Portugal. 9 Homem (2017) and Andrade and Miranda (2017). 10 See the chapter Is the economy an issue? Kings and economic legislation in medieval

Portugal;

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economic history and much less on the more traditional conceptions of legal historians.11 The use of existing quantitative information substantiated in documents referring to extraordinary taxation and in the numerous acquittance letters makes it possible to monitor and thus make available the Portuguese focus of themes as important as the revenues’ redistribution process among the nobility and the structural difficulties caused by it and simultaneously point to some particularities of the Portuguese tax system that are made feel especially from the fifteenth century onwards. A link between fiscal data and socio-political conjunctures allowed a reading of taxation as a fundamental element for royalty to guarantee the support needed from the nobility at a crucial moment, such as territorial expansion and military deployment in North Africa. Furthermore, it enabled a more complete view of the structural changes in constructing modern states and underpinning warfare as a fundamental element of state building in early modern period.12 The military expansion in the Maghreb in 1415, the colonization of the Atlantic islands and the exploration of the West African coast throughout the fifteenth century prepared an expansive surge that the arrival in India in 1498 and the discovery of Brazil in 1500 tended to globalize. Moreover, it revealed Portugal’s ability to respond and adapt to new but fundamental elements in the kingdom’s economic life and its fiscal framework. In this regard, we can mention the territorial discontinuity, the need to guarantee the satisfaction of a large volume of expenses but also the use of new products and resources, as well as the implementation of new markets and trade routes on a global scale. As evidenced by Susana Munch Miranda’s chapter, the solutions applied in their variability functioned as clear “laboratories” of experimentation for solutions that with greater or lesser success were applied in the territories applied by the Portuguese.13 In more recent times, Portuguese historiography has shown itself to be capable of overcoming constraints imposed on it for decades, first through more individual and isolated initiatives, but then expanding and 11 Hespanha and Homem (1999). 12 See the chapter A difficult transition: Portuguese State finances between later medieval

and early modern times, c. 1415–1530. 13 See the chapter Taxes and fiscal institutions in a maritime empire, fifteenth-sixteenth centuries: a comparative view of overseas’ territories under the Portuguese Crown.

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diversifying themes, until taxation emerges as an object of study, which is very promising for future investigations. Starting from a limited base of positivist studies inherited from the nineteenth century, it was possible to develop other themes in which comparative perspectives became present, although the theoretical component was secondary, something that cannot be strange in a scientific production developed between the 1960s and the end of the twentieth century.14 Very indebted to the documentary availability and therefore, often quite attached to them, they nevertheless allowed revealing sufficient knowledge to list taxes and fees,15 highlight the weight of extraordinary taxation to support not only royal but also municipal finances,16 and point out the progressive protagonism of indirect taxation—the sisas —as a preferential way of obtaining tax revenues and revealing the importance of commercial activity within the tax framework.17 Despite the awareness that, at least for now, the survey of primary sources relating to Portuguese taxation cannot be considered closed, we consider that as long as more systematic surveys are carried out, more revisions of less careful paleographic transcripts18 and a reflection about its production conditions, there is a set of extremely important sources for the study of taxation, especially for a fundamental chronology such as the medieval and early modern times: the charter letters and the general complaints’ books of the kingdom or specific to the municipalities, or general complaints’ books from certain social groups, such as the nobility and ecclesiastics and their respective royal responses presented in the parliamentary assemblies that took place in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The primitive charters—granted between the twelfth century and the 1310s—appear as the first texts which established the fiscal framework that the different powers that issued them imposed on communities and individuals, revealing existing socio-economic frameworks at that time,

14 See the chapter The study of Medieval Fiscal History in Portugal. 15 See same examples in Gonçalves (1968). 16 Gonçalves (1964, 1987), Henriques (2008), Dominguez (2017). 17 Gonçalves (1999). 18 A good example of this review of documentation thinking is the project, currently under development iFORAL—Portuguese municipal charters in the Middle Ages: an historical and linguistic approach in the digital era.

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following application models inseparable from the conjuncture associated with the Reconquista and the subsequent period of territorial framing.19 Maintained in force until the dawn of the sixteenth century, when a vast reform of their contents was carried out by the centralizing royal power of Manuel I (1495–1521),20 they were recurrently used throughout the late medieval and early modern centuries in fiscal prerogatives’ legitimation and/or contestation of its issuers and recipients.21 In this regard, it is indispensable to clarify the period of formation of the fiscal framework, which part of the sources allow to be analyzed in a systematic way, in order to establish lists of contributions, to detect elements as important as possible continuities of practices inherited from the Islamic occupation22 ; moreover, to establish differences of fiscal practices between ecclesiastical/nobility councils and royal councils, in which the latter was overwhelmingly predominant in medieval Portugal. A systematic comparison between these primitive texts and those resulting from the Manueline reform of the 1500 s will reveal the evolution of the applied fiscal frameworks, thus making it possible to detect the complexity of economic life and how its fiscal use was implemented.23 Studies will certainly allow to expand the knowledge of the taxation of the Iberian kingdoms and provide greater comparability between them.24 The documentation produced in the context of parliament gatherings is, for the Portuguese case, numerous and very rich in content. Available since the reign of Afonso IV (1325–1359)—for the previous assemblies, which took place at least since 1254, the documentation is very laconic— contemplates, in addition to some accessory documentation, the texts of the specific complaints presented by a considerable part of the kingdom’s municipalities which had a seat in these assemblies, the text of complaints considered general for the entire kingdom, some complaints’ booklets issued by the nobility and ecclesiastical groups, all of which were accompanied by royal responses.25 19 Reis (2002). 20 Chorão (1990). 21 Sousa (1985, 1989). 22 Fernandes (2020). 23 Silva (2012). 24 Ladero Quesada (1997) 25 See a list of Cortes documentation already published in Rosa (2020: 168–169).

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The Portuguese medieval Cortes, already analyzed and interpreted in a profound and original way by Armindo de Sousa,26 appear as a space for dialogue between the king and his subjects, increasingly ritualized, in which the glossed themes gained great political importance, since the royal responses, especially to general complaints, contain a lot of legislation of global scope within the kingdom. As is to be expected, fiscal issues were rarely omitted from these meetings between the king and the representatives. This makes it possible to recover much of the rationale used by all those involved in matters as important as the application of taxes and extraordinary taxation, on the destination to be given to tax revenues or on the exercise of the prerogative of exception by monarchs. A global analysis of municipalities’ specific complaints would, for example, allow us to recover many of the cases motivated by the application of extraordinary tax collections, enabling very interesting investigation leads about fraudulent practices by both taxpayers and tenants. Moreover, to apprehend the true meaning of the debates for the municipalities, especially the heavy financial burden for those of a smaller economic and social scale, about the process of collecting extraordinary taxes from royal initiative, such as the pedidos (requests) and serviços (services).27 The integration of available accounting sources, namely the municipal accounting books, the regulations contained in the royal compilations, and/or those produced in the Cortes, can clarify the tension between municipal and royal taxation. Moreover, it can elucidate how it was used as an element of control by the powers in presence, particularly in urban societies, mainly due to the inevitable indebtedness and need for credit of local oligarchies and city council management. This provided an increase in their dependence on the monarch, especially in small urban centers. The mention in the acquittance letters and receipts of the tenants responsible for collecting the royal and/or municipal taxes may allow us to follow a line of investigation present in other historiographies, i.e., the one that allows us to detect networks of interests carried out by members of the elites or the permanence of Jewish tenants as a preponderant element in this activity until their expulsion from the kingdom in 1496.

26 Sousa (1990, vol. 1). 27 Sousa (1990, vol. 2).

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References Andrade, A. A., Costa, A. M. da. (2011). Medieval Portuguese towns: The difficult affirmation of a historiographical topic. In José Mattoso (dir.), The historiography of medieval Portugal, c. 1950–2010 (pp. 283–301). IEM. Andrade, A. A. & Miranda, F. (2017). Lisbon. Trade, urban power and the King’s visible hand. In W. Blockmans, J. Wubs-Mrozewicz, M. Krom (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of maritime trade around Europe: 1300–1600 (pp. 333–351). Routledge. Boissellier, S. (2012). La construction administrative d’un royaume. Registres de bénéfices ecclésiastiques portugais (XIII e -XIV e siècles). Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa. Brockey, L. M. (2016). Introduction: Nodes of empires. In L. M. Brockey (Ed.), Portuguese colonial cities in the early modern world (pp. 1–14). Routledge. Chorão, M. J. M. B. (1990). Os forais de D. Manuel: 1496–1520. Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo. Dominguez, R. da C. (2017). The real thing: The pedidos of Portugal and the demands for extraordinary revenues in the later middle ages. In Béguin, K. & Murphy, A. L. (dir.), State cash resources and state building in Europe 13th–18th century. Comité pour l’Histoire Économique et Financière de la France—IGPDE. Fernandes, H. (2020). Alguns problemas em torno de uma transição urbana no sudoeste da Península Ibérica (séculos XI–XII). In A. A. Andrade, G. M. Silva (Eds.), Abastecer a cidade na Europa medieval. Provisioning medieval European towns (pp. 37–61). IEM—NOVA FCSH. Garnier, F. (2008). Fiscalité et Finance Médiévales: Un État de la Recherche Revue Historique de Droit Français et Étranger, 86, 443–452. Gonçalves, I. (1999). Estado Moderno, Finanças Públicas e Fiscalidade Permanente. In M. H. C. Coelho, & A. L. C. Homem (coord.), A Génese do Estado Moderno no Portugal Tardo-Medievo (séculos XIII-XV) (pp. 95–107). Universidade Autónoma Editora. Gonçalves, I. (1968). “Ochavas”; “Passagem, ou peagem”; “Pedido”; “Peita”; “Portagem” In Serrão, J. (dir.), Dicionário de História de Portugal (vol. III, pp. 195, 311, 329 ,345, 424–425). Iniciativas Editoriais. Gonçalves, I. (1987). As Finanças Municipais do Porto na Segunda Metade do Século XV . Câmara Municipal do Porto. Gonçalves, I. (1964). Pedidos e Empréstimos Públicos em Portugal durante a Idade Média. Ministério das Finanças. Gonçalves, P., & Rosa, C. (2020), “Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1398)”; “Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1417)”; “Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1421)”; “ Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1433)”; “Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1446)”; “Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1448)”; “Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1453)”; “Quitação da colheita

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de Manteigas (1465)”; “Quitação da colheita de Manteigas (1465)”, Fragmenta Historica. Revista do Centro de Estudos Históricos da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 8, 57–58, 67–68, 69–70, 75–76, 83–84, 89–90, 91–92, 95–96, 97–98. Henriques, A. C. (2008). State finance, war and redistribution in Portugal: 1249– 1527, Ph. D. thesis, University of York. Hespanha, A. M., & Homem, A. L. C. (1999). O Estado Moderno na recente historiografia portuguesa: Historiadores do direito e historiadores ‘tout court.’ In M. H. C. Coelho & A. L. C. Homem (Eds.), A génese do Estado Moderno no Portugal tardo-medievo (séculos XIII–XV) (pp. 53–77). Universidade Autónoma Editora. Homem, A. L. C. (2017). Estado Moderno e legislação régia: Produção e compilação legislativa em Portugal (séculos XIII–XV). In O Rei e a Lei. Estudos de História institucional portuguesa (1279–1521) (pp. 281–301). U. Porto Edições. Ladero Quesada, M. A. (1997). La corona De Castilla y la fiscalidad municipal en la Baja Edad Media. In M. Sánchez, A. Furió & P. Bertrán i Roigé (Eds.), Colloqui Corona, Municipis i Fiscalitat a la Baixa Edat Mitjana: Actes (pp. 89–124). Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs. Linehan, P. (2013). Portugalia Pontificia: Materials for the history of Portugal and the papacy (2 vols). Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Neto, M. S. (2017). Historiografia Portuguesa da Época Moderna, Revista de Teoria da História, 17(1), 124–146. Reis, A. M. (2002). Origens dos Municípios Portugueses. Livros Horizonte. Rodrigues, J. D. (2017). A cidade moderna na monarquia portuguesa, in Atas II Congresso Histórico Internacional ‘As Cidades na História: Sociedade’—18 a 20 de Outubro de 2017 (vol. 5, pp. 9–22). Câmara Municipal de Guimarães. Rosa, Catarina. (2020). Fiscalidade régia: O caso da Lisboa medieval. (Master’s Thesis) NOVA FCSH. Silva, F. M. F. da. (2012). Os Forais Manuelinos do Entre Douro e Minho (1511– 1520): Direito e Economia. (Master´s thesis), FLUP-UPorto. Silva, F. R. da (2005). Historiografia dos Municípios Portugueses (séculos XVI e XVII). In M. S. da Cunha & T. Fonseca (Eds.), Os Municípios no Portugal Moderno: Dos forais manuelinos às reformas liberais (pp. 9–37). CIDEHUSEd. Colibri. Silva, G. M. (coord.). (2022). Os Livros de Receita e Despesa de Loulé (1375– 1518). Câmara Municipal de Loulé. Sousa, A. de. (1985). O discurso político dos concelhos nas Cortes de 1385, Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto—História, 2 (2), 9–44. Sousa, A. de. (1989). A estratégia política dos municípios no reinado de D. João II. Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto—História, 2 (6), 137–174.

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The Development of State Finance: Portugal in European Context

Introduction—Constructing the Modern Fiscal States: Ruptures, Changes, and Permanencies Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

and Tony K. Moore

1 Connecting Portugal and Western Europe’s Fiscal History Throughout the fifteenth century, in order to maximize revenues, states had to take actions to reinforce institutions and their government capacity. It was necessary to take a step forward fiscally speaking. Western kingdoms had to complete the transition from a seigneurial or domain state toward to a revenue collector tax State. This transition, studied by Schumpeter in early 1900s, gave rise to a model, readapted by Richard

R. da C. Dominguez (B) Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] T. K. Moore University of Reading, Berkshire, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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Bonney and W. M. Ormrod, in the 1990s. Ormrod, using the kingdoms of Castile, France, and England, observed and analyzed the changes of fiscal structures in Western European States.1 Structurally, the work edited by Bonney (1995) belonged to a larger project called The Origins of the Modern State in Europe—13th to18th Centuries, coordinated by Jean-Philippe Genet and Wim Blockmans. Although organized and based on the authors and precepts of classical economics, fundamentally on Smith, Ricardo, Stuart Mill, and Malthus, it does not necessarily mean a prejudgment of medieval theories and methods as rudimentary.2 Due to the scope of the edited studies already mentioned and the chapters presented in this volume, which span from the High Middle Ages (in some cases) to the end of the eighteenth century, it is not unusual for them to be used as a central pillar and even as a common ground for a connection analysis logic the eighteenth-century ideas of the Enlightenment’s theorists. They also saw this transition process, whose consolidation and realization varied from State to State and from region to region, according to their respective conditions. By observing this passage from one condition (domain state) to another (tax state), both fiscal history scholars and liberal economists, when producing their ideas and theories, to some extent, made themselves available for these concepts to be applied to other times, such as the transition to charging for indirect taxes,3 although reservations have to be made about the specificities and conditions of each historical period, even because much of the medieval heritage that remained until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whether in the economic, social, political, or law fields.4 As observed by other scholars, excessive military spending by the monarchs provided more defense than their citizens was likely to want. But the kings had little reason not to. On the one hand, success earned them glory, better reputations, and resources. Losses never cost them their throne. On the other hand, that created the problem of real “moral hazard”5 in war relative to finances. Although the defensive war created an atmosphere of collective belonging compared to the offensive war, the 1 Ormrod (1995). 2 Isenmann (1995: 21). 3 Bonney (1995: 488–489). 4 See Le Goff (2003). 5 Cox (2011: 134); Hoffman (2012: 609–610).

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excessive fiscal pressure exerted by the central power, especially in contexts of intense military activity, was an element of cohesion, since it galvanized the people and their representatives around the resistance to more solicitations and extraordinary economic aid that did not respect a greater control and a balance in the distribution of the requests that were made between the different social groups. As for the theoretical framework, the definitions of domain state and tax state are inserted in a larger context of a model structured by Schumpeter in the years following World War I, which would be responsible for inexorable changes in taxation of European nations. This classic model was later confronted by E. Ladewig Petersen6 in 1975 and Kersten Krüger7 in 1987, and finally readapted by R. Bonney and W. M. Ormrod.8 According to both, the revised model is based on three essential points: (1) that crises occur within tax systems, but do not alter their natural essence; (2) that revolutions make fiscal systems move forward, that is, they force the transition from one system to another; (3) that “self-sustainable growth” is a model of development within the modern “Fiscal State.” Still according to this same model, there are four prevailing types of fiscal systems: tribute, domain, tax, and fiscal states. In addition, there is a proposal for a fifth type, the “financial” (finance), regarding the debate on the chronological framework settled by Gerhard Oestreich about the formation and evolution of States. This approach establishes three stages: (1) a prototype of dualistic political system in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; (2) a first evolution toward to the modern state in its first steps (finance state); (3) another development at the end of the seventeenth century, called by the same “military, administrative and bureaucratic” state, i.e., the fiscal-military state. However, according to that proposition, this would be a less developed phase of the “fiscal state,” characterized by an increasing government dependence on loans without a sufficiently sophisticated financial structure to support it. As we saw on the previous part of this volume, Portugal went through a unique path: a fiscal construction process that mirrored most of Castile’s fiscal institutions and processes, mostly due to the common dynastic origins in the 1100s and a closer political relationship, revealed by the

6 Petersen (1975). 7 Krüger (1987). 8 Bonney & Ormrod (1999).

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constant marriage alliances between the two crowns until the fourteenth century. By then, wars, political crisis, and the rise of John I (1385–1433) and the Avis dynasty represented a game changer for Portugal’s fiscal history. The implementation of a policy of internationalization carried out by the Portuguese Crown (John I’s marriage with Phillipa of Lancaster is an example of that policy) had a strong impact in the way the crown would handle its fiscal system. The situation of Portuguese finances along the 1400s is something of concern, given the system’s structural conditions for income redistribution to the nobility, the organization of the collecting system and transferring values to local and central bodies responsible for this task. Added to this are the various demanding government initiatives in economic terms and the Portuguese internal political context, examples of which are the oceanic expansion, the maintenance of African strongholds, and the peninsular conflicts that encourage Alfonso V (1438–1481) to fight for the Castilian crown against the “Catholic Kings” Fernando and Isabella. As demonstrated by Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez in his previous chapter, Portugal struggled in fiscal terms be able to carry out these projects almost simultaneously. Its revenue collection structure was unbalanced by excessive spending, with revenues distributed among the high nobility, a fact that channeled most of state’s main resources toward rewarding nobles’ military service rather than investment in a stronger and more effective governance which could enable a higher degree of financial sustainability for Portugal’s endeavors. In terms of fiscal earnings and state capacity, the arrival of Vasco da Gama in India, in 1498, represented a huge triumph and an enormous relief, since the perspective of greater profits was real, yet not immediate. On the one hand, colonial revenues would hamper the development or improvement of the already existing taxation mechanism which already had incorporated important innovations, such as the indirect taxation (sales taxes). On the other hand, it would enable a stronger source of revenues regarding customs’ rights on colonial goods. With capital entering meaningfully in the early 1500s, the Crown would not need to worry about institutional improvement in order to reach an enhanced fiscal system. After 1498, with the Portuguese arrival in India, the monopoly on Indian colonial goods, such as pepper and clove, the Crown would not have to bother about streamlining its revenues until the 1530s. Only the decline in the commercial value of Indian commodities and the competition with other kingdoms for the control of the Cape

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Route and Asian trade pushed Portugal toward to a closer attention to its fiscal institutions and the colonization of Brazil.

2 The Development of State Finances in Western Europe Structurally, the second part of this volume is dedicated to provide standards in comparison with the Portuguese case. In this sense, Tony Moore’s chapter on the “resource curse” of medieval English state finances brings us an analysis of Pipe rolls as a fundamental source to the study of English State Finances and delimit the boundaries of the knowledge about English state finance. The author focuses on two case studies of “known unknowns”: the money fiefs promised by Henry III and a tentative reconstruction of the fiscal pressure on Henry and his changing political priorities and the potential trading and discounting of tally sticks on a secondary market. Following the sequence, Florent Garnier brings us an updated and complete overview of France’s legal framework regarding its fiscal constitution between the 1100s and 1500s. He examines how the movement between the different actors (cities, lords, church and the king) as the “competing powers” shaped the way taxation was levied within French territories’ different backgrounds. Moreover, the author demonstrates how the fight for power in different instances built up a tax system in three acts: setting up a tax doctrine, the building of a taxing power and the organization of finances in a state level. Luciano Pezzolo approaches the fiscal tradition, innovation and resistance to taxation in late medieval and early modern Northern Italy. The author deals with some different features of taxation in Italian territorial states in a comparative perspective, with a particular the mezzogiorno region (Kingdoms of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples). Moreover, it is highlighted the clear division between rural and urban areas in terms of fiscal burden and how it faded away as time went by and explains how the innovation of imposing a graduated tax in order to reach a more equitable fiscal policy did not resulted as expected. Still in Italy, Fausto Piola Caselli engages the analysis of the financial policy and fiscal control of the Papal States territory in the long run. The author does a thorough examination of fiscal bureaucratic system in the Papal States and how the control over that fiscal jurisdiction changes as the political situation in the Italian Peninsula developed from the 1500s

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to the 1700s. It is demonstrated how the Papal government was able to manage the implementation of a new system—through customs gates— in a quite efficient way, as it had soon understood that an efficient fiscal control of territory was fundamental to keep the State’s cohesion and survival. Going to Iberia, Pablo Ortego Rico explains in his chapter the changes and continuities in the management of Castilian state finances during the reign of Isabella I (1474–1504). In war against her cousin, Alfonso V of Portugal (1438–1481), the Catholic Monarchs had to develop a more cohesive and dynamic fiscal system, in order to wage wars in a more sustainable way. Moreover, the new fiscal framework also enabled Castile to achieve its political goals and become a European power in the early modern times, competing with Portugal for the lead in the oceanic expansion of the 1500s. Yet in the Peninsula, Pere Verdés Pijuan and Albert Reixach Sala provides us with an overview of the public debt issuing in the Crown of Aragon at the end of the Middle Ages. The authors approach the Catalan historiography of fiscal history and public debt and demonstrate why it is a particular case and how the development of this fiscal tool was fundamental to sustain both the municipalities’ needs and the Aragonese Crown’s warfare policy and its domains in the Mediterranean (Balearic Islands and the Kingdom of Naples). Last but not least, Marjolein t’ Hart explains in her chapter why Holland had a financial revolution, but Flanders and Brabant did not. The author demonstrates the evolution of Holland’s exceptional state finances by way of a comparison with the contrasting path-dependent developments in sixteenth-century Flanders and Brabant. Moreover, it is highlighted how urban communities in Holland managed to extend control over financial matters in the sixteenth century, resulting in much higher per capita taxation and entering the Dutch Revolt in a far better financial state than the other provinces, with a centralized provincial financial administration that enabled them to play a leading role in that period. In the end, the editors provide an afterword with an overview of the development of Portuguese state finances and linking back to theories discussed in the literature review/and comparing and contrasting Portugal with the above case studies, mostly regarding similarities and differences. Overall, this part aims to offer the readers, above all, (inter)

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multidisciplinary approaches to the fiscal issues addressed in these chapters. Moreover, it is intended to bring together studies that create interdisciplinary synergy between Portugal and Western Europe fiscal history, following many of the theories previously discussed in this short introduction. We are pleased to offer this section which reflects an interdisciplinary and knowledge-building dynamic supported by cooperation and teamwork between scholars from the various areas of fiscal studies.

References Bonney, R. (1995). Revenues. In R. Bonney (Ed.), Economic systems and state finance (pp. 423–505). Oxford University Press. Bonney, R., & Ormrod, W. M. (1999). Introduction: Crises, revolutions and selfsustained growth: Towards a conceptual model of change in fiscal history. In W.M. Ormrod, M. Bonney and R. Bonney (Eds.), Crises, Revolutions and SelfSustained Growth. Essays in European Fiscal History, 1130–1830 (pp. 1–21). Shaun Tyas. Cox, G. W. (2011). War moral hazard and ministerial responsibility: England after the glorious revolution. The Journal of Economic History, 71(1), 133– 161. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050711000052 Hoffman, P. T. (2012, September). Why was it Europeans who conquered the world? The Journal of Economic History, 72(3), 601–633. Isenmann, E. (1995). Medieval and renaissance theories of state finance. In R. Bonney (Ed.), Economic systems and state finance (pp. 21–52). Oxford University Press. Krüger, K. (1987). Public finance and modernization: The change from domain state to tax state in Hesse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: A case study. In P. C. Witt (Ed.), Wealth and taxation in Central Europe: The history and sociology of public finance (pp. 49–62). Leamington Spa. Le Goff, J. (2003). My quest for the middle ages. Edinburgh University Press. Ormrod, W. M. (1995). The West European Monarchies in the Later Middle Ages. In R. Bonney (Ed.), Economic Systems and state finance (pp. 123–160). Oxford University Press. Petersen, E. L. (1975). From domain state to tax state. Synthesis and Interpretation, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 23, 116–148.

The ‘Resource Curse’ of Mediaeval English State Finance, C.1155–1453 Tony K. Moore

Historians of later mediaeval England have the privilege of access to a mass of surviving records from the royal central government.1 The occasional tone of English exceptionalism might be very different, however, if the judicial records of the French parlement and the financial records of the chamber de comptes had not been destroyed by fire in 1618 and 1737, respectively.2 Furthermore, in contrast to the records of the central government, there are also major gaps in the survival of private records from mediaeval England. For instance, there is only one surviving English merchants’ account book, that of Gilbert Maghfeld, plus the collection of Cely papers. Much research on mediaeval trade therefore relies on public rather than private records. More fundamentally, the mere hoarding of documents is not necessarily evidence of an efficient bureaucracy. As Richard Britnell has observed with respect to mediaeval China, 1 For an overview of the different types of royal document, see Chaplais (1971). 2 Vincent (2004: 46).

T. K. Moore (B) ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading, UK e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_9

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‘good archive management implies the systematic destruction of records as well as their deliberate preservation’ rather than the ‘survival of records through negligence that was so characteristic of Europe’.3 However, while an abundance of materials offers great opportunities, paradoxically, it can also present an obstacle to the researcher. The (somewhat stretched) analogy on which this chapter is based refers to the ‘resource curse’ or ‘paradox of plenty’ identified by economists, whereby developing economies with access to easily extractable natural resources often underperform in the long term, partly because they face less pressure to innovate or develop more efficient institutions.4 First of all, the sheer volume of surviving material from the later mediaeval royal administration offers its own practical challenges. As T. F. Tout wrote of Thomas Maddox, the great eighteenth-century historian of the Exchequer, ‘with all his wonderful industry, he could not make his way through the multitudinous and quite uncatalogued records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with the same sureness that distinguished his survey of the comparatively meagre materials for the reign of Henry II’.5 Second, the volume of material available can cause a form of tunnel vision—being content with what the sources tell us rather than what we can reconstruct from a more imaginative reading of them. This can be seen as a form of what the social scientist Abraham Kaplan termed the ‘principle of the drunkard’s search’. This was based on the anecdote of ‘a drunkard [who was] searching under a street lamp for his house key, which he had dropped some distance away. Asked why he didn’t look where he had dropped it, he replied, “it’s lighter here!”’.6 Finally, as Michael Clanchy has wryly noted, mastering the documents ‘turns out to be easier than the subsequent “reflection on the details” and our framing of “rules” in the form of generalizations. Understandably enough, English historians have been better at documentary research than generalization’.7 This chapter will first present a brief survey of the surviving royal records, with a particular focus on the Exchequer. It will then consider 3 Britnell (1997: 233). 4 For a recent survey of this literature, see Ross (2015: 239–259). 5 Tout (1937: 7). 6 Kaplan (1964: 11). 7 Clanchy (1995: 7).

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what information we as historians can extract from these sources, following the schema proposed by Donald Rumsfeld that: ‘there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know’.8 It will set out some of the key recent advances in our knowledge (the ‘known knowns’). It will then focus on two case studies of ‘known unknowns’—situations in which we know that we are missing information from the surviving sources and can, with some ingenuity, fill in these gaps. In the first case, the money fiefs promised by Henry III, we can reconstruct the fiscal pressure on Henry and his changing political priorities by examining the surviving orders to make payments towards these fees while also noting the omission of such orders. In the second case, the potential trading and discounting of tally sticks on a secondary market, we can only note scattered evidence from other sources that suggests its existence. For obvious reasons, the ‘unknown unknowns’ remain, as yet, unknown. The earliest surviving Exchequer pipe roll dates from the thirty-first year of Henry I’s reign (Michaelmas 1129–1130) and the rolls survive in relatively unbroken sequence from the second year of his grandson Henry II’s reign (1155–1156). From around 1200, the English chancery started to enrol and retain central records of outgoing orders.9 This reflected wider trends in what Clanchy has termed the transition from ‘memory to written record’.10 The main purpose of mediaeval record keeping seems to reflect a growing concern with official accountability rather than any form of economic efficiency; the Exchequer was primarily an auditing institution concerned with ensuring that royal officials did not defraud the king rather than a budgetary or planning body. For historians, ‘attempts to use the pipe rolls to calculate the king’s income have to be conducted with as many incantations as a shaman’s prayer’ and even for contemporaries, ‘the pipe rolls were more or less useless as a means of calculating overall income and expenditure’.11 On the other hand, Gerald Harriss 8 DoD News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers February 12 2002 [Accessed 6 July 2017]. Available at: http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?Transc riptID=2636. 9 Vincent (2004). 10 Clanchy (2012). 11 Vincent (2004: 26–27).

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has found that mediaeval Exchequer officials were capable of carrying out budgets, but that these were seen as more practical and ephemeral material and were less likely to be retained than the formal accounting documents.12 Table 1 aims to provide a rough indication of the scale of the increase in surviving records from the English royal administration over the course of the Middle Ages. The twelfth-century historian has to work with around a dozen pipe roll membranes (all long since published), whereas the thirteenth-century historian has to contend with several hundred membranes (a good proportion of which have been published) and the fourteenth- /fifteenth-century historian with over a thousand membranes (the vast majority not published or indexed and even, in some cases, un-catalogued). For instance, only two memoranda rolls survive from before 1216, but thereafter they survive in relatively unbroken sequence and increase dramatically in size from a dozen membranes to several hundred.13 The table also excludes whole classes of document such as the receipt and issue rolls, which by the fourteenth century could contain thirty-fifty membranes per term and which were kept in triplicate. Anthony Steel ‘once measured an average-looking [receipt] roll from the middle of Richard II’s reign and found that it was 66 ft. long – the length of a cricket pitch… I calculate that I must have read well over ten thousand feet, or upwards of two miles, of roll’.14 Moreover, in addition to the increase in the enrolling of more and different types of records by the royal government, there is also better retention and survival of more ephemeral material such as the returned judicial writs from which the summaries of process were entered on the plea rolls (The National Archives [TNA] CP 52): warrants under the privy seal for writs to be issued under the great seal (TNA C 81) or warrants authorizing issues from the Exchequer (TNA E 404); the rolls of particulars or evidences presented in by royal accountants on which the enrolled summaries were based (TNA E 101). In the latter case, there are seven

12 Harriss (2008: 179–196). 13 Davies (1957: 97–154). 14 Steel (1954: xvi).

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Table 1 Number of surviving membranes in the principal series of enrolled royal records Year

Chancery

Courts

Exchequer Enrolled accounts

1130 1160 1180 1200 1220 1240 1260 1280 1300 1320 1340 1360 1380 1400 1420 1440 1460

87 34 68 72 79 82 91 237 150 169 167 74 168 123

13 19 55 98 142 291 258 497 407 645 440 612 568 569

16 7 11 18 14 13 21 22 56 30 48 55 56 60 49 83 76

Total Memoranda rolls

21 19 34 54 73 165 331 144 216 362 290 326 288

16 7 11 118 88 155 225 297 502 544 1113 756 1086 1029 1025 1145 1056

Sources Chancery: Published calendars of Patent, Close, Charter, Fine and Liberate rolls. Judicial: Coram Rege rolls to 1272 (TNA KB 26), thereafter Common Pleas (TNA CP 40) and King’s Bench (TNA KB 27). Counted from the images in AALT. Exchequer: Pipe (TNA E 372) and foreign accounts (TNA E 356), King’s and Lord Treasurer’s remembrancer rolls (TNA E 159 and E 368). Counted from the images in AALT

items from the twelfth century, 1,565 from the thirteenth, 8,782 from the fourteenth and 4,443 from the fifteenth.15 It is clear that the student of fourteenth and fifteenth century can draw on but also must cover a much greater amount of material. Moreover, this is not just a matter of volume but also accessibility. The main series of chancery rolls have been calendared up to the early modern period, but the editions of the central court rolls stop in 1250, and the publication of the Pipe rolls has only reached 1226. The receipt, issue and memoranda rolls have barely been published at all. Tout himself recognized 15 These figures have been extracted from the online discovery catalogue of the National Archives. There may be some double-counting as some items may overlap two centuries but this should not affect the overall trend.

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the ‘temptation to postpone the minute examination of the later activities of the great board of finance until they can be more easily studied than is the case at present’.16 He was writing in 1919 and we are still waiting. It should be noted that there are numerous issues with some of the earlier editions, which frequently omitted material then thought irrelevant. Most notably, the Calendar of the Charter Rolls excludes the names of attesting witnesses as ‘to have added them to the end of each charter would have involved intolerable repetition’.17 Today, of course, charter witness lists are a key guide to court politics. This echoes a point made above—advances in our understanding are as likely to result from new ways of interpreting well-known material as from discovering new sources. However, the calendars provide indexes and summaries that help the historian to identify potentially relevant material. It should be noted that, thanks to the tireless industry of Robert Palmer, digital images of many of the judicial and Exchequer records can be viewed online at the Anglo-American Legal Tradition website.18 This makes the consultation of these documents more convenient, but does not help with identifying relevant material. This chapter will now consider the current state of our knowledge (the ‘known knowns’) regarding the history of state finance in mediaeval England. There have been a considerable number of important studies on this topic, so the following brief survey will only highlight some of the key points. First, it will focus on the most valuable studies into the administrative history of the Exchequer. Secondly, it will survey the various attempts to reconstruct figures for royal revenues and expenditure. Thirdly, it will then briefly introduce one of the key debates within mediaeval financial history, the concept of the transition from the demesne state to a tax state and the access to and use of credit by English kings. While royal financial records have been extensively used to reconstruct broader political and

16 Tout (1937: 7). 17 Calendar of charter rolls preserved in the public record office. Volume I. Henry III.

AD 1226–1257 . London: H.M.S.O, 1903, p. vii. To be fair, it was planned to publish the witnesses in a separate study of the royal itineraries, although this did not materialise. The witness lists were finally published in 2001. 18 Anglo-American Legal Tradition: Documents from medieval and early modern England from the National Archives in London. [Accessed 6 July 2017]. Available at: http://aalt.law.uh.edu.

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economic histories, these will not be considered here except insofar as they relate directly to financial questions. One vital point to note regarding the administrative history of the Exchequer is that the apparent continuity in the names of departments and records can conceal quite fundamental changes in their function. The classic guide to the early Exchequer remains the Dialogus de Scaccario, written in the late twelfth century by the former treasurer Richard fitzNigel.19 The best guide to subsequent developments in the thirteenthcentury Exchequer can be found in Robert Stacey’s introduction to his edition of the receipt and issue rolls for 1241–1242 and Richard Cassidy’s introduction to his thesis on the pipe roll of 1259.20 During the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, it seems that the great bulk of royal revenues were physically received into and payments subsequently made from the treasury. As a result, the key sources for royal revenues are the annual pipe roll accounts for the royal revenues collected by the sheriffs and other royal officials, with the receipt rolls recording when money came in during the year. On the expenditure side, payments from the treasury were authorized by writs of liberate (or writs of allocate and computate ordering the Exchequer to allow sums paid out by royal officials against their accounts), with the issue rolls recording the payments made against each writ of liberate. After c.1250, there were two important changes to the machinery of royal financial administration. First, the wardrobe became the main spending department. Rather than issuing individual writs of liberate from chancery to authorise each payment, the wardrobe would be issued with ‘great’ writs of liberate for block sums of £10,000 or more, against which individual payments would be charged on the issue rolls.21 Second, more payments were made by assignment on a local collector rather than in cash.22 As such assignments were made, matching entries would be recorded in the issue rolls as if paid and in the receipt rolls as if the revenue 19 Dialogus de Scaccario, and Constitutio Domus Regis (E. Amt & S. Church, Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 20 Receipt and Issue Rolls for the twenth-sixth year of the reign of King Henry III . Robert C. Stacey (Ed.), Pipe Roll Society New Series 49. London: Pipe Roll Society, 1992 and Cassidy (2012: 34–76). 21 Carpenter (2004: 53–54, 58–62). 22 For the increase in assignments, see Steel (1954: 446–464, appendix D tables C1 to

C10).

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had been received. Some of the issues arising from the use of tallies of assignment will be considered in more detail below. This means that it is the wardrobe books and, especially, the receipt and issue rolls that are the key sources for later mediaeval royal finance.23 This was combined with a greater use of credit and one consequence was that the king’s ability to order payments became divorced from the actual cash in the royal treasury or revenues at his disposal, with the risk that the king would overspend. Royal officials introduced various attempts to monitor and track the king’s financial position, but these could always be over-ridden in case of royal necessity and sometimes lead to the accumulation of massive debts.24 For Henry II’s reign, the accuracy of the figures for royal revenues compiled by Sir James Ramsay from the pipe rolls has been defended by Barratt, who has also revised the figures for the reigns of Richard I and John.25 For the reign of Henry III, David Carpenter used pipe roll accounts to reconstruct the gradual recovery of royal authority from the end of the Magna Carta civil war up to 1225, followed by Stacey for the period 1236–1245 and then Cassidy and Collingwood for the period between 1255 and 1272.26 As explained above, after 1272 the pipe rolls cease to be a reliable guide to royal revenues. Reconstructions of later mediaeval royal revenues have relied either on the yields of direct and indirect taxation, helpfully compiled by Mark Ormrod as part of the European State Finance Database, or on the totals given in the receipt and issue rolls.27 There are too many studies to cite in full, but particularly interesting are James Sherborne on military expenditure, Chris GivenWilson on the financing of the royal household under Richard II and Henry IV, and Ormrod on the tax burden under Henry V.28 At the end of our period, Alex Brayson’s recent thesis on the fiscal constitution under

23 For the most detailed guide, see Fryde (1949: 105–132; 1950: 1–30). 24 Harriss (2008). For specific reforms, see Barratt (2004: 77–86), Buck (1983: 241–

260), and Ormrod (1987: 622–632). 25 Ramsay (1925) and Barratt (1996: 835–855, 2001: 635–656, 2007: 242–256). 26 Stacey (1987), Carpenter (1990), Collingwood (1996), and Cassidy (2011: 614–

627). 27 Ormrod (1999: 19–47). The European State Finance Database. [Accessed 6 July 2017]. Available at http://esfdb.org. Steel (1954). 28 Sherborne (1977), Given-Wilson (1986), and Ormrod (2013).

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Henry VI provides a detailed term by term breakdown of revenues and expenditures.29 The mastering of mediaeval bureaucratic and accounting practices in order to reconstruct royal finances is necessary but not sufficient by itself. The next step is to move beyond the detail and towards generalization. The current interpretative framework focuses on the transition from a demesne state, based on royal estates and rights, to a tax state.30 This intensifying fiscal extraction was driven by competition with France. At the start of the Hundred Years’ War, Edward III was actually able to raise more money than Philip VI from a much smaller base.31 The next step from a tax state is a fiscal state that integrates credit and tax operations: the ‘Three Edwards’ also turned to a succession of Italian merchants to act as ‘bankers to the crown’, essentially a single financial intermediary that advanced money to the king secured against the relatively reliable revenue stream from the customs.32 However, after the failure of initially the Italian merchant societies of the Bardi and Peruzzi and the following English wool companies in the 1340s, the government switched to a more distributed or decentralized system, soliciting a larger number of smaller loans from local landholders and towns, which were frequently assigned to be repaid from forthcoming taxes levied on that area.33 The use of tallies as credit instruments and the question of interest will be considered below. By the end of the Hundred Years War, the French kings were able to reassert their traditional fiscal superiority and, released from the pressure of competition, the English kings began to rely more on their traditional sources of revenue.34 The first case study of potential pitfalls in using the Exchequer records (our ‘known unknowns’) concerns the money fiefs granted by Henry III to a number of foreign knights from Burgundy in the 1240s and 1250s. While classical feudal ties involved the granting of landed estates in return for service, the shortage of available land led to their replacement by money fiefs, an annual cash payment from the treasury. Many 29 Brayson (2013). 30 For the development of this conceptual model, see Bonney and Ormrod (1999). 31 Ormrod (1995: 144). 32 For the broad outlines and further references, see Bell et al. 2015. 33 Kleineke (2001) and Liddy (2005: 21–43). 34 Ormrod (1995: 149–155).

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such grants specified that the fee would be paid in cash until the king could provide the recipient with land to that value. Some money fiefs can best be viewed as a form of retainer or wages for the services of royal knights and officials while others were a way of buying political or military support.35 By 1247, Henry III was retaining at least six Burgundian knights, and this was increased to sixteen plus by 1254. In total, he promised money fiefs worth a total of £463 6s 8d per year to twenty annuitants. In this case, Henry was probably seeking to secure additional military forces for his campaigns in France and later in Wales and against his baronial opponents. It may also have formed part of a wider plan to encircle his Capetian opponents by securing friendly relations with other powers along the French borders. However, Henry soon encountered difficulties in actually paying these money fiefs. Since the liberate and issue rolls only include payments ordered by the king, failure to make such payments has to be deduced from the omission of orders to pay these fees in certain years. This can often be confirmed by writs of liberate in subsequent years making good these missed payments or by statements concerning the arrears owed by the king. For example, in November 1256, various messengers from Burgundy were sent back to their masters with small payments for their travel expenses, ‘the king being at present unable to pay his debts to their masters’. They had no more luck in February or November 1257, when the king ordered similar payments to be distributed among ‘divers other messengers of Burgundy coming for arrears of their lords’ fees, whereof the king cannot at present satisfy them’.36 Figure 1 shows the value of the annual fees promised by Henry each year, the amount ordered to be paid and the how cumulative arrears owed built up over time. In a similar way, Henry also began to fall behind on payments to merchants who had provided goods to the wardrobe on credit.37 For these sorts of reasons, both historians and contemporaries have questioned Henry III’s competence as a ruler, with Dante placing him in purgatory as ‘the king of the simple life’.38 In particular, it has been

35 Lyon (1951). 36 Calendar of Liberate Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Vol IV . London:

H.M.S.O., 1916–1964, pp. 336, 357, 440. 37 Bell et al. (2014). 38 Alighieri (1973: 74–75, canto VII line 130).

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£6,000

£500

£5,000

Payments made Fees promised

£400

£4,000

£300

£3,000

£200

£2,000

£100

£1,000

£0

Accumulated arrears

Payments owed/made each year

Arrears

1267

1266

1264

1265

1263

1261

1262

1260

1259

1258

1257

1256

1254

1255

1252

1253

1251

1250

1248

1249

1247

1245

1246

£0

Fig. 1 Payments made to Burgundian knights (Source Calendar of Liberate Rolls, vol. III–V)

argued that Henry’s financial mismanagement contributed to the political crisis of 1258, the subsequent reform movement that effectively put control of government in the hands of a baronial council and ultimately to the Barons War of 1263–1267.39 These criticisms have been modified by recent work, which argues that Henry’s finances were fundamentally sound, and that his worst financial troubles were a consequence rather than a cause of the political disruption after 1258.40 This rehabilitation of Henry’s financial acumen is largely based on analysing the cash flows in and out of the Exchequer and the wardrobe, but to fully assess Henry’s financial position we need to include items that do not appear in the records, such as the money fiefs that he should have paid but for which no writs of liberate were issued. If these ‘off balance-sheet’ liabilities are included, it can be argued that there was a mismatch between royal income and outgoings, not as a result of any great collapse in 39 Barratt (2004: 73–75). 40 Cassidy (2011: 624) and Wild (2012: 1394, 1400).

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royal revenues but because of the increase in royal financial commitments. Henry found it increasingly difficult to meet these obligations, not just to the Burgundian knights and merchants who supplied goods to the wardrobe on credit discussed above but even to members of his own court and family. While the direct political cost of delaying payment to merchants or foreign knights may have been limited, Henry’s failure to pay more influential figures like his Savoyard and Lusignan relatives, not to mention his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, ultimately proved more serious. Our second case study investigates some of the issues around the use of tallies at the English Exchequer.41 In particular, although the outward form of the Exchequer tally may have remained virtually unchanged over centuries, their function and role within the wider system of state finance changed dramatically. Originally, tallies were struck as receipts for payments made by collectors of royal revenues directly into the Lower Exchequer (or Exchequer of Receipt), which they could subsequently present when their accounts were audited at the Upper Exchequer. As we have seen, by the fourteenth century, an increasing proportion of royal revenues were not coming into the treasury but were being paid out by the collectors at source. Such local payments were generally authorized by tallies of assignment. Here the tally was delivered to a royal creditor at the Exchequer of Receipt before they had received any money from the revenue collector on whom it was assigned. Nonetheless, this was entered in the receipt rolls as though the money had been paid into the treasury.42 At the same time, a matching entry would be created in the issue roll for the same value and under the same date, recording the payment to the creditor, the reasons for the payment and by what warrant it was made. Once he had received the assigned sum, the creditor would hand over the tally to the collector, who could then present it when he came to account before the Upper Exchequer. While in some ways an elegant solution, this practice raised a number of problems, both for contemporary Exchequer clerks and for modern historians. First, it meant that the dates entered on the issue and receipt rolls do not reflect when the king received goods or services (which was 41 For the following reconstruction of Exchequer practice, see Moore (2013). This contains full references to the important studies on this topic. 42 Technically cash payments and assignments are distinguished by the marginal notes “sol ” and “pro,” respectively.

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often long before) or when the provider actually received his payment (which could be long after, if it all) but rather when the assignment was made. Second, there was an obvious problem if the creditor proved unable to collect on their tally. This could be due to a technical flaw, such as the replacement of the collector on whom it was made, but often the revenue source proved insufficient to meet all the tallies assigned on it, because of either an unexpected shortfall in revenues or the over-optimistic issuing of tallies by the king. The solution adopted has been described as the ‘fictitious loan’. The uncashable tally was returned and cancelled on the receipt roll. But this disrupted the system of daily, weekly and termly totals and also the cross-referencing between the receipt and issue rolls. So to maintain the integrity of the records, the cancelled tally was replaced by a ‘fictitious loan’ from the creditor for the same sum. Subsequently, the creditor would receive new assignments to repay this ‘loan’. This workaround maintained the formal accuracy of the records. Some historians have used the proportion of such ‘fictitious loans’ on the receipt rolls as a barometer of fiscal pressure.43 In practice, it could be more complicated. For instance, just because a tally was not cancelled, it does not automatically follow that it was successfully cashed. In fact, the recipients of ‘fictitious loans’ were probably not the most desperate royal creditors but rather those more influential figures who had sufficient leverage to secure reassignment of defaulted tallies.44 Although pipe roll accounts do not usually itemize which tallies were presented by the accountant, instead giving just the total value (and sometimes the number) of tallies presented, a careful collation of the receipt and pipe rolls might allow us to reconstruct what proportion of tallies assigned on each accountant were actually discharged and so to turn this from a ‘known unknown’ to a ‘known known’. A final qualification is that even the discharge of a tally by the accountant does not necessarily mean that he had paid the royal creditor. Harriss has shown that creditors often handed over their tallies to the accountant in return for a private debt obligation from them or a third-party promising payment at a later date.45 This brings us out of the realm of state finance and into the world of private business.

43 See Fig. 1.12 in Ormrod (1999: 35). 44 Harriss (1955). For the difficulties in securing assignments, see Harriss (1957). 45 Harriss (1955: 189).

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Further, it raises the question of whether there was a secondary market for tallies, as well as other royal financial instruments such as wardrobe debentures.46 Unfortunately, the royal records only tell us about the initial issue of the tally and its subsequent return when presented at account—and nothing about through whose hands they may have passed between these two points. It has been suggested that tallies may have circulated as bearer instruments, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this from petitions and legal disputes. A related issue is whether these tallies were traded at a discount, which might be expected given that the buyer was handing over cash today for an uncertain chance of payment at some date in the future. Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess how widespread these practices may have been, especially given the lack of private financial records. The discussion of the time value of money and risk of default brings us to the most opaque element of mediaeval royal finances, namely the payment of interest. This was often disguised in the records to avoid any appearance of usury, for instance as gifts. It is difficult, but not impossible, to decompose interest rates from such gifts where the cash flows can be reconstructed. Such an exercise suggests that the king could borrow at annualized rates of between 15 and 25% during peacetime, but had to pay 40–60% during wartime.47 A larger and even more shadowy question concerns the discounting of tallies. The fifteenth-century English justice and political theorist Sir John Fortescue argued that ‘the poor man would rather have 100 marks (£66 13s 4d) in hand than a hundred pounds by assignment, which perhaps shall cost him very much before he can get his payment, and perhaps never be paid thereof’. Fortescue continued that, if the king paid by assignment, ‘his creditors will win upon him the fourth or fifth penny of all that he spends’, implying that the king would have to issue his tallies at a discount to their face value.48 From a relatively short window in 1384–1386, Steel found a number of entries in the receipt rolls that seemed to distinguish between a loan (“mutuum”) and an additional sum “pro eisdem”, which he interpreted as the interest payable on the loan. These additional payments were usually around 25%

46 Bell et al. (2017: 145–151). 47 Bell et al. (2009). 48 Fortescue (1997: 92–93).

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of the combined sum, which is strikingly similar to Fortescue.49 This practice seems to have been short lived, possibly because it was too transparent, but if such interest payments were indeed routinely disguised by discounting the value of the tally recorded on the receipt rolls, this may lead us to overstate the king’s effective purchasing power, with significant implications for our understanding of royal revenues. In conclusion, this chapter has not sought to argue that historians of mediaeval England should ignore the wealth of primary sources available in the royal archives, particularly from the mid-thirteenth century onwards. However, it does make the case that we need to be careful that the surfeit of documents available does not blind us to what they cannot tell us or lead us to neglect new and innovative ways of reading those sources. In short, we will not make further advances in our understanding of mediaeval English state finance simply by reading more and more documents but rather by thinking harder and harder about the questions that we can ask of them. In particular, we should be aware of the potential to uncover currently ‘unknown unknowns’.

References Primary Sources Alighieri, D. (1973). The divine comedy: Purgatorio (vols. I–II, C. S. Singleton). Princeton University Press. Anglo-American Legal Tradition: Documents from medieval and early modern England from the National Archives in London. http://aalt.law.uh.edu. Accessed 6 July 2017. Calendar of Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. volume I. Henry III. AD 1226:1257 . H.M.S.O, 1903. Calendar of Liberate Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. vols. I–VI . H.M.S.O., 1916–1964. Cassidy, R. (2012). The 1259 pipe roll. Ph.D. thesis. King’s College London. Dialogus de Scaccario, and Constitutio Domus Regis (E. Amt & S. Church, Ed.). Oxford University Press, 2007. DoD News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers February 12 2002. http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID= 2636. Accessed 6 July 2017.

49 Steel (1954: 18–20).

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Fortescue, Sir J. (1997). On the laws and governance of England (S. Lockwood, Ed.). Cambridge University Press. Receipt and Issue Rolls for the twenth-sixth year of the reign of King Henry III . (Robert C. Stacey, Ed.). Pipe Roll Society New Series 49. Pipe Roll Society, 1992. The European State Finance Database. http://esfdb.org. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Studies Barratt, N. (1996). The revenue of John. English Historical Review, 111, 835– 855. Barratt, N. (2001). The English revenue of Richard I. English Historical Review, 116, 635–656. Barratt, N. (2004). Finance on a shoestring: The Exchequer in the thirteenth century. In A. Jobson (Ed.), English government in the thirteenth century (pp. 71–86). The Boydell Press. Barratt, N. (2007). Finance and the economy in the reign of Henry II. In C. Harper-Bill & N. Vincent (Eds.), Henry II: New interpretations (pp. 242– 256). The Boydell Press. Bell, A. R., Brooks, C., & Moore, T. K. (2009). Interest in medieval accounts: Examples from England, 1272–1340. History, 94, 411–433. Bell, A. R., Brooks, C., & Moore, T. K. (2014). The credit relationship between Henry III and merchants of Douai and Ypres, 1247–70. Economic History Review, 67 , 123–145. Bell, A. R., Brooks, C., & Moore, T. K. (2015). Le Crédit au Moyen Âge: Les Prêts à la Couronne d’Angleterre entre 1272 et 1345. In K. Béguin (Ed.), Ressources Publiques et Construction Étatique en Europe XIIIe-XVIIIe Siècle (pp. 117–130). L’Institut de la Gestion Publique et du Développement Économique. Bell, A. R., Brooks, C., & Moore, T. K. (2017). The non-use of money in the Middle Ages. In M. Allen & N. Mayhew (Eds.), Money and its use in medieval Europe—Three decades on: Essays in honour of Professor Peter Spufford (pp. 137–151). Royal Numismatic Society Special Publication 52. Royal Numismatic Society. Bonney, R., & Ormrod, W. M. (1999). Introduction: Crises, revolutions and self–sustained growth: Towards a conceptual model of change in fiscal history. In M. Ormrod, M. Bonney, & R. Bonney (Eds.), Crises, revolutions and self-sustained growth: Essays in European fiscal history, 1130–1830 (pp. 1–21). Shaun Tyas. Brayson, A. (2013). The fiscal constitution of later medieval England: The reign of Henry VI . Ph.D. thesis. University of York.

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Britnell, R. (1997). Records and record-keeping in Yuan China. In R. Britnell (Ed.), Pragmatic literacy east and west, 1200–1330 (pp. 217–234). The Boydell Press. Buck, M. C. (1983). The reform of the Exchequer, 1316–1326. English Historical Review, 98, 241–260. Carpenter, D. A. (1990). The minority of Henry III . University of California Press. Carpenter, D. A. (2004). The English royal chancery in the thirteenth century. In A. Jobson (Ed.), English government in the thirteenth century (pp. 48–69). The Boydell Press. Cassidy, R. (2011). Adventus Vicecomitum and the financial crisis of Henry III’s reign, 1250–1272. English Historical Review, 126, 614–627. Chaplais, P. (1971). English royal documents: King John—Henry VI, 1199–1461. Clarendon Press. Clanchy, M. T. (1995). Inventing thirteenth-century England: Stubbs, Tout, Powicke—Now what? In P. R. Coss & S. D. Lloyd (Eds.), Thirteenth century England V: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne conference 1993 (pp. 1–20). The Boydell Press. Clanchy, M. T. (2012). From memory to written record: England 1066–1307 (3rd ed.). Wiley. Collingwood, J. A. (1996). Royal finance in the period of Baronial Reform and Rebellion, 1255–72. PhD thesis. University of London. Davies, J. C. (1957). The memoranda rolls of the Exchequer to 1307. In J. C. Davies (Ed.), Studies presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson (pp. 97–154). Oxford University Press. Fryde, E. B. (1949). Materials for the study of Edward III’s credit operations, 1327–48. Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 22, 105–132. Fryde, E. B. (1950). Materials for the study of Edward III’s credit operations, 1327–48. Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 23, 1–30. Given-Wilson, C. (1986). The royal household and the king’s affinity: Service, politics and finance in England, 1360–1413. Yale University Press. Harriss, G. L. (1955). Fictitious loans. Economic History Review, 8, 187–199. Harriss, G. L. (1957). Preference at the medieval Exchequer. Historical Research, 30, 17–40. Harriss, G. L. (2008). Budgeting at the medieval Exchequer. In C. Given-Wilson, A. Kettle, & L. Scales (Eds.), War, government and aristocracy in the British Isles, c.1150–1500: Essays in honour of Michael Prestwich (pp. 179–196). The Boydell Press. Kaplan, A. (1964). The conduct of inquiry: Methodology for behavioral science. Chandler Publishing Company. Kleineke, H. (2001). The commission De Mutuo Faciendo in the reign of Henry VI. English Historical Review, 116, 1–30.

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Liddy, C. (2005). War, politics and finance in late medieval English towns: Bristol, York and the Crown, 1350–1400. The Boydell Press. Lyon, B. (1951). The money fief under the English kings, 1066–1485. English Historical Review, 56, 161–193. Moore, T. K. (2013). ‘Score it upon my taille’: The use (and abuse) of tallies by the medieval Exchequer. Reading Medieval Studies, 39, 1–18. Ormrod, W. M. (1987). The protecolla rolls and English government finance. English Historical Review, 102, 622–632. Ormrod, W. M. (1995). The West European monarchies in the later Middle Ages. In R. Bonney (Ed.), Economic systems and state finance: The origins of the modern state in Europe 13th to 18th centuries (pp. 123–160). Oxford University Press. Ormrod, W. M. (1999). England in the Middle Ages In R. Bonney (Ed.), The rise of the fiscal state in Europe c.1200–1815 (pp. 19–47). Oxford University Press. Ormrod, W. M. (2013). Henry V and the English taxpayer. In G. Dodd (Ed.), Henry V: New interpretations (pp. 187–216). The Boydell Press. Ramsay, Sir J. H. (1925). A history of the revenues of the kings of England, 1066– 1399. vols. I–II. Oxford University Press. Ross, M. (2015). What have we learned about the resource curse? Annual Review of Political Science, 18, 239–259. Sherborne, J. W. (1977). The cost of English warfare with France in the later fourteenth century. Historical Research, 50, 135–150. Stacey, R. C. (1987). Politics, policy and finance under Henry III, 1216–1245. Oxford University Press. Steel, A. (1954). The receipt of the Exchequer 1377–1485. Cambridge University Press. Tout, T. F. (1937). Chapters in the administrative history of medieval England: The wardrobe, the chamber and the small seals (vol. I, 2nd ed.). Manchester University Press. Vincent, N. (2004). Why 1199? Bureaucracy and enrolment under John and his contemporaries. In A. Jobson (Ed.), English Government in the thirteenth century (pp. 17–48). The Boydell Press. Wild, B. L. (2012). Royal finance under King Henry III, 1216–72: The wardrobe evidence. Economic History Review, 65, 1380–1402.

A History of Taxation in the Kingdom of France (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Policies, Rules and Practices Florent Garnier

Taxation participates in making and writing the history of the French kingdom. It namely contributes to enlightening the history of powers: king, Church, lords, states, or cities. It shows the many different levels on which history can be written. Based on studies about the kingdom, a reign, principalities and urban monographies, the presentation of general assessments, the writing of specific syntheses as well as the formulation of research perspectives were not made possible until the last quarter of the twentieth century.1 They give a report on a research field benefiting from some return to favour with doctoral theses and a collective research in a European perspective. The studies on the genesis of the Modern State instigated by 1 Favier (1967–1968, 355–360), (1968–1969, 313–316), and (1969–1970, 417–423), Favier (1968, 427–503), Chevalier (1987, 137–151), Rigaudière (2003, 27–30 and 685– 688), Biget (2004, 311–336), Garnier (2008, 443–452), Naegle (2008, 90–97), Hanada (2014, 25–318), and Menjot (2019).

F. Garnier (B) Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, Toulouse, France e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_10

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Jean-Philippe Genet in the years 1980 and 1990 were decisive. His analysis grid and suggested definition of the State have become classic: “a Modern State is a State whose material basis is public taxation accepted by public society (on a wider territorial scale than the city-state) and which involves all subjects”.2 The fiscal matter was questioned all over again within the Comité pour l’Histoire Economique et Financière de la France (1986) from the proceedings of several symposia and publications devoted to the Middle Ages. It was questioned again in the works carried out on the basis of Mediterranean Occident urban fiscal systems, in the 2000s.3 Finally, it was questioned within the scope of projects led by the national research agency from 2005. The historiography of taxation has experienced a revival for various territorial spaces and from various sources (royal ordinance, writings of theologies and jurists, urban statutes, mirrors of princes, pragmatic writings, iconography, etc.). Drawing up a history of fiscality is crossing several historiographies (history of State, representative assemblies, cities, political ideas, medieval law, scripturality, accountings, ordinary writings, etc.). They have been enriched by various supplementary—documentary, economic, political, social, religious, etc.—approaches. It is also considering the way fiscal systems form and interconnect. In spite of the latest decades’ research works, they still have dark sides. Law, institutions and tax justice provide interesting perspectives.4 The study of litigation generated by taxes is promising.5 The history of fiscal and financial institutions has not yet been exhausted, particularly when measuring the gap between the letter of normative texts and administrative practices or also the social institutional history dimension.6 The trail suggested by Albert Rigaudière could also be fecund as he mentions the spatial division between the northern and southern parts of the kingdom, speaking of “two fiscal cultures” or “two fiscal states”.7 Following the analysis of the setting up of fiscal systems, a better knowledge of the diffusion of fiscal-financial models proves essential. 2 Genet (1990, 261–281, 1997, 3–18) and Mattéoni (2022). 3 La fiscalité des villes au Moyen Âge (1996–2004). 4 Garnier (2009a, 31–41, 2009b, 97–123). 5 Weidenfeld (1999, 2001, 2002). 6 Mattéoni (2010). 7 Rigaudière (1993, 686).

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The history of taxation is part of a broader reflection on the way royal expenditures can be financed. They resort to other resources with currencies and loans. To get money, currencies were one of the instruments the Capetians managed to handle.8 The question of the monetary reform was important on the occasion of the payment of Jean Lebon’s ransom. The 5 December 1360 ordinance, which established the 3.88-gram 24-carat gold-franc or «franc à cheval » was made possible as the counterpart of a royal tax levy. The king was released, an aid was raised, and a new stable and strong currency was created. This was a response to the people who, like Nicolas Oresme in his De Moneta treatise in 1355, appealed to the king’s moderation. As in the taxation matter, the prince is to take care of «his subjects’ sake and public freedom». Currency, like taxes, concerns the rights of political communities. Loans, as another financing source, have sparked off various studies related to different groups (Lombards, Cahorsins, Jewish moneylenders). By the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century, this loan activity shed light on financiers and Italian companies of merchant bankers. The French monarchy also called upon various actors for more constrained loans (army officers, clergy members and cities and even the rents of Hôtel de Ville de Paris in 1522). Facing up to the deficit of royal finances was a preoccupation for monarchs. Was it just a chronic disease for all that? Was this deficit not an “essential factor for the growth of fiscal pressure, thus of the State”9 ? A fiscal and financial inventiveness was at work with the experimentation of “novelletez”, or even their perpetuation. 1280–1328 were decisive years. Charles 7th’s reformative measures (1422–1461) were essential to the monarchs until the first quarter of the sixteenth century. This chapter particularly examines the normative and legal dimension of taxes over the period that is presented as the time of the transition from a “domain state” to a “tax state”, between the twelfth century and the sixteenth century.10 This approach is part of a more general movement benefiting the French monarch. As for justice and law, in the Middle Ages, taxes participated in the strengthening of the royal power facing other lay or ecclesiastical powers. This process is not a linear one. It

8 Le Goff (2010). 9 Hamon (1994, 133). 10 Strayer (1970) and Grummitt and Lassalmonie (2015, 116–149).

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is the field where various actors play, king, Church people, lords, cities and states. Taxes are a remarkable indicator of the competing powers. Power ratios require a pragmatic adaptation according to circumstances and areas. Taxes are a field of political and technical reflection and experimentation. The speeches of the people supporting the right for the king to raise taxes must not obscure the practical reality of taxes within the kingdom. In the context of an asserted tax doctrine (I), monarchs build up a taxing power (II) and organize an administration of finance (III).

1

The Setting Up of a Tax Doctrin

Levying taxes is part of feudal and vassalage relations. The royal power is thus limited to restrictive cases. To assert their suzerainty, the Capetian kings had to surpass the feudal relation. All along the Middle Ages, they were bound to the idea that the Prince has to “live off his own demesne” (1). An adaptation of this model was made possible by a reflection conducted by the faculty of theology of Paris from the end of the thirteenth century. A scholarly speech drew up the bases of a fiscal theory (2). “Living on One’s Own” Personal relations between a lord of the land and a vassal involve reciprocal obligations. Vassals were obliged by a general duty of fidelity and loyalty, which was expressed by the auxilium and consilium. “Aid” was the vassal’s both military and financial duty. Whether a noble man, a member of the clergy or an inhabitant community, vassals had to provide aid to their lords for a military expedition (chevauchée) and for wars (ost ). The aid provided could also be of a pecuniary kind. It was set by custom in four cases including the knighting of the lord’s eldest son, the marriage of his eldest daughter, the participation in the ransom due in case of a lord in captivity, and the lord’s departure on crusade. Vassals could not escape these obligations. Their commitment was an integral part of the feudal contract that bound them to their lord. In the course of the thirteenth century, evolution was significant in the context of a suzerain king aiming at being distinguishable from other lords. People could escape personal military service by giving money. Thereby, the size of osts started growing from the years 1250. Lords, and even more the king as the supreme fief lord of the kingdom,

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solicited new financial aids, which provoked fierce reactions, as in the South when a seneschal required an exceptional land-tax. Malas and injustas consuetudines were denounced. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Capetians benefited from other forms of resources from the lands pertaining to their domain. They were linked with the exercise of justice, the fabrication of money (seigniorage) or with the seigniorial landtax due by cities and paid in a direct or indirect form. Besides, clerics started being liable to taxes. As a rule, they normally benefited from a taximmunity, but they were to pay tithes in a particular way. Philip Augustus (1180–1223) fell into step behind his father regarding the taxation of clerics. Louis 7th (1137–1180) had suspended this taxation in 1146 for the second crusade. Philip Augustus established a Saladin tithe in 1188 for the third crusade. These precedents were controlled by the Latran Council (1179 and 1215) to set the principle of the clergy’s consent and of pope’s preliminary authorization. While royal resources benefited from these new levies, the challenge for the king was to increase the number of taxpayers by including subvassals. From the end of the thirteenth century, French monarchs could not be content with the recourse to direct vassals or to the “four-cases aid”. It was the case with Philip 4th Le Bel (1285–1314). In 1285, he resorted to them for his own chivalry and for his daughter’s wedding in 1308. The royal will to tax a larger part of the kingdom’s population was expressed in 1292 through a first form of indirect tax on commercial transactions (a one-denier tax per pound) and in 1313 when cities were requested to contribute. A dialogue took shape around the negotiation of the aid.11 It was all the more necessary as the king intended to mobilize the population for other cases. The war context was in favour of his intent as a military aid was called for. The defence of the kingdom was likely to extend obligations, no longer to vassals only but also to subjects. The challenge for the royal power was then to get a better knowledge of his kingdom’s contribution capacities. This became all the more necessary as monarchs could less and less live off just the royal demesne. The adage «le roi doit vivre du sien» meaning that “the king must live off his own resources” applies to the various kingdoms in Europe. They included a heterogeneous set of incomes originating from lands (incomes in kind, rents), products from various farms (local offices, tolls…) or from

11 Rigaudière (1995, 323–391).

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the seignorial demesne. The royal function in the service of the kingdom’s subjects had to require no other resources than those already known of. The king exerted a ministry. He had to ensure the preservation of order and peace, justice and concord. While exercising justice and being the guardian of customs, the prince did not yet have a sufficiently asserted creative taxing power. The circulation of wealth was preferred to its accumulation, particularly under the Franciscans’ influence. The revenues from the demesne were still sufficient at the very beginning of the thirteenth century, accounting for 80% of the royal income. The royal power became more and more asserted in the game of feudal and vassal relations. This policy found its expression through a larger territorial control. The map of the kingdom shows that the royal domain expanded between 1204 and 1314. However, the king did not have a good knowledge of his kingdom’s resources. So, in 1328, a survey was carried out and written on “les paroisses et les feuz des baillies et sénéchaussées de France” (the parishes and the hearths of the bailiffs and seneschalties of the kingdom of France). The king needed to be accurately informed of the kingdom’s and not only of the demesne’s resources. An evolution took place. From Philippe 2nd Augustus (1180–1223) to Charles 5th Le Bel (1322–1328), the share of the resources from the royal domain dwindled. It was down to 50% in 1330. Financial needs were increasing to launch military operations. With the Valois, the share represented by royal-domain resources kept decreasing. One century later, Charles 7th’s ordinance (September 25th, 1443) on the fact and government of finances mentioned that the domain “had fallen into ruin”. Domanial resources then accounted for 2% by the end of Louis 11th’s rein (1483). However, the principle according to which “the king must live off his own” constantly remained valid. It was an unavoidable reference in the medieval taxation ideology even though this was not at all the case in practice. The legitimization of taxes was asserted at the turn of the thirteenth century. A Matter of Political Ethics While taxation drew the attention of jurists in the course of the Roncaglia diet in 1158, with the Tributum law mentioning a capitatio to the benefit of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in his relationships with Italy, taxes were more largely questioned elsewhere. The thirteenth century

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was the crucible of rich and fecund expressions of fiscal reflections for the following centuries.12 In Paris, the faculty of theology formulated an essential reflection in favour of the legitimization of tax levies within the medieval society. During the years 1280–1300, theologians held debates in the course of quodlibetical questions.13 These debates echoed the practical questioning of the time and Philippe 4th Le Bel’s policy. Masters drew their references from the New Testament, the Church Fathers and Commentaries as well as from the Decretum Gratiani, Decretals, the Code and the Digest.14 They built up a general frame authorizing the prince to levy taxes.15 Theologians used the causa impositionis that had been known since the end of the twelfth century. Jurists wrote their reflections too, within the scope of Aristotelian causes. The four causes were an analysis grid with the efficient cause (who levy taxes?), the final cause (what is the purpose of taxes?), the material cause (whom and what are taxes based on?) and the formal cause (what is the measuring scale of taxes?). The first two causes most particularly concerned the prince. It was important to him to be able to legitimate a fair tax levy on free people without acting as a tyrant, as the literature of the time expresses it. Jacques Le Goff formulates a key idea according to which “taxation by monarchs is not an economic but a political ethics issue”.16 To prepare for the duties of a monarch, the “mirrors for princes” developed an image of princes who dominated their passions and proved virtuous. Princes were provided an instruction on ethical matters and on the concrete governing practice by the “political dreams” (Songe du Vergier in 1378, Songe du vieil pèlerin in 1389). The king was to keep to a “moral faith” (Philippe de Mézières). He had the right to resort to taxes while demonstrating a virtuous moderation.17 The scarcity of “pictural justifications” (Pierre Prétou) of royal taxes show that the king was seen as a figure of Christ, thereby exerting a power that could not be seen as predatory.18

12 Isenmann (1996, 3–37). 13 Scordia (2005, 103–121). 14 Scordia (2007, 19–50). 15 Isenmann (1996, 3–37). 16 Le Goff (2010, 86). 17 Brown (1973, 1–28). 18 Scordia (2004, 109–130) and Prétou (2012, 327–348).

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According to Bernard Guenée, the founding principles of a fiscal theory are part and parcel of “the key words of the medieval political mind”: common good, bonum publicum, utilitas communis, utilitas publica, res publica. These expressions supported the final cause of taxation and were in aid to the prince who had to be prudent and provident. He was urged to build up a treasury in case of a future war, which became essential for a provident king. The fair aspect of taxes was thus justified in case of necessity for the common good and public interest.19 This gave rise to new possibilities for the prince who could now get away from the four feudal cases. The lay power took advantage of Pope Honorius 2nd’s position in 1225, which, on account of public utility and in compliance with Latran III (1179)20 and Latran IV (1215)21 councils, compelled English clerics to pay taxes to Henry 3rd. The necessity argument was then commonly adhered to. However, necessity was still a case of exception. The idea of a permanent necessity due to its predictable and customary nature was distinguished from the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century. The germs of a fiscal theory were disseminated, which was to the benefit of the prince. He was the major beneficiary of it as a monopoly of a taxing power practice was recognized.

2

The Expression of a Taxing Power

A taxing power could express itself but could not be exerted without limitation (1). The king was bound to have his decision accepted by engaging a fiscal dialogue within the representative assemblies where the agreement to taxes found its expression (2). Power The participation of all was required to finance the new charges which were a burden to “a new beneficiary, the State” (Albert Rigaudière). It expressed itself through the collection of tithes on the revenues of the Church of France, in favour of the monarch with the agreement of

19 Scordia (2010, 293–309). 20 Canon 19. 21 Canon 46.

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the pope. After three tithes had been levied consecutively from 1288, Boniface 8th opposed the King of France. Royal taxation grew between Philippe Le Bel’s (1285–1314) and Philippe 6th’s (1328–1350) reins. The urgency of the moment as well as a distinction between war and peace times were still conditioning royal actions. They were limited by the “Cessante causa cessat effectus ” idea.22 Tax-levies stopped when their cause disappeared. Permanent taxing remained to be established. Between 1328 and 1380, royal ordinances referring to an exceptional necessity were very scarce. They could also mention a perpetual necessity and the natural right argument but in an even, more limited way.23 A shift took place from a determined and imminent motive to a more general and permanent cause justified by defensio regni, necessitas publica or utilitas publica. The last Capetians’ practice shed light on the establishment of new direct levies (lier nable tax) and indirect ones (maltôte). It developed during Philippe 4th’s rein in particular (1328–1350), with indirect taxes such as droit de rève (excise tax) and salt-tax. A dynamic was at work, from a measure limited to the domain, to its generalization to the whole kingdom through the intermediary of states. This was the case of salt-tax during the years 1350–1360 in the north and then in the south of the country. It was established durably in 1383. Acknowledging the prince’s taxation power was part of a more general movement to regain and assert public power prerogatives. He was invested with tuitio regni and had to act as the guardian and protector of the kingdom’s peace. As upholders of the law, French monarchs imposed themselves regarding lay justice systems, particularly seigniorial ones, from the thirteenth century. A similar phenomenon occurs in other kingdoms.24 A progressively retrieved justice was being supplemented by an asserted normative capacity. The recognition of the royal power to enact norms came to terms with a pre-existing custom-based judicial order. However, it had to fight against “bad customs”, particularly the ones instituting a new tax or an unfair tax. Princeps and Rex Franciae were assimilated by the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century. Monarchs benefited from the kind of power Roman emperors were recognized to exercise. He’s considered as lex animata,

22 Brown (1972, 567–587). 23 Petit-Renaud (2001, 106–108). 24 Dominguez (2019, 22–25).

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“the emperor in his kingdom”. Until the middle of the thirteenth century, according to practice, he was required to legislate with the consent of the “barons” for any rule applying outside the royal domain. Philippe Le Bel’s reign shows a reinforcement of the royal normative power at the time when taxation was under debate. Albert Rigaudière distinguishes three steps between the end of the thirteenth century and the middle of the fourteenth century. Taxation was first decreed during Philippe Le Bel’s rein (1285–1314), then decided on and finally agreed from 1343 with the participation of the State assemblies.25 Royal taxation, which was under construction from the end of the thirteenth century, followed routes similar to those of normative power. The king of France ranked first for taxation power when a scholarly reflection was interested in the efficient cause. Jurists acknowledge that summa potestas is first an emperor’s and then a king’s attribute. Bartole formulates this clearly: “No one can impose a tax except emperors or kings, or those who are granted the right to do so”. This taxation power also concerned lords and cities who could not decide on a levy or tax absque permissi principis. In practice, their capacity varied across space and time as for the urban potestas statuendi. The royal right to tax was prohibited by jurists and kings’ agents who advocated a fiscal absolutism. Practising negotiation and giving importance to state representatives’ expressed consent were well anchored. As for indirect taxation, the royal power had to compromise according to places. For example, salt-tax was under the control of the monarch in the lands of Languedoc but not elsewhere (Saintonge, Poitou). Taxation was then applied at various moments, either at production time in the South or at distribution time. The assertion of the royal practice of the right to tax progressed during the years 1435 and 1436. The General Estates first agreed on indirect taxes as part of the aids for four years. The decision was renewed and then, Charles 7th soon ignored this assembly’s preceding agreement. In 1439, a new step was made towards the establishment of a direct taxation levied by authority of the king. The November 2nd, 1439 letters forbade to any other lord to levy any tax on their lands without the king’s permission and authority. Tithe was voted for one year in 1439 and then, in 1440, by the langue-d’Oïl-speaking States in Orleans and in Bourges. At the same time, the royal legislation dealt with men-at-arms.

25 Rigaudière (1995, 323–391).

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The military matter was particularly addressed by a May 26th 1445 ordinance with a new organization in fifteen companies around one captain. The idea of a permanent taxation was emerging, as well as the financing of military expenses through land-tax. The practice of an annual landtax levy was being considered. Tax was then decided on by the king. The levy of land-tax increased during Louis 11th’s rein (1461–1483) and then decreased after. At the end of Louis 12th’s rein and during François 1st’s, the amount of land-tax nearly doubled. The military charge is indicative of this situation with the necessity of a permanent financing of war-time fares (particularly for Charles 7th’s). Royal preambles relate the expression of a tax rhetoric. The prince was not to act as a tyrant. These texts justifying the king’s decisions were based on religious, moral, legal or factual considerations. They express the importance of the link between the king, the kingdom and subjects. At the beginning of the 1350s, commission act preambles for the collection of aids mentioned the risk of a tyranny if the people’s consent was not expressed. The practice developed from Charles 5th’s reign, involving asking for periodic aid and lier nable taxes without requiring preliminary consent, incorporated taxes into his subjects’ everyday life. Yet, the king’s policy was influenced by the «religious conception of royalty», a moderate action serving the kingdom’s permanence.26 Through two ordinances (September 16th and November 16th), the king abolished lier nable taxes and all the taxes levied by Philippe Le Bel but taxpayers did not get back the money they had paid. In a kingdom concerned with military and political challenges, Charles 6th and Charles 7th had to negotiate taxes with the representative assemblies at the kingdom or province levels. Successors were in the same situation at the end of the fifteenth century. Being in their subjects’ services, they had to be attentive to them. A fiscal dialogue was established. Negotiation was at the heart of the financing of the prince’s military undertakings.27

26 Scordia (2005, 309–326). 27 Sablon du Corail (2019, 287–312).

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Consent The kingdom of France experienced representative assemblies like others spaces.28 These meetings including representatives of the three orders were the spaces for a political dialogue in which the monarch found a way to spread his word and policy. Such was the case on the occasion of the conflict with Boniface 8th, when Philippe Le Bel summoned the clergy, the nobility and the “good cities” of the kingdom to an assembly in Paris in 1302. After their outbreak in the Middle Ages, the power of these representative and political assemblies became all the more assertive as the monarchs were going through military and dynastic difficulties. Nevertheless, the royal power grew stronger from these times as assemblies were also the opportunity to express a monarchical attachment. Words of affection were mobilized.29 The expression of a consensus, concord and unanimity shows the strengthening of the royal State. Concerning taxation, the challenge related to consent was not so much a matter of refusing taxes as of accepting and negotiating them. In 1314, the members of the assemblies intervened in favour of the aid which was to finance the Flanders war. Resorting to consultation was the purpose of various assemblies summoned by the royal power. It was a confrontation of the freedom register against the servitude one used by Estates. French people could not be exempted from paying tax without the assemblies’ agreement. In the middle of the fourteenth century, representative assemblies were the places where the creation and development of extraordinary finances took place. In 1355, the king’s request for aids was granted for one year only, and compensations were obtained. The king committed to put an end to monetary mutations and letting assemblies collect aids and control their management. The monarch being weakened as a result of the defeat in Poitiers in 1356, the assembly held in October accepted the levies “by the people’s will and common consent”. Meetings were more frequent, and Estates’ actions more strongly asserted. This was the time when taxes were expressed and voted within the General Estates and local representative assemblies. Recent works, about Languedoc’s and Rouergue’s Estates for example, clarify the relationship established from the middle of the fourteenth

28 Hébert (2014). 29 Hébert (2019, 99–120) and Quéré (2019, 121–139).

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century to the end of the fifteenth century.30 In times of weakened monarchs, the king’s subjects’ loyalty, obedience and fidelity were added to primary royal arguments for the defence of the country, the king’s profit or honour. They agreed to taxes in order to gain the king’s favour. Taxes were generally not voted for without any compensation. The mandate assembly members were entrusted with, the ambassadors sent to the king, the meetings held between cities’ representatives give a report on the important exchanges that took place. In the field of the development of a taxation relying on lier nable tax, an inventory of hearths, as well as revision operations were essential. It was but another time for the fiscal dialogue between Languedoc communities and the king’s agents.31 During the second half of the fourteenth century, estates defended and claimed their right to consent. It was still weakly confirmed in 1468 but was stronger at the Tours assembly in 1484. The attachment to the expression of consent was shown again in the debates that took place. Let us note that other strategies existed elsewhere, such as in Provence where the prince substituted the financing through loans to a tax agreed on by the States.32 The consent to royal taxes found its expression through the participation of cities in political assemblies, but also through the implementation of rules, procedures and institutions devoted to the distribution, collection and payment of taxes to the king. Medieval cities became fiscal agents in a way. From the middle of the fourteenth century, life in medieval cities was greatly punctuated by the monarchs’ fiscal demands. Distributing and levying royal taxes became usual. These demands represent a laboratory enabling us to understand the progress of taxes, the implementation of a fiscal system and the existence of financial strategies more or less accounting for taxpayers’ claims and protests.33 The innovation, diffusion and systematization of techniques were better and better known about, concerning individuals or patrimonies. Wealth inventories and estimations were complex but essential. A proportional taxation was first observed in Languedoc in 1158. It was based on the whole patrimony to allow for the

30 Garnier (2006, 297–311), Quéré (2016), and Garnier (2017, 163–191). 31 Sassu-Normand (2013). 32 Hébert (2010, 3–22). 33 Chevalier (1987, 137–151), Rigaudière (1993), and Chevalier (1996, 61–78).

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financing of the community’s defence.34 It spread across the meridional lands from the second half of the thirteenth century under the influence of Alfonse de Poitiers. A new fiscal documentation appeared with livres d’estimes in the context of the scriptural and documentary revolution and other documents in Languedoc.35 A local fiscal norm was applied by urban communities, particularly in the southern part of the kingdom. An originally municipal taxation law came into force at the various stages of the taxation process.36 This process concerns operations related to the basis of direct taxation for individuals, movable and immovable patrimonies and taxable ground rents. It adapts the estimated values to taxpayers’ individual situations through land-registering operations. An individualised taxation process was being looked at. It was justified and used to make tax acceptable and avoid or reduce conflicts of interests and social tensions within cities. Tax distribution was a source of tensions and revolts, avoidance practices and fraud. Finally, the calculation of tax being established this way ensured the collection of land-tax. The urban legislation in meridional cities concerned direct taxes which largely financed the prince’s demand and the safety of inhabitants, particularly through the city’s defence systems and protection. This financing was ensured by the levy of indirect taxes authorized by the royal power and which had to be normally assigned to this specific purpose. The management of tax and the control of the way it was used required the implementation of a particular organization, be it within cities or across the kingdom.

3

Organization of Finances

With the development of tax in the royal sphere, principalities and cities, an administration was set up to achieve operations related to taxation, the management of expenses and resources (1). The use of this money by agents serving the ruling authorities was not left without control. Procedures and institutions were established (2).

34 Gouron (1994, 245–260). 35 Rigaudière (2006, 3–22,2008, 425–481). 36 Rigaudière (1982, 818–895) and Garnier (2006, 717–801).

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Setting Up an Administration The royal power first relied on land administrations which were not much developed, before organizing administrations and jurisdictions for the domain. It relied on the structures set up by the General Estates by the middle of the fourteenth century in order to develop an organization for the management and fairness of extraordinary finances. There was also a process organizing urban administrations to manage local finances. Taxes played a structuring role for space and institutions. For example, in Portugal a similar phenomenon of “decentralization” is observable.37 The king, as a lord, relied on a limited staff to manage his domains and their growth. Local relays were used or established to handle the management of new lands and relay the king’s power. A reform of administrative services was carried out during the reign of Philippe Augustus. He had them under control thanks to the generalization of bailiffs (1184) in the north and of seneschals whose functions continued in the south. These royal agents plaid a large part in the royal sovereignty reconquest and assertion movement until the years 1320–1330. Regarding financial matters, their competence was large: the centralization of land incomes managed by provosts, the direct management of the non-leased domain, the collection of royal taxes. In addition to this, there were judicial and military duties. These local agents’ large attributions and success eventually aroused the king’s suspicion due to their increasing powers. In the fourteenth century, bailiffs and seneschals were assisted by skilled agents, particularly for ordinary finances. Such was the case of bailliage collectors who, as bailiffs’ assistants to start with, eventually asserted themselves as revenue collectors. Through an ordinance by Philippe 4th in 1320, they were recognized as the only managers responsible to the Chamber of accounts for the handling of royal money. The management of the Treasury was entrusted to the Knights templars until 1295 and then from 1303 to 1307, until they were arrested. Philippe 4th then relied on four treasurers for estate matters, one of whom had a contentious competence (1379 edict). The special jurisdiction activity structured itself around him and, through the 1390 Saint-Germain-en-Laye ordinance, gave birth to the official Chambre du trésor [Chamber of the treasury]38 which took full responsibility of domanial matters from 1438 onwards. With reforms 37 Dominguez (2019, 57–58). 38 Sassu-Normand (2019, 117–130).

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conducted by Charles 7th from 1443 to 1445, four areas were distinguished, each of them being under the responsibility of one of the four treasurers (Languedoc, Langue d’Oïl, Normandie and Outre-Seine). Concerning extraordinary finances, the royal administration owed its development to another origin.39 It relied on the General Estates’ action in the middle of the fourteenth century. For the oil language-speaking States, in 1355, nine généraux superintendants were created, together with their suborder agents who were elected. The three orders thus participated in the administration of the taxes they agreed to and appointed the people in charge of their collection. This organization of extraordinary finances was supplemented by a general collector and particular collectors. Then, a gradual change occurred to the benefit of the king who made these agents his own. They became the généraux des finances — there were four of them during Charles 7th’s rein—who were the leaders of a “generality” and “king’s elect”. To the administration was added the judiciary function. A few royal agents were at the heart of the organization of special jurisdictions. A Chambre des aides or Cour des aides [Chamber or Court of aids] was organized with généraux des aides who originated from the 1355 General Estates. The judicial competence was more specifically entrusted to councillors from 1390 onwards. Charles 7th’s reforms organized the royal finances until the first quarter of the sixteenth century when the Trésor de l’Épargne was created, in 1523. It was no longer under France’s generals’ or treasurers’ control. Royal revenues were gradually centralized in modern times. In the middle of the fourteenth century, the Estates’ action also manifested itself through the strengthening of the principle of a distinction between administrators (finance generals, elect agents) and accountants (finances general collectors, collectors of aides, land-tax collectors). Languedoc estates voted on taxes and formed the State countries, as in Britany, Bourgogne and Provence, i.e. the provinces where Elect officers (royal officers from 1372) were in charge of the royal direct taxation. “Elections”, as tax districts, were created by the end of the fourteenth century and developed from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Former “particular states” became “election countries” (a large part of the south-west, central France and Paris area) and even sometimes “state countries” (Dauphiné in 1628). They did not survive the monarchical

39 For Portugal Dominguez (2019, 13–20) and Aragon and Sánchez Martínez (2010).

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centralization movement and their importance decreased from the seventeenth century. Situations in cities varied depending on whether they were placed under the control of a lord, of the royal power or were granted a stronger autonomy. Their political and legal situations determined their capacity to organize themselves. Among the institutions related to finances, the creation and actual presence of a city treasurer were essential for the municipal finance and tax system. City treasurers are not mentioned until the middle of the fourteenth century (Marseilles, Albi, Saint-Flour, Millau, Rennes). The implementation of cities’ defence devices and the prince’s request for tax plaid an important part in the institutionalization of accounting functions. Although there were still too few of them, prosopographic studies have clarified these treasurers’ origins, competences, the size of their fortunes and networks.40 They are insiders, like certain people in the administration, who hold precious “inside information”.41 When their knowledge and experience were demonstrated, then these finance people eventually served the prince instead of their cities. Institutionalizing a Control The control of accounts, be it for cities or royal agents, had a real importance in the Middle Ages. Institutions, staff and procedures were put in place to check, correct and judge compatibilities related to expenses and resources. Being a matter of technique, accounts are also documents recording information, revealing a policy and participating in a representation of the financial reality of an institution. The action of royal, seigneurial or municipal administration agents was submitted to a control particularly in order to meet complaints or make sure entrusted missions were properly taken care of. A survey-based way of governing was developing. From the years 1220 onwards, the king actually relied on surveys to look after the conservation of his rights, prerogatives and incomes. These surveys, particularly under King Saint Louis’s rein, were a way to dispense justice. They were an instrument used to reinforce the royal power and an expression of a salvation economy. Royal investigators and reformers were at work from 1254 to 1328.

40 Garnier (2006, 339–461). 41 Dominguez (2019, 129).

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This was the actual time when specializing orders became stronger within the Curia regis. The Parliament and the Chamber of Accounts were among them, both participating in the control of the king’s agents. The Chamber of accounts was organized by a January 1320 ordinance, one of its missions being to check out book-keeping practices. The Casa dos Contos in Portugal has been known since 1290 and she became “the central body of control” (da Costa Dominguez). In France, it looked after the protection of the State property through the control of all acts that might cause harm to it. However, disputes regarding ordinary taxation were not part of its missions. Other chambers of accounts were created in principalities on the same pattern as in Paris.42 They participated in an administrative rationalization of territories and in the development of a more and more important jurisdictional procedure.43 Through this procedure, the documents containing book-keeping writings were examined, excluding any dispute matter, and conferred authority to the matter being judged. It paved the way for the process putting the accountant’s responsibility at stake. Medieval cities also showed a development of account control and check-up procedures.44 They were a response to their inhabitants’ complaints and recriminations against urban ruling authorities. Municipal institutions maintained the principle of reported accounts, the form of which had to obey the norms decreed for that purpose. Commissions were organized at regular periods and once a treasurer left his office. The control of urban accounts was also of interest for the royal power as it provided a way to meddle in cities’ internal business and exert a supervision. This royal policy became more active in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, particularly with the control of the assignment of direct taxes to the financing of their defensive walls.45 Cities’ account-books illustrate the importance and variations of expenses related to the protection of their citizens. They also report the significant part represented by the “king’s share”.46 It became regular and revealed a more general dynamic

42 La France des principautés (1996). 43 For an European perspective, da Costa Domingo (2019, 137–169). 44 Rigaudière (2003, 621–660) and Garnier (2006, 365–385). 45 Rigaudière (1993, 481–487) and Butaud (2002, 235–265). 46 Rigaudière (1982, 744–749) and Garnier (2006, 608–618).

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towards an increasingly important place and role of the State, whether in war- or peacetime.47 The Middle Ages are a new era with the formation of a link between a growing number of taxpayers, a political power and a “State”. A fiscal revolution was at work. The legitimization of tax outside the field of seigneurial and feudal finances was relying on the construction of a royal right to tax and the emergence of the notion of the kingdom’s taxpaying subject. Tax was in favour of an entity that transcended the king’s person: the res publica. It was a slow process that was not linear. A new paradigm was arising in aid of a royal taxing monopoly and then of a statecontrolled tax sovereignty. It contributes to clarifying the links between society, sovereignty and constraint, and undoubtedly to questioning the idea of a “contractual society”.48 Although the French monarchy was not of a contractual nature, strictly speaking, some norms, rites and practices—including the negotiation of tax by representative assemblies— would allow us to suggest the existence of an “implicit contract” based on “determined commitments that were constraining while agreed to”.49 The fiscal matter is complex, which makes the topic challenging but definitely rich. It mixes philosophic, political, legal and social approaches. It fuels the history of the powers to tax, in their various aspects, of the production of fiscal norms, of a scholarly speech on tax, of taxation cultures and practices. It is a source of challenges regarding the legitimization of a levy, the sharing of a charge, the circulation and redistribution of wealth. It illustrates movements, rhythms and variations induced by power ratios and contexts from the thirteenth to the first quarter of the sixteenth centuries. It is an incentive to focus on other spaces rather than cities, provinces or a kingdom. Taxation is thus a beautiful and fecund subject standing at the crossroads where jurists and historians meet.

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Hanada, Y. (2014). Bibliographie des études sur l’histoire financière et fiscale de la France au bas Moyen Âge. Bulletin De La Faculté Des Sciences Économiques De L’université Seinan-Gakuin, 48(3–4), 25–318. Hébert, M. (2010). Crédit public, fiscalité et représentation en Provence au milieu du XVe siècle. Provence historique, t. LX, Fasc., 239, 3–22. Hébert, M. (2014). Parlementer. Assemblées représentatives et échange politique en Europe occidentale à la fin du Moyen Âge. De Boccard. Hébert, M. (2019/2). La grâce du don. Amour et liberté dans les concessions de subsides par les assemblées représentatives. Revue Française d’Histoire des Idées Politiques, 50, 99–120. Higounet, C., & Glénisson, J. (1964). Remarques sur les comptes et sur l’administration financière des villes françaises entre Loire et Pyrénées (XIVe -XVIe siècles). Finances et comptabilités urbaines du XIII e au XVI e siècle (pp. 31– 74). Colloque international de Blankenberge, 6–9 septembre 1962. Pro Civitate. Isenmann, E. (1996). Les théories du Moyen Âge sur les finances publiques. In R. Bonney (Ed.), Systèmes économiques et finances publiques (pp. 3–37). CNRS. La fiscalité des villes au Moyen Âge (Occident méditerranéen) 1996–2004, 4 vol. D. Menjot & M. S. Martínez (Ed.). Privat. La France des principautés. Les Chambres des comptes XIV e et XV e siècles, sous la direction de Philippe Contamine et Olivier Mattéoni, 1996. Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France. Lassalmonie, J.-Fr. (2002). La boîte à l’enchanteur. Politique financière de Louis XI. Comité pour l’Histoire Économique et Financière de la France. Le Goff, J. (2010). Le Moyen Âge et l’argent. Perrin. Mattéoni, O. (2010). Institutions et pouvoirs en France. XIV e -XV e siècles. Picard. Mattéoni, O. (2022). L’impôt, l’État, la souveraineté. Retour sur l’enquête La genèse de l’État moderne. In X. Prévost & N. Laurent-Bonne (Eds.), Penser l’ancien droit public. Regards croisés sur les méthodes des juristes (III ) (pp. 195– 218). L.G.D.J. Menjot, D. (2019). Faire l’histoire des villes médiévales à travers leurs comptabilités. Comptabilités. http://journals.openedition.org/comptabilites/3352. Accessed 12 September 2020. Naegle, G. (2008). La ville, la fiscalité, l’économie. La ville, le droit et la couronne. Bibliographie thématique sur les villes françaises, le droit et la royauté à la fin du Moyen Âge (-fin 2001), 90–97. Petit-Renaud, S. (2001). “Faire Loy” au royaume de France de Philippe VI à Charles V (1328–1380). De Boccard. Pomini, R. (1951). La ‘causa impositionis’ nello svolgimento storico della dottrina finanziaria. A. Giuffrè.

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Prétou, P. (2012). L’imagerie de l’impôt dans la miniature occidentale à la fin du Moyen Âge: entre refus fiscal et rachat spirituel. In D. Menjot & Manuel Sánchez Martínez (dir.), El dinero de Dios, Iglesia y fiscalidad en el occidente medieval, siglos XIII-XV (pp. 327–348). Instituto de Estudos fiscales. Quéré, S. (2016). Le discours politique des États de Languedoc à la fin du Moyen Âge (1346–1484). Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée. Quéré, S. (2019/2). L’amour du roi dans le discours des États de Languedoc au XVe siècle. Revue Française d’Histoire des Idées Politiques, 50, 121–139. Rigaudière, A. (1982). Saint-Flour ville d’Auvergne au Bas Moyen Âge. Étude d’histoire administrative et financière. Puf. Rigaudière, A. (1993). Gouverner la ville au Moyen Âge. Anthropos-Economica. Rigaudière, A. (1995). L’essor de la fiscalité royale du règne de Philippe le Bel (1285–1314) à celui de Philippe VI (1328–1350). In Europa en los umbrales de la crisis (1250–1350), XXI semana de estudios medievales, Estella’94 (pp. 323–391). Gobierno de Navarra. Rigaudière, A. (2003). Penser et construire l’État dans la France du Moyen Âge (XIII e -XV e siècle). Comité pour l’Histoire Économique et Financière de la France. Rigaudière, A. (2006). De l’estime au cadastre dans l’Occident médiéval: réflexions et pistes de recherche. In A. Rigaudière (Ed.), De l’estime au cadastre en Europe. Le Moyen Âge. Colloque des 11, 12 et 13 juin 2003 (pp. 3–22). Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France. Rigaudière, A. (2008). L’assiette de l’impôt direct dans les villes du Midi français au bas Moyen Âge d’après leurs livres d’estimes. In S. Cavaciocchi (dir.), La fiscalità nell’economia europea. Sec. XIII–XVIII. Fiscal systems in the European economy from the 13th to the 18th centuries. Atti della “trentanovesima Settimana di Studi”, Prato, 22–26 aprile 2007 (pp. 425–481). Firenze University Press. Sablon du Corail, A. (2019). La guerre, le prince et ses sujets. Les finances des PaysBas bourguignons sous Marie de Bourgogne et Maximilien d’Autriche (1477– 1493). Brepols. Sánchez Martínez, M. (2010). La Monarquía y las ciudades desde el observatorio de la fiscalidad. In J. A. Sesma Muñoz (coord.), La Corona de Aragón en el centro de su Historia 1208–1458 (pp. 43–64). Gobierno de Aragón – Depart. De Educación Cultura y Deporte. Sassu-Normand, D. (2013). La fiscalité des rois de France en Languedoc au XIV e siècle (sénéchaussée de Carcassonne et confins), thèse d’histoire médiévale, Université Lyon 2. Sassu-Normand, D. (2019). D’un État domanial à un État fiscal? Réexamen de quelques documents financiers de Philippe VI. In F. Garnier, A. Jamme, A. Lemonde et P. V. Pijuan (dir.), Cultures fiscales en Occident du X e au XVII e

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siècle. Études offertes à Denis Menjot (pp. 117–130). Presses universitaires du Midi. Scordia, L. (2004). Le roi refuse d’accepter l’or de ses sujets. Analyse d’une miniature du Livre de bonnes meurs de Jacques Legrand. Médiévales, 46, 109– 130. Scordia, L. (2005). Le roi doit vivre du sien. La théorie de l’impôt en France (XIII e -XV e siècle). Institut d’Études Augustiniennes. Scordia, L. (2007). Les autorités citées lors des débats sur l’impôt par les théologiens à la fin du XIIIe siècle. In P. Contamine, A. Rigaudière et J. Kerhervé (dir.), Monnaie, fiscalité et finances au temps de Philippe le bel, Journée d’étude de Bercy, 14 mai 2004 (pp. 19–50). Comité pour l’Histoire Économique et Financière de la France Scordia, L. (2010). Le bien commun, argument pro et contra de la fiscalité royale, dans la France de la fin du Moyen Âge. Revue Française D’histoire Des Idées Politiques, 32, 293–309. Scordia, L. (2019). L’enseignement fiscal de Louis XI au futur Charles VIII dans le Rosier des guerres. In F. Garnier, A. Jamme, A. Lemonde et P. V. Pijuan (dir.), Cultures fiscales en Occident du X e au XVII e siècle. Études offertes à Denis Menjot (pp. 104–113). Presses universitaires du Midi. Strayer, J. R. (1970). On the medieval origins of the modern state. Princeton University Press. Weidenfeld, K. (1999). Les avocats du Parlement de Paris et les privilèges du fisc. In J. Krynen (dir.), Études d’histoire du droit et des idées politiques. Droit romain, jus civile et droit français. Actes de la Table ronde tenue à Toulouse les 24–26 septembre 1998 (pp. 441–472). Presses universitaires de Toulouse Capitole. Weidenfeld, K. (2001). Les origines médiévales du contentieux administratif (XIV e -XV e siècles). De Boccard. Weidenfeld, K. (2002). Le contentieux de la taille royale au XVe siècle. In P. Contamine, J. Kerhervé, & A. Rigaudière (sous la direction de), L’impôt au Moyen Âge. L’impôt public et le prélèvement seigneurial en France, fin XIIe – début XVIe siècle, Bercy (14, 15 et 16 juin 2000) (vol. 3., pp. 861–888). Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France.

Fiscal Tradition and Innovation in Italy, 1350–1650 Luciano Pezzolo

1

Taxpayers and Fiscal Sovereignty

In principle, all people were liable to taxation; the structure of society, however, legitimized marked differences among taxpayers. Status, first, justified rights and obligations. While tolls and excises had to be paid by all, direct taxes did not affect those who were recognized as “poor”, that is orphans, indigent widows, disabled and those who did not own property and performed unpretentious and occasional jobs. In the communal society of the thirteenth century, families who traditionally devoted their members to war enjoyed, albeit limited, tax benefits. After harsh conflicts between milites and populares, the latter prevailed and managed to extend the direct taxation also to those who claimed to be immune.1 As communal officers compiled tax registers, they had to consider all citizens as potential taxpayers. Thus, for example, the Florentine catasto (property register) of 1427 was to include not only the assets of all inhabitants, but 1 Maire-Vigueur (2004: 256–267).

L. Pezzolo (B) Department of Humanities, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_11

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also all the properties belonging to the clergy (although formally exempt from lay taxation), to foreigners, and to Florentines “out of anywhere in the world”.2 The tax registers of Verona considered all the categories, except the religious, as long as they did not hold personal assets, soldiers, patients in hospitals and beggars.3 In late medieval central-northern Italy, an area characterized by the development of the urban-based territorial state, the difference between an urban taxpayer and a peasant laid mainly in different tax regime. The latter was almost regularly subjected to direct taxation, to provide labor services (maintenance of roads and waterways, supplies of goods and services for the military, grain obligations to the dominant city…), as well as to supplement the professional army with rural contingents. Citizen, in an environment largely characterized by the collection of duties on consumption and exchanges (the gabelle), instead paid extraordinary direct taxes, enjoyed certain privileges concerning indirect taxation, and residents of great cities funded their government by means of loans, which in theory bore considerable advantages to creditors. Over the early modern period, the evident differences between rural and urban taxpayers faded. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the Republic of Venice and the State of Milan, the representative institutions of the countryside (the so-called Contadi and Territori) ensued some success in challenging traditional urban prerogatives, in particular the privileged status of the urban landholders in the countryside and the distribution of tax burdens. Growing financial needs of governments and the emergence of wealthy classes in the countryside had led to a significant redistribution, although far from being equal, between city and countryside. It surely was not a rematch of the countryside, but certainly by the end of the seventeenth century, the fiscal relations between citizens and peasants were far less tense than two centuries earlier.4 In the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, the picture was complicated by the widespread presence of seigneurial institutions; this created a fundamental division between feudal and domain territories. In the midfifteenth century, most of the resources the Crown drew from Sicily came from the abundance of the royal areas (which contained approximately

2 Karmin (1906: 18). 3 Tagliaferri (1966: 43). 4 Knapton (1984) and Vigo (1979).

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half the island’s population), while in the kingdom of Naples, the state domain was more limited, counting about one-fifth of the whole population.5 Apart from capitals, Naples, Palermo and Messina, whose citizens were generally exempt from direct taxes, in other cities taxpayers felt certain less privileged than their northern colleagues. While in central and northern Italy, the great communes had gradually dismantled the prerogatives of the local lords, in the South the barons represented a strong power that severely restricted the area of influence of the urban centers over the countryside. This does not, however, mean that taxpayers and peasants were treated equally. Following the dismantlement of the Apulian feudal state of Terra d’Otranto in the mid-fifteenth century, the cities, which had moved under the royal domain, hastened to demand the maintenance of their economic, judicial and fiscal privileges. This request suggests that there were differences between citizens and peasants. In the 1470s, however, the barons targeted the prerogatives of urban landowners in the countryside, and succeeded in depriving their privileges.6 After the revolt of 1528 against the Spanish government, the city of L’Aquila suffered the separation of its district, on which it had exercised vigilant control that had also materialized in the fiscal subjection of the peasants.7 The picture, thus, does not appear to be dissimilar from the situation in northern Italy. Ties of patronage and kinship relations formed a complex fabric, and not always clearly discernible from a formal institutional perspective. The fiscal policy of Italian central governments had to take account of this complexity and fluidity of the dynamics between the various categories of taxpayers. A marked social distinction further complicated the picture. In central-northern Italy, many citizens living in the rural districts claimed the treatment granted to urban taxpayers, with the attached prerogatives. Similarly, some smallholders in Calabria refused to pay a poll tax in that “nobles … who live nobly”.8 As far as the fiscal sovereignty over taxpayers is concerned, the Italian peninsula in the later Middle Ages shows at least two different areas: on the one hand, in the Mezzogiorno (Kingdoms of Sardinia, Sicily and

5 Epstein (1995). 6 Visceglia (1988: 209–213). 7 Sabatini (2005). 8 Campennì (2004: 75).

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Naples), the feudal charges due from vassals (forced labor and various duties) maintained a certain importance; on the other hand, in the central and northern part, feudal rights were a relic of the past, or at most a pale recognition of the local lord’s rights. This division, however, needs further clarification, for within these broad areas, there were marked variations. It is quite hard to clearly determine the burden owing to feudal rights from others that had little or nothing to do with the exercise of the seigneurial sovereignty. The fiscal prerogatives dated back to the Lombard-Carolingian age and over time underwent significant changes and variations in accordance to the areas. Besides forced labor, the lord could collect tolls, taxes and various duties: fees on kilns, mills and taverns and duties on consumption, production and trade represented the typical arsenal of the lord’s prerogatives. It is obvious, however, that his power was limited as much from below, namely from the vassals, as above, from the territorial prince, who had obtained an imperial delegation. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Piedmontese community of Villafaletto could oppose the claim of the marques of Saluzzo to impose a tax in that he had not acquired the permission from either the emperor or the Duke of Savoy.9 Unlike what happened elsewhere (especially in Eastern and Central Europe, and to some extent in France, Portugal and Spain), in large areas of the peninsula, the obligations due from peasants to their lord had been either completely eliminated during the expansion of the Communes or had been turned into modest cash payments. It can be said that in the early modern age, most of peasants had not subject to burdensome obligations from their lords who still exercised a seigneurial jurisdiction.10 At least from the thirteenth century onward, the lord had to settle for a negligible payment in recognition of ancient rights but did not represent a strong competitor of the state treasury. The advent of communal institutions in the countryside had questioned the reciprocal relationships that were the foundation of what we might call seigneurial taxation. Such relations implied that lords provided protection and judicial services to their vassals in exchange for payment in kind or in cash. This mechanism was not so much the result of smooth agreements as the consequence

9 Barbero (1994). 10 Woolf (1963: 10, 120, 141–142, 167).

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of power relations and tough contrasts between the parties. The traditional prerogatives did not, however, completely disappear: in some cases, and in different areas, even after the cities seemed to have wiped out the remnants of feudal relationships in the countryside, they reemerged, as if to emphasize how much the rural lordship marked still deeply peasants’ life. In fact, a glance at the geography of feudal institutions in the peninsula shows that the phenomenon was vast and sometimes quite penetrating. In the duchy of Savoy, in the state of Milan, in Friuli, in southern Lazio and especially in the southern kingdoms, the widespread presence of seigneurial jurisdictions and feuds constituted a traditional element. Lordships also dotted Romagna, Liguria and the Marches. In short, it can be said that no Italian territorial state was alien to the presence, more or less weighty, of feudal institutions. One has thus to wonder whether and to what extent the rooting of areas and feudal enclaves has influenced the relationship between central government and taxpayers. Like other taxpayers, whether the citizens or peasants of royal communities, the vassals of the Sicilian feuds, for example, were required to pay indirect taxes, but their yield was pocketed directly by the local lord or by tax collectors to whom he had farmed out the levy.11 Apparently, there were no differences between feudal areas or royal centers, at least with regard to the duties on consumption. The duties collected by feudal lords were not closely related to their jurisdictional prerogatives, but fell within the broader category of gabelle that all the subjects had to pay. Similarly, the Neapolitan and Milanese feudatories who levied taxes on their vassals made it by virtue of their right acquired from the royal treasury and not so much as having particular and specific rights. In short, from the late Middle Ages, feudal taxes were sporadic, in both the south and the north of the peninsula.12 What about the forced labor, typical of the feudal world? The fourteenth-century Piedmontese countryside presents numerous cases of obligations (the so-called roide) on vassals, but such charges were generally limited.13 Personal obligations in the Italian countryside had actually almost disappeared; only a few remains survived, mainly transformed into

11 Aymard (1975). 12 Aymard (1972) and Visconti (2003). 13 Rotelli (1973: 136–143, 150–157, 188).

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monetary payments. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, the peasants of Tagliole, in southern Lombardy, besides paying the bishop a census in cash and other gifts, were expected to grant three working days a year “in lord’s service” or pay a monetary compensation.14 Similar obligations were due in Tuscany by the inhabitants of Montauto to the Barbolani.15 We, however, are far from the practices largely diffused in Eastern Europe, where peasants were obliged to provide several days of labor in the feudatory’s land. This does not mean that Italian lords did not exercise rights over their vassals, but in general these relations were part of a complex web of mutual commitments.

2

Tax Assessing: Innovation and Resistance

From the twelfth century onward, local governments progressively abandoned the system based on taxing merely people and hearths and passed to a proportional tax on bona et facultates assessed by means of surveys whose results were recorded in registers (in Italian administrative terms, estimi or catasti). The early examples of such fiscal documents can be found in some cities in northern-central Italy and Provence.16 It is worth noting that such fiscal lists stressed two ideological elements of the communal society: on the one hand, the estimo represented the whole body of taxable inhabitants, who were requested to grant aid to the commune; it, on the other hand, implied a reciprocal relation between urban government and taxpayers, who called for the right their assets be protected by the commune.17 Although one cannot generalize, the increasing use of wealth assessments by means of estimi and catasti reflects a hard confrontation between populares (roughly representing artisans and merchants) and milites (landlords and military clans), the former aiming at changing an unfair tax system that favored the latter.18 The diffusion of estimi, however, did not put an end to fiscal struggles, for tax registers generated a never-ending dispute between maiores and minores, merchants and rentiers, citizens and inhabitants of rural districts, lay 14 Cipolla (1945: 5). 15 Bertini (1996: 45–46). 16 Mainoni (2003) and Gouron (1994). 17 Vallerani (2014). 18 Zangheri (1980).

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taxpayers and clergy; well into the early modern age, tax assessments were at the core of the relations between components of the body politic of ancient regime society. At first, the documentation was quite simple, being a list of hearts and approximate estimates of their wealth; subsequently tax registers became more complex, aiming, in some cases, to include both real estate and mobile wealth. The tax was to be proportionate to the wealth of each taxpayer, but in fact it became regressive, in that the amount to pay proportionately favored the well-off over a given threshold. On a few occasions, however, the concept of progressive taxation emerged, which deserves to be examined, as many scholars believe that this notion did not belong to the medieval fiscal thought. The general principle was that the rich should pay more than less affluent taxpayers could pay. As early as 1378, during the revolt of the Florentine woolen cloth workers (the co-called Ciompi), some requests for a sort of progressive tax had been proposed,19 that is that the tax rate increased in relation to income. The Florentine environment had precociously developed concepts and practices related to progressive taxation.20 In 1442, the Florentine taxpayers, divided into fourteen classes, were required to pay a tax called diecina graziosa (gracious tenth), which imposed a graduated rate on real estates and government bonds (Table 1). This was a novelty that was to characterize the fiscal history of Florence in the Renaissance. It is remarkable that the rate was quite high (the authorities evaluated an average rate of 15%) and that the exemption area owing to poverty appears quite limited. In the first diecina (another direct tax) of 1442, the citizens assessed were 7,713 whose those exempted were 663 (8.6%), while a previous assessment in 1439 had counted 8,643 hearths and 2,503 people (28.9%) considered unable to pay. The new tax, however, met several difficulties on the part of both taxpayers, who managed more or less legally to lower their assessment, and the tax officers, who manifested themselves ineffective in carrying out their work. No wonder, then, the actual yield of the diecina proved to be as low as 8,834 florins, less than 10% of the expected yield. Although the graduated tax

19 Rodolico (1971: 122, 194). 20 Conti (1984: 197–245).

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Table 1

Graduated taxes at Florence, 1442–1481

Classes Florins

1–50 50.1–75 50.1–100 75.1–100 100.1–200 100.1–150 150.1–200 200.1–250 200.1–300 250.1–300 300.1–400 300.1–500 >400 400.1–500 500.1–600 500.1–800 >600 600.1–700 700.1–1000 800.1–1200 1000.1–1200 >1200 1200.1–1500 >1500

Diecina graziosa 1442 Rate

Diecina nuova nuova 1447

Valsente

Decima

1451

1469

4

8

20

7 11.5

12

25

8 10 12

14 16 18

14 16

20 22

Decima scalata 1481

7 9 11.5

30 14 16 18

35 12.5

20 21

40 15

22 18 20

25 30

45 50 16.66 60

22 25

33 37

28

43

31 33.33

47 50

18.33 20

Source Conti (1984: 199, 214, 229, 267, 283)

was not a success, the government continued to use such tool, trying to improve it so as to find something that appeared an equal tax. It should also be noted that taxpayers were able to pay various direct taxes that followed with their interest claims (called paghe) on public debt (the Monte), as it was a common practice in other cities. This opportunity undoubtedly favored wealthy taxpayers holding substantial Monte shares, for they did not have to find liquidity to meet, at least partially, their fiscal obligations. Conversely, Florentine citizens in financial difficulties sold their sums to be paid as taxes to speculators, who in turn got the

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interest rate attached to the payment.21 This market, about which we do not know much, was also generated by the tax collection mechanism. In February 1448, for example, the government decreed that those who were to pay a tax to be levied by mid-May would have been registered among the Monte creditors for four florins against just a florid actually paid. The decree also specified that the mechanism was also valid for those who paid for other taxpayers.22 This undoubtedly benefited cash holders, who could purchase tax obligations to increase their government credits and collected the related interests. The second half of the fifteenth century witnessed a series of progressive taxes distributing, though roughly, the burden based on income classes. In 1451, a graduated tax on income from immovable property was imposed.23 In 1480, when a decima scalata (scaled tenth) on real estate was imposed, the decree instituting it clearly stated that “those with less, be less burdened and pay less; those with more, pay more”.24 The rates ranged from a minimum of seven percent for income up to 50 florins to a maximum of 22% for the class over 400 florins. Although this progressive tax was to be levied once a year, the authorities resorted to it on several occasions. Toward the end of the fifteenth century, in the atmosphere of renewal of institutions and political upheaval after the end of the Medici regime, the issue concerning the graduated tax came back into vogue. A supporter of Savonarola, Domenico Cecchi, devised a graduated tax whose burden increased according to the annual rate of levies (Table 2). While the first class decreased its rate and the second class maintained its own, the wealthiest class of taxpayers would see their burden double as the government’s tax demand increased. It seems that the proposal was not discussed, but it is symptomatic of a vivid debate that centered around the principle concerning a just taxation. After a failed attempt in 1497, three years later the government renewed the decima scalata. The decision, considered by the Florentine aristocrat Piero Parenti “offensive of the leading citizens”, aimed to hit large landholding and to hinder those who were suspected of prolonging

21 Castellani (1992: 172–173). 22 Palmieri (1983: 128–129). 23 Molho (1970: 78–79). 24 Conti (1984: 283).

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Table 2 A graduated tax proposal at Florence in the 1490s

Number of Decime in one year

1 2 3 4

Class of taxpayers and percentage of tax levy I

II

III

10 5 5 5

10 10 10 10

10 12.5 15.62 19.53

Source Mazzone (1978: 82. See text)

the war against Pisa.25 The measure was later renovated in 1506 and in 1529.26 In the context of the heated debate on the forms of taxation in Renaissance Florence, it is particularly interesting, among many proposals, an opinion Francesco Guicciardini wrote down on the decima scalata in 1499.27 The brief speech of the historian and politician took up the classic Renaissance structure of a comparison between two contrasting opinions. What is noteworthy is that the arguments that militated in favor of the progressive tax focused on its redistributive effects. A rich, Guicciardini stated, should pay more because he can give up a little bit of superfluous for his living, while the poor would suffer “in necessary things”. Moreover, the burden would hit particularly the landlords, while merchants, who revive the city’s economy, would not be affected. It is evident the principle that taxation should both generate a redistribution of income between different social groups and encourage investment decisions supporting economic growth. On the other hand, it was rejoined that the different structure of expenditure reflected “the different ranks of citizens”. This debate reflects what actually was occurring in the halls of the Florentine government. It is Guicciardini himself in his Florentine histories who tells of the discussion on the imposition of a progressive tax in 1499.28 The terms of the question were those found in his speech, but

25 Parenti (2005: 324, 327). 26 Canestrini (1862: 280–289). 27 Guicciardini (1932: 196–217). 28 Guicciardini (1931: 191) and Regent (2014).

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his personal judgment is clear: a harsh judgment against those targeting the great aristocratic property. It is noteworthy that the progressive tax was established both during the Medici regime and in the years of the republican government. In 1422, the diecina graziosa, for example, was opposed by Cosimo de’ Medici, although he would have benefited from it, because he feared the destabilization of the regime.29 In 1533, The Venetian ambassador in Florence declared that the decima scalata was conceived with some limits so as not to burden the poor nor to excessively hit the rich.30 It seems thus difficult to link the graduated tax to a particular form of government. The problem, rather, focused on what kind of wealth the tax had to burden on, and, accordingly, who were the taxpayers most affected. In Renaissance Florence, however, taxation was a powerful instrument in the hands of the ruling faction for harshly hitting political opponents. The high degree of discretion the tax authorities enjoyed allowed them to tailor the fiscal burden according to political criteria rather than to purely economic parameters. Cosimo the Elder, Guicciardini wrote, “used taxes instead of daggers”.31 But it was not a practice used solely by autocratic regimes, as Guicciardini believed. If opponents to the Medici were stroked by means of onerous tax assessments, conversely, during the last republican period, in 1527–1530, the fiscal authorities’ eye focused on the faction supporting the Medici family.32 The Florentine one was among the very few Renaissance European governments that implemented some forms of progressive taxation.33 A glance at fiscal systems in Europe shows a few analogies or lasting examples. In 1429, because of the high military expenditure, the council of Basel imposed an extraordinary tax that divided taxpayers into 11 classes according to which 5% of taxpayers paid 32% of the total amount.34 In England, an attempt to levy a kind of progressive tax goes back at least to the thirteenth century, when people liable to the personal tithe were requested to occasionally pay the clergy a sum based on income from 29 McLean (2007: 175) and Rubinstein (1977: 161, 226). 30 Relazioni (1916: 110). 31 Guicciardini (1932: 50). 32 Conti (1984) and Relazioni (1916: 107). 33 Seligman (1908). 34 Schönberg (1879: 144–149, 177–188).

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immovable property: a quarter of penny for income up to 10 shillings (0.3%); half penny until 20 shillings (1.2%) and finally a penny over 40 shillings (4.8%).35 In the late 1470s, the city council of Gent recognized the need to shift the tax burden from duties on popular consumption (grain and beer) to income on (possibly progressive) direct taxation on property, but political constraints made such attempt impractical.36 In most cities of Holland, instead, progressive taxation was irregularly exploited as an extraordinary tax in the early phase of the Revolt, and after 1599 onward, it became a tax at provincial level.37 This does not mean that a graduated tax was collected regularly: the 200th penny, for example, was levied on a graduated scale just from about the mid-seventeenth century.38 The notion of graduated taxation, however, was not largely and smoothly accepted by local elites, and in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such method did not take place firmly.39 Consider, moreover, that reality sometime was far from theory. In 1606, the levy of a graduated tax on chimneys at Delft seemed useful but in reality, it proved to be scarcely important for the city exchequer.40 The English government imposed graduated taxes in 1371 and 1379; in 1428, 1436 and 1450 taxes that implied a significant progression on taxpayers above five pounds of annual income were established, but they encountered a lively resistance and their final outcome proved unsatisfactory for the Crown.41 These medieval devices were resumed later. Although some projects were considered in the 1530s, over the seventeenth century, graduated taxation was occasionally adopted.42 In the Holy Roman Empire, the Imperial Diet of 1427 imposed a progressive tax that, despite strong opposition, met quite good results. This direct tax represented a model for the Emperor Maximilian I, who in 1495 decreed a general tax (gemeiner Pfennig ) on all adult males of the Empire; it divided taxpayers into four categories that implied a progressive burden. The outcome, however, was 35 Thomson (1963: 3). 36 Ryckbosch (2007: 17–18). 37 Koch (1973: 42–43). 38 Tracy (1985: 216). 39 Van Zanden and Prak (2006: 132–133, 140). 40 Van Deursen (1991: 172) and Vermeesch (2006: 147). 41 Dyer (2005: 194), Ormrod (1988: 82), and Acheson (1992: 36–37). 42 Braddick (1994: 233–241), Schofield (2004: 89), and Elton (1975: 78, 142–143).

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financially disappointing and a few years later, the attempt was abandoned. The so-called Turkish tax, collected in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries just to face the Ottoman threat, met apparently better fortune. Once again, the wealthiest taxpayers were supposed to pay proportionately more than the poor ones, but the weight actually hit the vulnerable ranks of population.43 In France, a progressive tax came quite late, in 1695 as the capitation was established. It was a poll tax that divided the taxable population into 22 classes and 569 ranks: the rates ranged from a maximum of 2,000 livres to a minimum of one livre level. This tax did not distribute the burden more equitably than in the past but had the merit to rearrange the whole body of taxpayers of the kingdom and, above all, greatly smooth out the differences in status among them.44 As far as early modern Italy is concerned, the main tax systems did not present a progressive tax, although proposals and plans about it circulated. In early October of 1500 at Venice, in a period of severe military crisis, the senate vivaciously discussed on an issue as long-standing as urgent: how to find money to pay for the army and the fleet. On 12 October, the patrician Nicolò Trevisan had proposed to impose the purchase of salt on all the inhabitants of the city and to tax with four soldi each campo (about half hectare). There was no immediate follow. But three days after, the proposal was revived by specifying how the tax on salt was to be collected.45 The parish priests of the city, each sided by two nobles, were to draw up lists of citizens by dividing them into classes of taxpayers. Those who paid a rent for their house between 10 and 20 ducats were requested to buy two quartaroli (20 liters) of salt “per mouth” at 10 soldi each; the next category, between 20 and 40 ducats, would have been obliged to receive half staro (c.40 liters) at half ducat; finally, the taxpayer over 40 ducats would have been assigned one staro at one ducat. This means that the lower class would pay the amount of salt a third less than the wealthiest taxpayers. Also in Venice, therefore, the principle of a progressive tax, albeit roughly, had emerged. The proposal, however, vanished and was never implemented. More than a century later, the Venetian government considered the opportunity to differentiate taxpayers in accordance to their wealth. In 1629, it was

43 Schmid (1989) and Blickle (1976). 44 Guéry (1986) and Swann (2003). 45 Sanudo (1880: 894, 915–916).

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decided to levy an extraordinary tansa on each family of the city and the Dogado (the district of the lagoon): the wealthiest were expected to pay up to 240 ducats, while “the others” as low as 5 ducats. Sixteen patricians “among the principals and wealthiest” were to be appointed as deputies over the new tax. It seems that, again, the rent of house was the parameter for assessing the fiscal weight.46 In 1645, the Senate discussed and approved an extraordinary tansa, which resembled a graduated tax. The grave military emergency and financial difficulties of the War of Crete (1645–1669) led the Venetian ruling class to adopt a series of extraordinary measures to cope with the needs.47 Nothing, nevertheless, was done to collect effectively a progressive tax. In 1644, a pamphlet written by Nicola Todaro was published in Naples, which proposed to replace the complex of duties on foodstuff with a graduated poll tax based on categories roughly defined. Neapolitans under the age of five years, the clergy and “other privileged people” were to be exempted; 130,000 citizens living “for the day” were to pay a grano (one-tenth of a carlino) a day; other 130,000 of “mediocre condition” were to contribute with a grano and half; while the upper class, consisting of “titled persons, gentlemen, merchants, and others who live lavishly with carriages and the like” were to pay two grani. Todaro estimated that the annual yield would attain half a million ducats, allowing the city to pay off its debt in ten years.48 The proposal was never realized, but it is important to stress that a need to modulate the tax differently from strictly proportional principle had emerged. It is worth asking why the Lion’s republic did not follow the example of Renaissance Florence in imposing, though sporadically, a graduated tax. It was unlikely that the wealthy Venetian patricians adopted such mechanism, in that it was considered a punitive device; on the other hand, the lively Florentine political environment made of various voices and proposals to reform was unimaginable in the lagoon. The progressive tax, whether established by the Medici or the Republican popular regime, represented a delicate and powerful tool in the hands of the faction in power; in Venice, this would never be allowed. It is remarkable, however, 46 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Dieci savi alle decime in Rialto, reg. 2, cc. 215r–v (4 and 10 August 1629). 47 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Senato Terra, reg. 130, cc. 66r–67v (20 April 1645); Senato Zecca, reg. for the years 1644–45, cc. 114r-v. 48 Narrazioni (1846: 337).

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the principle of tax progressiveness was well-known in the late Middle Ages and represents an element connected to the modern conception of taxation. This essay has dealt with some aspects of taxation in Italian territorial states. As for taxpayers, the division between urban inhabitants and peasants was one of the most evident features. Such separation was not only in areas that had witnessed the expansion of communes and city states, but also in the kingdom of Naples. In the long run, the differences between urban and rural taxpayers faded away significantly, owing to the pressure that emerging elites in rural districts in central-northern Italy exerted. The diffusion, broader in the south than in the north of the peninsula, of feudal areas did not show any significant differences between vassals and taxpayers directly subjected to central government’s jurisdictions. Feudal taxation actually took a negligible percentage of the total tax paid by vassals. Thus, in quantitative terms, the fiscal ancient regime ended before the descent of the Napoleon army into Italy. The exercise of feudatories’ power, rather, kept on expressing in the control of clientele networks at both local and central level. An aspect of taxation worthy of interest concerns the attempts to impose a graduated tax fifteenth-century Florence. The political struggle and financial crisis stimulated the search for more equitable fiscal devices. It is remarkable that the debate went beyond the question of a generic direct tax, focusing instead on the problem of how much the Florentine taxpayers should pay in relation to their wealth. In this regard, the classic principle of distributive justice was questioned and instead reconsidered uniquely in terms of wealth. Such innovation, however, did not take hold, neither in Florence nor in other states of ancient regime Europe. In the early 1640s, the Portuguese government started imposing a décima, a 10% rate on various incomes (rents, profits, interests and wages).49 It proved to be an important tax but was distributed according to the traditional principle of a proportional burden. Political limits, first of all, prevented the adoption of a potentially powerful tax instrument, which was to be reconsidered later in the nineteenth century, in a very different context.

49 Costa and Brito (2018).

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Guicciardini, F. (1932). Dialogo e discorsi del reggimento di Firenze (R. Palmarocchi, Ed.). Laterza. Guicciardini, F. (1931). Istorie fiorentine (R. Palmarocchi, Ed.). Laterza. Karmin, O. (1906). La legge del Catasto fiorentino del 1427 (Testo, introduzione e note). Seeber. Knapton, M. (1984). Il Territorio vicentino nello stato veneto del ‘500 e primo ‘600: nuovi equilibri politici e fiscali. In G. Cracco & M. Knapton (Eds.), “Dentro lo Stado italico”. Venezia e la Terraferma fra Quattrocento e Seicento (pp. 33–115). Gruppo culturale Civis. Koch, A. C. F. (1973). The reformation at Deventer in 1579–80. Size and social structure of the Catholic section of the population during the Religious Peace. Acta Historiae Neerlandicae, 6, 347–378. Mainoni, P. (2003). A proposito della “Rivoluzione fiscale” nell’Italia settentrionale del XII secolo. Studi Storici, 44, 5–42. Maire Vigueur, J.-C. (2004). Cavalieri e cittadini. Guerra, conflitti e società nell’Italia comunale. Il Mulino. Mazzone, U. (1978). “El buon governo”. Un progetto di riforma generale nella Firenze savonaroliana. Olschki. McLean, P. (2007). The art of the network: Strategic interaction and patronage in renaissance Florence. Duke University Press. Molho, A. (1970). The Florentine ‘Tassa dei Traffichi’ of 1451. Studies in the Renaissance, 17 , 73–118. Narrazioni e documenti sulla storia del Regno di Napoli dall’anno 1522 al 1667 . (1846). (F. Palermo, Ed.). Vissieux. Ormrod, W. (1988). An experiment in taxation: The English parish subsidy of 1371. Speculum, 63, 58–82. Palmieri, M. (1983). Ricordi fiscali (1427–1474) (E. Conti, Ed.). Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo. Parenti, P. (2005). Storia fiorentina (A. Matteucci, II, Ed.). Olschki. Regent, N. (2014). Guicciardini’s La Decima scalata: The first treatise on progressive taxation. History of Political Economy, 46, 307–331. Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato. (1916). (A. Segarizzi, III, Ed.).1 Laterza. Rodolico, N. (1971). I Ciompi. Una pagina di storia del proletariato operaio. Sansoni. Rotelli, C. (1973). Una campagna medievale. Storia agraria del Piemonte fra il 1250 e il 1450. Einaudi. Rubinstein, N. (1977). The government of Florence under the Medici (2nd ed.). Clarendon Press. Ryckbosch, W. (2007). Stedelijk initiatief of hertogelijke repressive? Financiële hervormingen en kredietbeleid te Gent (1453–1495). Tijdschrift Voor Sociale En Economische Geschiedenis, 4, 3–28.

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A Treasury in Transition: Changes and Continuity in the Management of Castilian State Finances During the Reign of Isabella I (1474–1504) Pablo Ortego Rico

1

Introduction

The evolution of the Royal Treasury during the reign of Isabella I (1474–1504) is an increasingly well-known field of study thanks to the historiography dedicated to the analysis of the process of building the state in the Crown of Castile in the transition from medieval times to the early modern period. This is also in line with the progress made in the study of treasury and tax structures in Western Europe between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries.1 Thanks to the work carried out since the 1960s, we have extensive knowledge of the sources of ordinary and extraordinary income that fed the Castilian royal exchequer in 1 Genet and Le Mené (1984), Bonney (1995), and Galán Sánchez and Carretero Zamora (2013).

P. Ortego Rico (B) Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_12

219

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the late fifteenth century, how income developed, the mechanisms used for its administration, and the main items of expenditure.2 Progress has also been made in legitimising the resources collected and aspects of the political culture related to the negotiation of taxation and the search for consensus with the powers of the kingdom in a chronology that allows lines of continuity to be drawn between the systems observed in the late medieval period and those of modern times.3 Finally, in recent years, the development of tax and finance structures has been looked at in more depth from a regional perspective to rise above the “national” vision and focus instead on the links established between royal power, the treasury and society in areas forming part of the Crown of Castile such as Galicia, Biscay, New Castile and Lower Andalusia, to name just a few examples analysed in recent comprehensive studies.4 All of this has improved our understanding of the differences and similarities in the system of taxation and the royal treasury in the different areas that made up the Crown of Castile in its almost definitive territorial formation in the thirteenth century, as well as the contribution to the kingdom as a whole by each separate fiscal area. It has also served to expand the analysis, offering complementary perspectives that allow for the integration of elements such as business, tax legitimacy and how power was exercised in its many manifestations. Based on these general parameters, the following pages aim to present a summary, an overview and comprehensive vision of the advances in research made in recent years (until 2020) in relation to the income and expenditure management structures implemented during the reign of Isabella I (1474–1504). It is vitally important if we are to understand the transition from the late medieval tax and finance system to more complex systems, whose development allowed the Castilian monarchy to better achieve its political objectives and position itself at the beginning of the sixteenth century as one of the most powerful states, in tax and finance terms, in Western Europe.

2 Ladero Quesada (1999, 2009, 2015). 3 Ortego Rico (2009, 2013a) and Nieto Soria (2013). 4 Ortego Rico (2015a), Rubio Martínez (2016), Triano Milán (2018), Bello León and

Ortego Rico (2019), and Vitores Casado (2020).

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2 The Growth of Ordinary Tax Revenue and Changes in the Tax Collection System (1474–1504) An analysis of the collection management system is one key element in understanding the evolution of ordinary royal income in the time of Isabella I, although not the only one since it is closely linked to other factors. The improvement in confidence, the renewed consensus around the model of monarchy and the prospects of political and economic promotion for many investors associated with the new era of political stability and strengthening of the power of the monarchy seen from 1480 allowed it to overcome the episode of state bankruptcy seen during the last decade of the reign of Henry IV, between 1464 and 1474, as well as the exceptional nature of the administration of many fiscal resources seen during the War of the Castilian Succession (1475–1479), which led to Isabella and Ferdinand taking the throne.5 Political stability was also accompanied by economic and demographic growth, uninterrupted until the crisis in the years 1505–1508. This combination of elements made it possible to increase the ordinary resources of the monarchy, collected without the need for agreement with other political institutions and mostly linked to internal consumption—mainly urban—and to the growth of internal and external trade. Thus, between 1481 and 1504, ordinary royal revenues doubled, increasing from 150,582,600 maravedís to 317,770,227 maravedís (see Table 1).6 This dynamic was accompanied by changes in the collection system. One of the hallmarks of the system for the collection of ordinary royal revenue in the transition from medieval times to the early modern period was its ability to attract capital invested by a range of operators integrated into cooperative networks that in many cases went beyond the local and regional area. These were also used to meet the demands for political

5 Ortego Rico (2019b, 2017). 6 Ladero Quesada (2007).

Ordinary income

No figures 94,401,000 150,582,600 155,436,500 131,438,550 – – 178,174,504 159,355,234 190,217,751 189,798,154 193,391,000 212,712,087 No figures 214,166,916 227,693,213 249,864,885 268,764,385 – – – – 271,146,190

1479 1480 1481 1482 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 1488 1489 1490 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 1497 1498 1499 1500 1501

54,323,089 50,258,696

Cortes Services (Direct Taxes) 17,800,000 17,800,000 17,800,000 17,800,000 17,800,000 17,800,000 17,800,000 32,000,000 32,000,000 32,000,000 33,665,300 33,661,552 34,618,909 33,522,045 33,437,710 33,365,700 33,349,125 35,695,080 35,388,393 35,310,543

Brotherhood

6,100,000 6,100,000 6,100,000 6,100,000 6,100,000 6,100,000 6,100,000 6,167,202 6,118,718 6,112,333 6,061,793 6,061,793 6,087,408 6,050,000 6,050,000

Galicia Brotherhood

36,919,391 33,805,462

48,249,542

Brotherhood Extraordinary revenue

8,730,000 8,730,000 7,760,000 8,730,000 4,850,000 4,850,000 4,850,000 4,850,000 4,850,000 4,850,000

Jewish taxes

1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 1,600,000 3,199,060 2,843,070 3,000,000 3,237,860 3,743,230 3,708,310 3,650,110

Mudejar taxes

Ordinary and extraordinary income of the Castile Royal Treasury in maravedis (1479–1504)1

Year

Table 1

7,200,000

7,200,000

Granada taxes

222 P. ORTEGO RICO

Crusade

Year

600,000,000 3

296,168,673 301,182,833 317,770,227

1502 1503 1504

1479 1480 1481 1482 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 1488 1489 1490 1491 1492 1493 1494

Ordinary income

Year

26,500,000 26,500,000

26,500,000

26,500,000

30,475,000

26,500,000

11,580,000 11,580,000 11,586,000 11,586,000 11,586,000

Order of Santiago

No figures No figures

Mudejar taxes

315,000,000 4

158,000,000 2

Loans

Jewish taxes

Order of Alcántara

Brotherhood Extraordinary revenue

9,683,604 10,902,767

Galicia Brotherhood

Order of Calatrava

Brotherhood

Ecclesiastical subsidy

45,441,807 102,004,045 101,003,613

Cortes Services (Direct Taxes)

(continued)

253,094,530 5

Sale of debt (“juros”)

9,600,000

Granada taxes

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223

80,551,684*6

1495 1496 1497 1498 1499 1500 1501 1502 1503 1504

11,586,000 11,865,000 11,995,000 12,370,000 12,370,000 9,888,490 No figures No figures No figures No figures

Order of Calatrava 15,992,548 15,982,252 16,113,834 16,135,111 16,197,106 16,244,683 16,000,000 16,000,000 16,000,000 13,612,266

Order of Santiago 539.573 536.910 485.558 864.928 1,096,848 1,322,250 1,393,869 1,440,199 1,556,832 1,416,233

Order of Alcántara 151,057,122*7

Loans

Sale of debt (“juros”)

1. The figures in italics are extrapolations from the data provided by the documentation. The figures with an asterisk (*) are taken from the income of the treasury of Alonso of Morales and are incomplete. Own elaboration based on the bibliography cited in the text and the following works: Rodríguez Blanco (1985: 223), Ladero Quesada (1982: 526–533; 1991: 122–128; 2009), Alonso García (2007: 24–28). Archivo General de Simancas, Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas, 1ª ép., leg. 96, sin f. y Escribanía Mayor de Rentas, leg. 76, ff. 553–554. 2. Years 1482–1488. 3. Years 1485–1492. 4. Years 1489–1491. 5. Years 1489–1503. 6. Years 1495–1497. 7. Years 1495–1504. 8. Years 1501–1503.

24,667,269* 19,362,295*

25,623,115*

29,125,660* 23,233,390* 17,748,452*

Crusade

Year

136,920,889*8

Ecclesiastical subsidy

(continued)

Table 1

224 P. ORTEGO RICO

A TREASURY IN TRANSITION: CHANGES AND CONTINUITY …

225

participation from certain social sectors.7 This facilitated financial support for the monarchy, since the incentives offered to the tax agents provided the Royal Treasury with the liquidity necessary to meet its obligations, although it also used other complementary mechanisms when necessary if there was pressure from increased expenditure.8 The basis of the system was the management model in place since the thirteenth century for the collection of royal taxes, based, as in other parts of Western Europe, on the assignment of tax collection to private agents (“tax-farmers” known as “arrendadores mayores ” or recaudadores mayores ). This was implemented through regular contracts to assign the power to collect tax revenue from the different tax districts into which the kingdom was divided. Subsequently, these operators, who were the visible heads of companies with multiple divisions, managed the effective collection through successive sub-assignments of revenue collection by town and/or product taxed. In exchange, the arrendadores mayores undertook to hand over to the Crown the price tendered in the public auction for the tax revenue from the fiscal district under their charge.9 This system, endowed with a strong speculative component, constitutes one of the main medieval legacies handed down to the tax management regime seen in the Modern Age. In the same way, the creation of large financial oligopolies, made up largely of converso agents and able to manage the taxation of large areas through complex company structures, was a system passed on to the sixteenth century. This had precedents during the reign of Isabella I, such as the network of companies formed by Abrahem Seneor, his son-in-law Rabbi Mayr Melamed, the brothers Abrahem and Vidal Bienveniste and Louis of Alcalá between 1476 and 1487; the companies led by the financial group based in Almagro (close to Ciudad Real, in the region of La Mancha); the financial network configured in the 1480s in the axis formed by Burgos, Valladolid, New Castile (central area, around the Tagus Valley) and Seville10 ; and the network of companies formed in Seville between 1490 and 1504.11

7 Ortego Rico (2015a: 261–379). 8 Carretero Zamora and Alonso García (2003) and Alonso García (2008). 9 Ortega Cera (2010) and Ortego Rico (2015a: 29–45). 10 Ortego Rico (2015a: 269–379). 11 Bello León and Ortego Rico (2019: 107–291).

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Although the system of leasing the collection of taxes to private operators was in force during the entire reign of Isabella I, from 1495, in a context of a crisis in state financing, the Crown offered councils the opportunity to take over the collection of the alcabalas or sales tax, which was the main element of ordinary income, in exchange for receiving fixed contributions from them over a certain period of time, with conditions negotiated individually with the Royal Treasury by each municipality. The new system, called encabezamiento, became widely implemented during the period 1495–1504 as its advantages were evident to both parties. The councils could obtain benefits from tax collection in times of economic expansion; apply their own tax policies designed to guarantee the supply of certain products; and facilitate the collection of the grants or mercedes (juros or debt) received by the urban oligarchies and charged against ordinary income. In turn, the Crown improved its funding channels through an institutional mechanism involving the local powers in the workings of the Royal Treasury and its credit. Its long-term success was undeniable— in 1536 the first general encabezamiento of sales taxes negotiated between Charles I and the “Cortes”, the name for Castile’s parliamentary body, took place—although during the reign of Isabella I, only the foundations of the system were laid.12

3 The Expansion of Extraordinary Resources and New Funding Channels Looking beyond the growth of ordinary income and the changes in the tax collection system, the main new development in terms of income seen during the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand was undoubtedly the expansion of extraordinary resources. During the civil war (1475–1479), we were already seeing the use of income sources other than ordinary taxation, which continued to be collected through the traditional systems. This can be seen from the granting of an economic service (direct taxation) of 192,000,000 maravedís in the Cortes of 1476, the taking of silver from the kingdom’s churches and the request for loans to the cities.13 Once Isabella and Ferdinand were secured on the throne, the expansion of extraordinary taxation 12 Asenjo González (2006) and Ortego Rico (2015a: 487–576). 13 Ortego Rico (2012).

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was mainly motivated by the need to finance the war against the emirate of Granada (1482–1492).14 Its final conquest in 1492 also permitted the incorporation of the Nasrid fiscal resources (between 26,000,000 and 36,000,000 maravedís annually between 1494 and 1504) into ordinary income and the integration of this region into the financial flows of the Crown of Castile.15 However, the increase in military spending that had acted as a driver for taxation did not cease after 1492 but instead continued during the last decade of the reign. Although obeying the geostrategic interests of the Crown of Aragón, the two wars against France for Naples and Rosellón, taking place between 1494 and 1504, were more than 85% financed by Castilian tax resources.16 All of this necessitated an increase in overall income, so that by the end of Isabella’s reign, extraordinary income represented 65% of the total sum raised by the Crown through ordinary channels, when previously it represented no more than 30%.17 In this sense, the traditional economic services approved by the Cortes in the form of pedidos and monedas (direct taxes) which since the reign of John II (1406–1454) had proved ineffective as a mechanism to correct the deficit of the Royal Treasury,18 were replaced between 1478 and 1498 by a contribution paid by the councils. This tax was complemented by extraordinary “taxes” in 1491, 1495 and 1496, whose collection was channelled through the General Brotherhood (Hermandad General ), as an institution that brought together the councils of the kingdom to defend their interests and security, re-established by the kings in 1476 for propaganda, public order and political, military and tax representation purposes.19 In addition, since 1500 the Cortes—which was not convened between 1480 and 1498—granted new tax or economic aid in the amount of 350,000,000 maravedís for the period 1500–1504 under changed conditions resulting from the experience of collecting the contribution of the General Brotherhood. This resulted in the suppression of franchises and exemptions, in the allocation of quotas to councils in proportion to 14 Ladero Quesada (1987). 15 Galán Sánchez (2015). 16 Ladero Quesada (2010). 17 Ladero Quesada (2007: 208–209). 18 Carretero Zamora (1988: 68–77). 19 Ladero Quesada (2005a), Triano Milán (2018: 431–586), and Ortego Rico (2015b).

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their population and in a simpler collection procedure. This helped to once again make these resources a healthy income that could be used to offset the growing debt of the monarchy, and this continued during the reign of Charles I (1516–1556).20 In addition, the Jewish (between 1482 and 1492) and Mudejar (between 1482 and 1501) minorities collaborated in the financing of military spending with special taxes that emphasised the exceptional nature of their position in the kingdom’s political structure, as they had occasion to find out after the decrees for Hebrew expulsion of 1492 and Mudejar conversion of 1502.21 This same consideration was also applied to the Nasrid emirate after its conquest: in 1496 and 1499, the Granada Mudejars paid extraordinary taxes, collected again in 1503 along with a tax for coastal surveillance (farda) after their forced baptism, taking place between 1499 and 1501.22 The Pontificate’s regular concession of economic resources, much more effective and substantial than in previous epochs, was also of decisive importance in terms of extraordinary income. Between 1482 and 1492, the Crown received subsidies, granted by the Church of the kingdom and charged against its income, amounting to close to 193,000,000 maravedís. From 1484, it also received income from the sale of indulgence papal bulls for a range of prices, in exchange for which the living and deceased faithful were offered forgiveness for their sins. This came about as a result of the Pontificate considering the war against Granada to be a Crusade. The total amount raised—more than 600,000,000 maravedís —was a fundamental element in the financing of the war.23 In addition, these concessions were renewed between 1495 and 1504, although the justification of the fight against the infidel was less relevant, given the weaker Crusade observed over these years.24 In addition to other items, income from the masterships of the military orders of Calatrava, Santiago and Alcántara after their incorporation into the Crown between 1489 and 1493, confiscations made by the Inquisition after its establishment in 1480, jubilees, sales of slaves and others, one 20 Carretero Zamora (1988: 79–83; 2016). 21 Ladero Quesada (2009: 220) and Galán Sánchez (2009). 22 López de Coca Castañer (2007) and Galán Sánchez (2012). 23 Ladero Quesada (1987: 202–213) and Ortego Rico (2018, 2019a). 24 De Andrés Díaz (1992).

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of the main new features of the royal tax system was the use of complex credit mechanisms that gave the system a “modern” component that it had lacked until that time. Leaving aside some antecedents, such as the advances made by the royal revenue collectors in the time of Henry IV,25 the changes essentially involved two new developments: the creation of the first form of “consolidated public debt” at the state level; and the implementation of capital advances with interest later repaid out of royal revenues. In the first case, the traditional system had been based on a request to individuals and councils for loans without express interest, repaid in a relatively short period of time, and this continued during the reign of Isabella I as a way of paying expenses in extraordinary circumstances. To finance the war in Granada, between 1482 and 1491, loans were requested for a total amount in excess of 473,000,000 maravedís, repaid for the most part through income from the Crusade. Between 1495 and 1504, loans were again taken out in excess of 150,000,000 maravedís to pay for the conflict with France.26 However, in view of the difficulties in repaying many of these advances, from 1489 the Crown issued long-term bonds redeemable by royal will (juros al quitar), with an annual interest rate that initially ranged from 9.09 to 10%, to be paid from ordinary income. The new securities—the issuance of which raised more than 253,094,530 maravedís for the royal coffers between 1489 and 1503, of which at least 95,162,466 maravedís were repaid during the same period—experienced a certain boom from 1495 when they were reformed, centralising their issuance at an interest rate usually set between 7.14 and 8.33%.27 In the second case, liquidity difficulties in paying the salaries of the monarchy’s standing army (“Royal Guards”) during the decisive phases of the Granada War caused, from at least 1488, the activation of mechanisms for capital advances by lenders, subsequently repaid from ordinary income. The system continued from 1495 when different financiers, known as obligados were bound through asientos or contracts to deliver in certain periods the money necessary to pay the “Royal Guards”, in

25 Ortego Rico (2015c). 26 Ladero Quesada (2009: 222–227). 27 Gálvez Gambero (2015, 2016).

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exchange for a 2% interest rate. The main new feature of the new credit mechanism was its usefulness in linking ordinary tax revenue and the loans made, since as a guarantee of repayment, these financiers managed the tax authority tasks that centralised the sales tax income—especially after their encabezamiento—in certain fiscal districts. In this way, from 1500 the system became established as one of the fundamental channels through which credit for the Royal Treasury would flow, consolidating the continuance of a “floating debt” covered by ordinary resources.28

4 The Management of Expenditure: Treasuries and Attempts at Administrative Centralisation It is evident that in relation to income, tax collection management and forms of debt financing, the reign of Isabella I represented a quantitative and qualitative leap compared to the previous position. However, expenditure management also underwent transformations that would foresee some of the tax and finance features seen at the beginning of the sixteenth century, defined by the greater effort to centralise management despite the continued existence of multiple treasury offices. These mutations did not arise from rational long-term planning, but rather as a consequence of circumstances that saw the coming together of the need to manage a growing volume of income and expenses—also increasingly interrelated—and to more efficiently control the information relating to these. Despite the difficulties they encountered, looking at the long term, the new forms of centralisation provoked a change in the approach to control spending, which was passed on, with some modifications, to the time of Charles I.29 In short, they made it possible to overcome—although never completely—the model inherited from late medieval times, which must be understood if we are to better appreciate the new developments between 1474 and 1504. The formation of a multiple system for administering expenditures was a gradual process taking place during the Trastámara period (1369– 1516), in which a number of officials in charge of managing payments coexisted, in many cases linked to the court structures (treasurers of the Royal Households, those responsible for the royal chamber or camareros, 28 Alonso García (2006) and Ortego Rico (2016). 29 Gálvez Gambero and Triano Milán (2016).

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and those in charge of paying their salaries to the members of the court called despenseros de las raciones, etc.).30 In this context arrendadores and recaudadores mayores, or in other words the collectors, of the different taxes—in coexistence with specific treasurers, such as those responsible for collecting the debts of the Royal Treasury (albaquías ) or for occasionally administering military expenses31 —played an increasingly important role in payments, to the point of leading in the 1440s to the disappearance of the four large regional treasuries created in 1371 (Leon, Castile, Toledo and Andalusia). Nevertheless, the existence of offices that centralised tax collection in areas that had a special political regime was respected, seen in the existence of their own institutions, although these were always integrated into the Crown. This is the case for the Treasury of Biscay, effective since the incorporation of this Lordship into the Crown in 1379,32 and the treasury of the Principality of Asturias, managed by John of Oviedo between 1453 and 1470.33 On the other hand, the growing diversity in income sources seen during the early years of the reign of Henry IV (1454–1474) and the need to deal with more payments in the royal court determined the introduction of the first large-scale trial of income and expenditure centralisation of which we are aware for the fifteenth century. Between January 1460 and at least October 1462, Diego Arias Dávila, the king’s “royal accountant” (contador mayor) and Henry IV’s “strongman” in tax and financial affairs, managed most of the sums sent to the court and royal chamber by the collectors of revenues and ordinary and extraordinary rights received by the Crown (38,927,342 maravedís, 1,315 doblas de la banda and 340 silver marks in total).34 This first attempt at the centralised management of income did not continue into the second half of the reign of Henry IV, between 1464 and 1474, marked by the state of civil war and the difficulties of the monarch collecting resources, leading to the disposal of a large part of the royal treasury.35 However, this did set a precedent

30 Torres Sanz (1982: 214–234), Ladero Quesada (2009: 449–450), de Cañas Gálvez (2012: 130–132; 2015), and Ortego Rico (2015a: 35–36). 31 De Cañas Gálvez (2012: 131). 32 Vitores Casado (2012). 33 García Fernández (2015: 259–290). 34 Ladero Quesada (1988). 35 Ladero Quesada and Cantera Montenegro (2004).

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for the transformations in the system of treasuries seen from 1475, which must be considered.

5 The Treasurers of the Royal Households and Regional Treasury Regimes When Isabella I ascended to the throne in December 1474, the conflict with Portugal and the need to deal with the expenses linked to the military defence of her legitimacy led her to use the financial services of Fernán Núñez of Arnalte, treasurer since she was a princess and the queen’s new treasurer between 1475 and 1479. Although his accounts have not been preserved, the documentation from the years 1477–1479 allows us to be certain about his role as the point of arrival for ordinary (alcabalas or sales tax, and tercias reales or levy on clerical tenths) and extraordinary resources (loan of the silver of the churches, direct taxes granted by the Cortes), used to finance the “Royal Guards” (Guardas Reales ) and the expenses of the Royal Household.36 When Núñez of Arnalte died at the end of 1479, Ruy López of Toledo took over the queen’s treasury with functions similar to those performed by his predecessor. Although we cannot under any circumstances consider the treasury of López of Toledo to be “general”, it is true that from 1480 to 1496—with a gap for the years 1491–1494—he centralised income and expenditure accounting for large amounts of money, which exceeded the strict scope of the Royal Household. Looking only at the period between 1480 and 1485, Ruy López managed 270,000,000 maravedís, mostly from payments made by ordinary revenue collectors but also from items associated with extraordinary resources. Similarly, out of the total amounts handled by Ruy López between 1480 and 1490, at least 269,857,600 maravedís were used to pay for the “Royal Guards”. This task was one of the most important aspects of his job, especially once the Granada War had started in 1482.37 Ruy López’s activity coexisted with that of other treasury offices, within the system of the multiple centralised management of payments characteristic of that time, in which there were simultaneously several treasurers for the Royal Household and court, regional treasurers and 36 Ortego Rico (2016: 431–433). 37 Ortego Rico (2016: 433–448).

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others linked to the collection of certain taxes, channelling the spending of much of the revenue collected. That is to say, it was a flexible and not very institutionalised system, consisting of several interrelated offices that acted as “communicating vessels”, in which the functions performed by each official—according to the orders issued by the kings and the “royal accountants” (contadores mayores ) of the Royal Treasury—were those that marked out their powers at any time. In addition to the Queen’s treasurer Ruy López of Toledo, there were other treasurers who performed their functions within the bureaucraticadministrative organisation of the royal court, although they sometimes went beyond this area.38 In the case of King Ferdinand, his involvement along with Isabella in the government of Castile made it possible for his treasurer, Gabriel Sánchez from Aragon, to simultaneously manage his income earned as King of Aragón and some of that received as monarch of Castile.39 It should be emphasised that the Castilian resources of Ferdinand reached significant figures. This was based on annual allocations from ordinary incomes, which increased from 2,000,000 maravedís in 1480 to 10,000,000 maravedís in 1503, maintained after the queen’s death in 1504, although not all of these sums were managed by Gabriel Sánchez.40 Added to these sums were the revenues from the military orders of Calatrava (from 1489) and Santiago and Alcantara (from 1493) after the king’s lifetime appointment as administrator of their masterships. On occasion, this income was used to finance debts linked to the treasury of Gabriel Sánchez, whose general accounts we do not have.41 On the other hand, the treasurer Gonzalo of Baeza managed many of the expenses of the chamber of the queen and the princesses, in addition to the disbursements related to Prince John until his death in 1497: the Prince’s household, separated from that of the queen in 1495, had a budget of 20,000,000 maravedís allocated to it in 1496. Nevertheless, Baeza was of lesser political importance than Ruy López or Gabriel Sánchez because his functions were usually limited to paying luxury and ceremonial expenses.42 38 Ladero Quesada (1998). 39 Gamero Igea (2016). 40 Ladero Quesada (1998: 341–347). 41 Ortego Rico (2013b: 432, 439–440). 42 González Arce (2016).

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Away from the Royal Households, with the external elements discussed, Isabella and Ferdinand maintained specific tax regimes in regions such as the Lordship of Biscay, and created new treasuries to manage the income from other areas that also had particular features in their political organisation, non-existent in other Castilian regions. This is the case for Galicia, which between 1482 and 1498 had its own treasury of the Brotherhood, responsible for managing the contribution paid by the councils in this region.43 The same was true for the provinces of Álava and Guipúzcoa, and the Lordship of Biscay.44

6 The Administration of Extraordinary Revenues and the Failed Attempt to Centralise Payments from Ordinary Resources Looking beyond the continuance and renewal of the functions of some of the treasurers directly associated with the Royal Households, and of those involved in the regions that enjoyed a particular legal-political regime such as Biscay, the main changes in the expenditure management structures during the reign of Isabella, I relate to the activity of the officials who managed the money from extraordinary taxation, whose growth from 1478 made it necessary to create a system of general treasuries, but not a “single treasury”, linked to these. This system offered advantages since by being outside the ordinary tax and finance structures, it allowed for a more flexible arrangement between the times of collection and payment.45 In the first phase (1478–1494), we see a multiplication of the centralised income and expenditure structures in line with the importance of new sources of extraordinary income and the need to streamline payments. This is suggested by two facts: the appointment of treasurers associated with the political structures on which each source of extraordinary income depended, and the incorporation of new developments designed to centralise payments made from ordinary income. From its beginnings in 1478, the new General Brotherhood had regional treasurers who managed the ordinary taxes collected in each 43 Ladero Quesada (2005b). 44 García Fernández (2010). 45 Gálvez Gambero and Triano Milán (2016: 307–309).

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province. Above them in the hierarchy was a general treasurer endowed with growing power and autonomy. The role of this general treasury of the Brotherhood, which between 1488 and 1498 was managed by such important financiers as Abrahem Seneor, the Genoese Francis Pinelo, Louis of Santángel, Alonso Gutiérrez of Madrid and Ferdinand of Villarreal, was to bring together the taxes collected in each province. Thus, between 1488 and 1498, the general treasurers managed 510,274,266 maravedís from the ordinary taxes of the kingdom, including Galicia, and the extraordinary taxes collected in 1491, 1495 and 1497. These sums were used to maintain the political structures of the Brotherhood and to pay the salaries of their military forces that, together with the Royal Guards, constituted the bulk of the standing army of the monarchy involved in the War of Granada (1482–1492), and in the first war of Naples (1495–1497).46 Similarly, the extraordinary income earned through the pontifical concession destined to pay for the war of Granada also had a specific management regime. The income from the sale of the Crusade indulgence papal bulls was administered in each ecclesiastical district by treasurers, assisted by commissioners in collecting the so-called composiciones (compensatory payments for religious offences). Although these agents made direct disbursements to some of the final beneficiaries of these resources, most of the income was transferred to the general treasurers appointed by those responsible for the Crusade. The amounts handled by these treasurers and general collectors of the Crusade reached very high levels. The General treasurer Peter González of Madrid—who was also treasurer of the Brotherhood between 1480 and 1488—managed at least 74,286,731 maravedís. Fernán Bravo was treasurer in the bishopric of Salamanca and general collector of the Crusade and collected 24,595,798 maravedís between 1486 and 1492. Both amounts, although significant, are a long way from the 505,805,871 maravedís received between 1485 and 1492 by the treasurer Francis González of Seville, main administrator of the resources coming from the Crusade and other extraordinary sources of income, destined to finance the War of Granada and to repay many of the loans taken out. In this way, the administration structured around the Crusade allowed the management of this source of income to be linked with that of other 46 Ladero Quesada (2005a), Ortego Rico (2014), and Gálvez Gambero and Triano Milán (2016: 313–314).

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resources in what constituted an effective feedback loop between income and expenditure.47 The administration of ordinary taxes also underwent profound changes between 1491 and 1494 that go further towards greater centralisation. During these years, the Crown developed a new management system aimed at improving the payments made from ordinary income. Up to that time, much of the expenditure ordered by the Royal Treasury had been paid to its beneficiaries in parts by the different chief tax-farmers appointed in each tax district, which often caused problems in terms of deadlines, default and fraud. For this reason, in 1491 the Catholic Monarchs accepted that the most important financial company in the kingdom, led by the Jew Rabbi Mayr Melamed and the converso Louis of Alcalá, could centralise the management of all these expenses. In addition, during the period 1491–1494, both agents were responsible for paying the “Royal Guards”, which until that time was the responsibility of the queen’s treasurer Ruy López of Toledo. In order to carry out their task, the new general payers of the ordinary income of the kingdom would receive from the collectors in each tax district—including those managed by them—the total net collection concession price, after deducting the fixed expenses (prometidos or incentives given to the financiers to encourage their participation in the auction of income, and situados or annual economic grants charged by royal privilege). The new system remained in place between 1491 and 1494, and allowed the general receivers and payers to manage a total of 464,741,508 maravedís. However, the expulsion of the Jews ordered in March 1492 generated the first structural problems. Although the Catholic Monarchs negotiated for Rabbi Mayr Melamed to stay in Castile, baptised as Ferdinand Núñez Coronel, they could not avoid the departure of some important Jewish operators, with the consequent collapse of the incomes they had managed until that time. This was compounded by the difficulties in obtaining liquidity derived from the default on the sums owed to the general collectors by many agents under their control, which finally resulted in the bankruptcy of the system at the end of 1494. When the debts of the receivers and general payers to the Royal Treasury were ascertained in May 1495, they amounted to over 21,000,000 maravedís. This

47 Ortego Rico (2018).

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showed the weakness of the system in moving the credit upwards, within a pyramid system whose branches at the base made its effective control difficult.48

7 The “Extraordinary” Treasury of Alonso of Morales (1495–1504): Towards a Synthesis of the Centralised System for the Management of Castilian Expenditure The failure of the general taxpayers took place at a time of political difficulty for the monarchy, immersed from the early months of 1495 in the preparations of the first war against France after the invasion of Naples by Charles VIII (1483–1498) in December 1494. The new military context once again tested the resilience of the Crown’s tax and financial system, which found itself in need of more efficient management of a growing volume of resources, most of which were intended to cover the costs of the wars against France of 1494–1498 and 1501–1504.49 In the end, between 1494 and 1498, the new needs ended up generating the synthesis of the models of centralised management of resources rehearsed since 1480. After an attempt to once again channel payment of the “Royal Guards” through the treasurer Ruy López during the years 1495–1496, the queen’s treasurer was replaced as payer of the army by the general treasurer of the Brotherhood, Alonso Gutiérrez of Madrid. This agent, fundamental in understanding the transition to the new expenditure management system, acted jointly as payer of the “Royal Guards” and of the forces of the Brotherhood from June 1496 until the bankruptcy of the Brotherhood’s treasury in 1498.50 By that time, the Monarchy had already opted to centralise a significant part of ordinary income, and most of extraordinary income, as well as the spending associated with them. In April 1494, a new tax authority for extraordinary resources (tesorería de “lo extraordinario” ) was created for this purpose. Successively administered by John of Morales and his son Alonso of Morales, this was endowed with ever greater powers. As a result, the “extraordinary” treasury of Alonso of Morales—who was 48 Ladero Quesada (2002) and Ortego Rico (2015a: 381–485). 49 Ladero Quesada (2010). 50 Ladero Quesada (2005a: 91–98) and Ortego Rico (2016: 459–472).

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the decisive figure in the management of state spending during the final decade of the reign of Isabella I—ushered in a new era, and demonstrated the need to more effectively control the accounting for the growing and increasingly interconnected income and expenditure, gradually concentrating the management of the different tax items, handled to date by different treasuries, into one office, which if not unique was at least the main one.51 In this sense, Morales’s treasury was the most finished model of the centralisation of tax resources and expenditure implemented to date. In global terms, we know that the treasurer Morales managed revenues of a total of 1,726,021,701 maravedís between 1495 and 1504. Their origin was very varied and changing: drafts on ordinary incomes, and especially “extraordinary” resources that, in some cases, had previously been administered by specific treasurers and at this time attained their own tax and finance category. These sums covered expenditure of a total of 1,730,668,739 maravedís for the period 1494–1504. Among this, what stands out above all is the military spending, but also payments linked to diplomatic initiatives and to the repayment of “public debt” securities, among others.52 Many aspects of Morales’s treasury, especially those relating to the system of cash income and payments and to the ancillary staff linked to the office, have yet to be analysed. However, its creation was essential in configuring a new way of understanding the management of financial resources. This established the legacy of the position of main treasurer of the Royal Treasury, although it was never unique since other treasury offices continued to exist. This legacy was continued by Francis of Vargas, “general” treasurer of Castile between 1506 and 1523, and treasurer of King Ferdinand during his period of power between 1506 and 1515. His example represents the duality between the new centralisation efforts and the survival of duplication linked to the maintenance of “functional” management systems inherited from late medieval times.53

51 Gálvez Gambero and Triano Milán (2016: 320). 52 De Andrés Díaz (2004). 53 Carlos Morales (2000), Alonso García (2007: 183–196), and Ladero Quesada (2017).

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Conclusion

There is nothing new about considering the reign of Isabella I as a time of profound change. After an era of weakness and internal conflict, there came a period of internal peace and stability that allowed for the implementation of a model of monarchy based on a greater concentration of power in the hands of the royals, in coexistence with other powers (nobility, cities, church). This was possible in part thanks to the propaganda effort, but also to the more efficient use of administrative resources. In economic terms, there was growth in the wealth of the kingdom and its demographic strength, a stimulation of domestic trade and an opening of foreign trade. However, the effort made to conquer Granada as the last “frontier” on the Iberian Peninsula led to new military obligations stemming from Castile’s growing involvement in international politics, which was an early sign of what was to come with the arrival on the throne of Charles I. All of these transformations had an impact on the treasury and royal taxation structures, the analysis of which is fundamental to understanding the consolidation of the new model of monarchy. In this sense, the reign of Isabella I was not a period of great innovations in relation to the type of income sources. The key development was the ability of the Royal Treasury to improve its management and performance, involving councils in addition to private capital, and above all the increasingly frequent use of extraordinary income as a means of financing rising military expenses, and the implementation of new credit mechanisms capable of alleviating the pressure on debt. These changes had an impact on resource management structures. Without completely abandoning the administrative model of multiple treasuries developed in late medieval times, the monarchy tried new forms of centralisation of income and expenditure which, always endowed with the necessary flexibility, culminated in the great synthesis represented by the treasury of Morales between 1495 and 1504. In short, the main legacy passed on from the reign of Isabella I to the early modern period, in fiscal and financial terms, was a more efficient and sound tax system with new and better mechanisms for credit and the administration of resources. This was also one of the foundations on which the capacity of Castile to finance the immense expense of the policy of the Habsburgs would be based in the future. This, as has been pointed out recently, would in fiscal terms place a “crown of thorns” on the head

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of the different territories that formed Castile, rather than an “imperial crown”.54 This work is part of the following Research Projects, funded by the National Programme for Fostering Excellence in Scientific and Technical Research (State Subprogramme for Knowledge Generation) of the State Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness: “Sistemas fiscales y construcción estatal: Castilla, centros y periferias (1250-1550)” (PID2021126283NB-I00), “La construcción de una cultura fiscal en Castilla: poderes, negociación y articulación social (ca. 1250–1550)” (PGC2018097738-B-100), “Circuitos financieros, crecimiento económico y guerra (siglos XV-XVI)” (UMA18-FEDERJA-098) and “Expresiones de la cultura política peninsular en las relaciones de conflicto (Corona de Castilla, 1230–1504)” (HAR2016-76174-P). These Research Projects are part of the Research Network on the History of Taxation Arca Comunis (http://www.arcacomunis.uma.es/).

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Gálvez Gambero, F., & Triano Milán, J. M. (2016). La negociación de lo extraordinario en tiempos de Isabel I (1474–1504). Tiempos Modernos, 33(2), 294–325. Gamero Igea, G. (2016). ¿Servicio o beneficio? La colaboración de los grandes linajes judeoconversos con el entorno de Fernando el Católico. In R. Amrán & A. Cortijo Ocaña (Eds.), Minorías en la España medieval y moderna (ss. XVXVII) (pp. 39–56). Publications of eHumanista. García Fernández, E. (2010). Acerca de la contribución militar de la Junta General de la provincia de Guipúzcoa a la Guerra de Granada en 1484. Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 40, 617–642. García Fernández, E. (2015). Las cuentas del Principado de Asturias: hacienda y poder a fines de la Edad Media. In E. García Fernández & J. A. Bonachía Hernando (Eds.), Hacienda, mercado y poder al norte de la Corona de Castilla en el tránsito del Medievo a la Modernidad (pp. 259–290). Castilla Ediciones. Genet, J.-P., & Le Mené, M. (Eds.). (1984). Genèse de l’êtat moderne. Editions du CNRS. González Arce, J. D. (2016). La Casa y corte del príncipe don Juan (1478–1497). Economía y etiqueta en el palacio del hijo de los Reyes Católicos. SEEM. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (1987). Castilla y la conquista del reino de Granada. Diputación Provincial de Granada. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (1988). El cargo de Diego Arias Dávila en 1462. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma Serie III. Historia Medieval, 1, 271–294. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (1991). Fiscalidad regia y génesis del Estado en la Corona de Castilla (1252–1504). Espacio, Tiempo y Forma Serie III. Historia Medieval, 4, 122–128. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (1998). La Casa Real en la Baja Edad Media. Historia. Instituciones. Documentos, 25, 327–350. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (1999). Estado, hacienda, fiscalidad y finanzas. In La historia medieval en España. Un balance historiográfico (1968–1998) (XXV Semana de Estudios Medievales. Estella, 1998) (pp. 457–504). Gobierno de Navarra. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (2002). La receptoría y pagaduría general de la Hacienda regia castellana entre 1491 y 1494 (De Rabí Meír Melamed a Fernán Núñez Coronel). En la España Medieval, 25, 425–506. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (2005a). La Hermandad de Castilla. Cuentas y memoriales (1480–1498). Real Academia de la Historia. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (2005b). La Hermandad en Galicia. 1490–1498. Cuadernos de Estudios Gallegos, 52(118), 239–287. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (2007). Política económica de Isabel la Católica. In H. Casado Alonso & A. García-Baquero González (Eds.), Comercio y hombres de negocios en Castilla y Europa en tiempos de Isabel la Católica (pp. 181–209). Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales.

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Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (2009). La Hacienda Real de Castilla. 1369–1504. Estudios y documentos. Real Academia de la Historia. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (2010). Ejércitos y armadas de los Reyes Católicos: Nápoles y El Rosellón, 1494–1504. Real Academia de la Historia. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (2015). Lo antiguo y lo nuevo de la investigación sobre fiscalidad y poder político en la Baja Edad Media hispánica. In Estados y mercados financieros en el occidente cristiano (siglos XIII-XVI) (pp. 13–54). Gobierno de Navarra. Ladero Quesada, M. Á. (2017). Francisco de Vargas, tesorero real. Un testimonio sobre los últimos años de Fernando el Católico (1506–1517). Dykinson. Ladero Quesada, M. Á., & Cantera Montenegro, M. (2004). El tesoro de Enrique IV en el alcázar de Segovia. 1465–1475. Historia. Instituciones. Documentos, 31, 307–351. Ladero Quesada, M. F. (1982). La orden de Alcántara en el siglo XV. Algunos datos sobre su potencial militar, territorial, económico y demográfico. En la España Medieval, 2–3, 499–542. López de Coca Castañer, J. E. (2007). Mudéjares granadinos y fiscalidad: los servicios extraordinarios de 1495 y 1499. En la España Medieval, 30, 317– 334. Nieto Soria, J. M. (2013). Entre los derechos de la Corona Real y los deberes de la liberalidad del príncipe. In Á. Galán Sánchez & J. M. Carretero Zamora (Eds.), El alimento del Estado y la salud de la Res Publica: orígenes, estructura y desarrollo del gasto público en Europa (pp. 97–114). Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Ortega Cera, Á. (2010). Arrendar el dinero del rey. Fraude y estrategias financieras en el Estrado de las Rentas en la Castilla del siglo XV. Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 40(1), 223–249. Ortego Rico, P. (2009). Justificaciones doctrinales de la soberanía fiscal regia en la baja Edad Media castellana. En la España Medieval, 32, 79–104. Ortego Rico, P. (2012). Las riquezas de la Iglesia al servicio del poder monárquico: los empréstitos eclesiásticos en la Castilla del siglo XV. En la España Medieval, 35, 145–176. Ortego Rico, P. (2013a). Monarquía, nobleza y pacto fiscal: lógicas contractuales y estrategias de consenso en torno al sistema hacendístico castellano (1429–1480). In J. M. Nieto Soria & Ó. Villarroel González (Eds.), Pacto y consenso en la cultura política peninsular (siglos XI al XV) (pp. 123–162). Sílex Ediciones. Ortego Rico, P. (2013b). Hacienda, poder real y sociedad en Toledo y su reino (siglo XV-principios del XVI) [Doctoral thesis]. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Ortego Rico, P. (2014). Alonso Gutiérrez de Madrid y otros agentes financieros de Castilla la Nueva en la tesorería general de la Hermandad (1493–1498):

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vínculos cooperativos, redes socioeconómicas y gestión fiscal. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma Serie III. Historia Medieval, 27 , 381–420. Ortego Rico, P. (2015a). Poder financiero y gestión tributaria en Castilla: los agentes fiscales en Toledo y su reino. Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Ortego Rico, P. (2015b). La «contribución» de la Hermandad en Castilla la Nueva: Modelos tributarios y poderes concejiles. Chronica Nova, 41, 271– 319. Ortego Rico, P. (2015c). La financiación de la cámara real de Castilla a fines de la Edad Media (ca. 1400–1480): una visión general. e-Spania. Revue interdisciplinaire d’études hispaniques médiévales et modernes 20. Online text in http://e-spania.revues.org/24265 Ortego Rico, P. (2016). La financiación de las Guardas Reales durante el reinado de los Reyes Católicos: crédito y finanzas a través de la actividad del tesorero Ruy López de Toledo (1480–1496). In E. Martínez Ruiz, J. Cantera Montenegro, & M. de P. Pi Corrales (Eds.), La organización de los ejércitos (Vol. I, pp. 428–473). Cátedra Extraordinaria Complutense de Historia Militar. Ortego Rico, P. (2017). Sy algunas quiebras en ellas oviese...: crisis de liquidez y quiebras financieras en Castilla a fines de la Edad Media. Cuadernos de Historia Moderna, 42(2), 411–439. Ortego Rico, P. (2018). Tesoreros y comisarios de la Cruzada en la financiación de la guerra de Granada: el caso de Castilla la Nueva (1484–1493). In Á. Galán Sánchez & J. M. Nieto Soria (Eds.), Poder, fisco y sociedad en la España Medieval y Moderna. A propósito de la obra del Profesor Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada (pp. 235–262). Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Ortego Rico, P. (2019a). Castilla, la Corona de Aragón y el Papado: relaciones financieras en torno a la cruzada y décima durante la guerra de Granada (1484–1492). eHumanista: Journal of Iberian Studies, 43, 199–248. Ortego Rico, P. (2019b). Dos Haciendas, un reino: pacto y negociación financiera en el contexto del conflicto civil castellano (1465–1468). In C. Laliena Corberá, M. Lafuente Alcántara, & Á. Galán Sánchez (Eds.), Fisco, legitimidad y conflicto en los reinos hispánicos (siglos XIII-XVII) (pp. 275– 301). Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza. Rodríguez Blanco, D. (1985). La Orden de Santiago en Extremadura en la baja Edad Media (siglos XIV y XV). Diputación de Badajoz. Rubio Martínez, A. (2016). El reinado de los Reyes Católicos en Galicia: actividad económica y fiscalidad regia. CSIC-Cuadernos de Estudios Gallegos Anejo XLIII. Torres Sanz, D. (1982). La administración central castellana en la Baja Edad Media. Universidad de Valladolid.

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Triano Milán, J. M. (2018). La llamada del rey y el auxilio del reino: del pedido regio a las contribuciones de la Santa Hermandad (1403–1498). Universidad de Sevilla. Vitores Casado, I. (2012). Los tesoreros y la tesorería de Vizcaya en los siglos XIV y XV. In E. García Fernández & I. Vitores Casado (Eds.), Tesoreros, “arrendadores” y financieros en los reinos hispánicos: la Corona de Castilla y el reino de Navarra (siglos XIV-XVII) (pp. 65–77). Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Vitores Casado, I. (2020). Poder, sociedad y fiscalidad en el Señorío de Vizcaya durante la Baja Edad Media. Instituto Vasco de Administración Pública.

Public Debt in Late Medieval Crown of Aragon: A(Nother) Financial Revolution? Albert Reixach Sala

1

and Pere Verdés Pijuan

Introduction

Like other territories of Western Europe, the Crown of Aragon witnessed the making and development of state structures during the Late Middle Ages. Then the domains under the Aragonese monarchy also experienced the creation of new of forms of public taxation within the framework that the historiography has identified as the first steps in the transition between a domain state of the feudal period and a tax state of Early Modern era.1 Mutatis mutandis, this fiscal transition shared many aspects with other 1 Bonney and Ormrod (1999).

This chapter is framed in the Spanish R+D+I projects PGC-2018-100979-B-C22 and PID2020-117839GB-I00. A. Reixach Sala Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain P. Verdés Pijuan (B) IMF-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_13

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European monarchies and principalities, where growing military needs pushed kings and princes to extend taxes beyond their royal or manorial estates, with the purpose of levying all inhabitants of the territories under their rule. This new taxation was justified in a similar way to other coetaneous cases and, despite different rhythms, the typologies of taxes did not vary a lot.2 If we try to find an important particularity in the Aragonese case, it will undoubtedly be consolidated public debt. This was not an exclusive phenomenon of the Crown of Aragon, neither the financial instruments (lifelong and perpetual annuities) used by different institutions within its domains that favoured the substitution of short-term debt forms by a long and consolidated debt.3 Nonetheless, the precocity, extension and dimension acquired by this form of indebtedness represent a true singularity within the European space. The transformative effects of public debt on political, fiscal and financial structures of the Crown were equally original.4 This chapter will consist of a general balance of this phenomenon beginning with the factors than can explain the extraordinary diffusion of these financial tools in the peninsular territories of Crown of Aragon, that means the principality of Catalonia and the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia and Majorca.5 Secondly, we will describe the role played by urban authorities, mainly those of royal domains, that led the first issues of annuities in masse and this way fuelled the financial market. In a third section, we will focus on the most genuine consequences of public debt in the Aragonese crown: the apparition, in the different domains under the rule of these kings, of representative institutions emanated from the general state assemblies (Corts ), that acquired juridical personality and became consolidated in great part thanks to the emission of annuities in the name of the whole inhabitants of each kingdom. We will also observe how other coetaneous institutions resorted to long-term debt, a trend that, among 2 Sánchez Martínez (1995), Sánchez Martínez et al. (2008), and Lafuente Gómez and Reixach Sala (2022). 3 Furió (2002, 2021) and Munro (2003, 2013). 4 Sánchez Martínez (2003b) and Sánchez Martínez et al. (2008). 5 For different reasons, we will leave Crown’s overseas possessions aside, that means

territories in the western Mediterranean incorporated by the kings of Aragon from the end of the thirteenth century: the islands of Sicily and Sardinia (along with Corsica during certain stages) and, by the 1440s, Naples and much of the Southern Italian Peninsula.

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other questions, points out the limited role of the monarchy within the annuities’ market. Finally, comparing the Aragonese case with the general historiography on taxation and public debt in Premodern Europe, we will briefly discuss it in the light of the debate on ‘financial revolutions’.

2

A Favourable Ecosystem for Public Debt

The extraordinary diffusion of long-term public debt in the Crown of Aragon cannot be explained without taking into account different circumstances. First of them was the reduced room for manoeuvre of the monarchy to cope with growing war costs from the end of the thirteenth century. Conditioned by an exiguous patrimony and many limitations to impose taxes out of their domains, successive kings were firstly obliged to rely on towns (specially those in Catalonia) to get the necessary money to fund their campaigns.6 Urban authorities showed their interest in royal demands as long as they allowed them to acquire in return many of their privileges. As we will see, once the issues of public debt by the main towns started, they exponentially increased and, from the mid-14 hour century, they spread like oil stain throughout the peninsular territories of the Aragonese crown.7 Unquestionably, the advantageous conditions that life-long and perpetual annuities offered compared to other forms of credit contributed to this diffusion. Until then extraordinary expenses were funded, fundamentally, through short-term credit offered by Jewish financers. These loans were, however, onerous since the amounts of capital could not be important and the interest rates were over 20%. On the contrary, life-long annuities (violaris ) and perpetual (censals morts ) presented lower interest rates and implied higher sums of capital, specially when the operations included personal guarantees. Like other coetaneous territories in Europe, these instruments were issued simulating that the purchaser (or creditor) acquired the right to perceive from the seller (or debtor) a certain annual amount (pensió) that represented the interest of the borrowed capital. In the case of life-long annuities, the debtor had to pay the annual amount during the life of one or two people specified in the contract and until he did not return the whole capital. Concerning perpetual annuities, by

6 Sánchez Martínez (1995). 7 Sánchez Martínez et al. (2008).

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contrast, there was not a date of expiration of the annual payment if the debt was not completely redeemed. Taking into account these features, the interest rates of long-life annuities ranged approximately from 14 to 16%. As for censals morts, the most used instruments from the midfourteenth onwards, they had initially rates of 7–8% that decreased to 5% during the fifteenth century. The interest rates depended on the supply and demand, the diverse junctures and, specially, the confidence institutions willing to indebt inspired. Notwithstanding, the general trend was mainly due to a progressive abandon of life-long annuities (violaris ) as well as to the mentioned reduction of the interest rates of perpetual annuities (censals morts ).8 Another relevant element in this reduction was the important demand for annuities by different social sectors. At a first stage, these instruments were mainly purchased by privileged layers that controlled urban institutions and with presence in the royal court and administration. Still in few decades practically all social groups with capacity to invest acquired annuities. Within the collectives of investors, urban oligarchies had always the lion’s share, that means the most prestigious public debt: the instruments issued by the most important towns and institutions. Traditionally, scholars had interpreted it in a negative way as a manifestation of noxious rent-seeking. Nonetheless, recent studies have challenged such view seeing the diversity of investments by merchants, the variety of functions these instruments had or the relevance of the secondary market. The Church and pious foundations were other important investors or the beneficiaries of annuities through testamentary legacies. These instruments were clearly appreciated by institutions that looked for stable sources of income for their funding. In this sense, Catalonia witnessed the appearance of a special type of annuity during the last third of the fourteenth century, the so-called censals perpetuals, which were sold without back-sale condition and interest rates varying from 2 to 4%. Another social group that invested in public debt—specially in the kingdom of Valence— was nobility. They found in this financial resource a way to compensate the decline of seigneurial rents. Finally, we should not omit other social layers (clerks and craftsmen, for example) that employed public annuities

8 Orti Gost and Verdés Pijuan (2016: 200–201, 203–204).

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as a means of protection face to adversities (widowhood or orphanhood), as a pension for old age or for pious uses.9 A last aspect that explains the expansion of public debt, and perhaps the most important one, was the stability of financial market. This stability was the result of several concurrent factors that contributed to the preservation of investors’ confidence. One of them was the moral justification of life-long and perpetual annuities in front of accusations of usury. From the mid-fourteenth century, there were discussions about the moral legality of these instruments that, however, were never officially considered as usurious transactions. The resource to annuities was criticized by some moralists and on some occasions their purchasers were accused of usury, for instance, when annual payments were required in cereal coinciding with frumentary shortages. Or there was not a formal opposition by the Church, that, indeed, did not hesitate to impose spiritual penalties on defaulting debtors. In addition, as we said, the same clergy or charities were especially interested in this kind of incomes to fund their pious works.10 Another important factor for the diffusion of the financial instruments under study was the juridical security assured by the general legislation of each territory composing the Crown of Aragon. Despite the absence of general rules for the whole domains, from the mid-fourteenth century several legal dispositions appeared in order to protect annuities’ purchasers. In Catalonia, the best studied case in this sense, in 1363 a constitution of Corts (parliament) interdicted any authority, even the king, to interfere in the perception of interests, as well it prevented creditors from the obligation to renounce totally or partially to their rights.11 The uncompleted legal integration of the domains of the Crown was counterbalanced by the hierarchization of the public debt market and the coercion exerted by the authorities of the regional capitals. In this respect, Barcelona played an important part, since it was a first order financial hub within the Crown and its municipal government reacted against defaulting institutions, applying the law of reprisal, embargos and other aggressive measures. Other capital cities like Valencia or Zaragoza,

9 Verdés Pijuan (2015: 256–261), Viciano (2018: 932–945), and Furió (2021: 11). 10 Verdés Pijuan (2015: 247–249). 11 Turull Rubinat and Verdés Pijuan (1999) and Verdés Pijuan (2015: 264–267).

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and even some smaller places, did the same.12 Last but not least, another question behind the strength of the markets and investors’ confidence was the monetary stability. Unlike some close territories, the Aragonese kings did not impose important monetary devaluations, because the monarchy had lost, to great extent, the control over currency in Catalonia and in the kingdom of Aragon.13 This fact, combined with the aforementioned debility of the sovereign to impose his own forms of taxation, guaranteed the value of annuities during the most part of the Late Middle Ages and, at the same time, the quietness of investors in front of the royal arbitrariness.

3

The Consolidation of Municipal Tax Systems

Within this context, the expansion of public debt took place led, firstly, by local communities. As announced, the continuous wars the kings of Aragon were implied from the end of the thirteenth century and until the end of the war of Castile in 1366 overwhelmed the mechanisms traditionally employed to fund military expenses. Successive conflicts against the majority of nearby territories in Western Mediterranean and the Iberian peninsula showed the limitations of fiscal instruments employed by the monarchy to compensate its absence of patrimonial incomes.14 Seeing the increasing fiscal pressure, municipal governments resorted for the first time to new financial tools. The Annuities as War Weapons Until then, urban authorities had employed short- or mid-term loans in order to cope with fiscal demands or other communal needs. Or the urgency, volume and increasing number of royal demands pushed local governments, lacking own patrimonies or territories under their rule, to issue life-long and perpetual annuities. During the 1330s, first issues by Catalan and Aragonese municipalities are documented. Roughly speaking, two different patterns can be identified with respect to the decision to sell

12 Morelló Baget (2007), Verdés Pijuan (2007), Sesma Muñoz (2015), and Viciano (2018). 13 Crusafont et al. (2013: 109–171) and Feliu Montfort (2016a). 14 Sánchez Martínez (1995), Sánchez Martínez et al. (2008), and Furió (2015).

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annuities as a form of collective debt. On some occasions, it appears that it was a strategy adopted in an autonomous manner and resulting from local needs such as those life-long annuities sold by the town of Cervera before 1332 or, specifically, Fraga, la Fresneda, Monroyo or the Comunidad de Aldeas of Calatayud or in a similar period by several rural communities in Aragon.15 In parallel, the royal initiative was equally decisive. Indeed, a campaign promoted by the king Peter the Ceremonious (1336–1387) to attract resources for the conquest of the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya gave place to the first general series of annuities’ emissions by small towns within royal domains between the years 1343 and 1344.16 Within the same context, cities like Girona and Barcelona also sold for the first time these instruments.17 On balance, military needs were crucial in this phenomenon. Not surprisingly, by the mid-fifteenth century, when the mechanisms had become fully consolidated, the municipal authorities of Girona asserted that censals (perpetual annuities) were authentic offensive war weapons.18 Certainly, the central decades of the fourteenth century were the period when annuities issued as public debt were adopted in the vast majority of municipalities of the peninsular territories of the Crown. In Catalonia, as indicated, some issues are already documented in the 1330s and in all royal cities and towns during the following decade. Around 1365, the strategy was generalized beyond urban centres affecting tiny rural communities under different types of jurisdiction.19 In the kingdom of Valencia, several issues took place during the 1350s, concretely: leaving some isolated and unclear cases aside, in 1350 in Castelló de la Plana, in 1351 in Alzira, in 1352 in Alpont, in 1356 in the city of Valencia itself and, three years later, in Gandia.20 In the case of Majorca, first operations are attested in its capital in 1355.21 Regarding the kingdom of Aragon, there are the sporadic mentions of small place commented before, even

15 Verdés Pijuan (2009), Diago Hernando (2006) and Laliena Corbera (2014). 16 Sánchez Martínez (2006). 17 Guilleré (1993: 249–255) and Orti Gost (2007). 18 Reixach Sala (2019: I, 292–293). 19 Orti Gost (1999), Reixach Sala (2020) and Sánchez Martínez (2009a. 20 Furió (2018). 21 Cateura Bennàsser (2009).

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though the city of Saragossa did not sell public debt through the analysed mechanisms until the year 1364.22 It is important to stress that these issues were initially adopted as a transitory measure: after the emergencies, most of local governments tried to redeem all the sold annuities. Nevertheless, in the specific case of Catalonia, the uninterrupted succession of contributions to Sardinian campaigns from 1353, with a special implication by royal communities, led to new issues in masse that made short-term cancellations impossible. This trend was intensified because of the important fiscal pressure deriving from the War against Castille (1356–1366) and further expeditions by Peter the Ceremonious and his sons alternated with efforts to defend the peninsular territories. They were also combined with the expensive works on city walls and communal needs such as cereal provision. After all, the causes that motivated new annuities issues practically every two or three years did not stop until the beginning of the fifteenth century.23 Similar circumstances also implied that the municipalities of the kingdoms of Valencia, Mallorca and Aragon, sooner or later, experienced indebtedness processes that became structural. There is evidence on it in all three territories. For instance, the volume of the interests paid by the municipal government of Valencia was multiplied by four between the exercises of the years 1367–1368 and 1399–1400.24 In the City of Majorca, as early as 1359 some reforms were intended to contain interest payments by transforming life-long annuities into perpetual annuities at a lower rate. Despite that, the debt increased during the following decades: around 23% between 1372 and 1390.25 In Aragon, local communities adopted later these credit instruments and in cities like Zaragoza annuities issues did not conditionate the municipal finances until the beginning of the 1370 s.26

22 Abella Samitier (2009), Lafuente Gómez (2014, 2016), Laliena Corbera (2018), and Sánchez Martínez (2009a). 23 Sánchez Martínez (2009a). 24 García Marsilla (2002: 270–271). 25 Cateura Bennàsser (2009) and Urgell Hernández (2015). 26 Lafuente Gómez (2016, 2019).

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From Regular Taxes to First Public Banks The effect of the issues of life-long and perpetual annuities by local authorities were really important, firstly, with regard to the development of the municipal treasuries themselves. Since the emissions succeeded rapidly, in Catalonia from the mid-1350s and later in the rest of territories, the debt became irredeemable and regular taxes under control of municipal governments consolidated.27 These indirect taxes, known as imposicions, ajudes or sises, were levied on the consumption and circulation of many products by many municipalities. Thanks to royal permissions, they did it during concrete periods at the end of the thirteenth century and, mainly, the decades of 1320 and 1330. From the mid-1350s onwards, the product of collection of these taxes were consigned to the payment of the interests produced by the sale of annuities. In some towns, the importance of the inseparable duo debt-indirect taxes gave place to the creation of specific departments within the municipal treasuries exclusively devoted to managing annuities.28 In so doing, long-term debt was key to consolidate the functioning of municipal finances. It favoured, as well, that municipalities acquired important degrees of autonomy only comparable to those observed in other European territories like the Flemish cities or some centres in the Germanic Empire.29 Yet, despite the mechanisms developed in all Iberian domains of Crown from the mid-1350s onwards, the accumulated debt became a huge problem for municipal governments. Fiscal demands and other causes for annuities emissions during the last decades of the fourteenth century, on some occasions deriving from urgent necessities and assuming interest rates comparatively high, brought about real episodes of excessive indebtedness. In few words, in several places the incomes from fiscal collection, mainly from indirect taxes, were not enough to face the annual payments of annuities and it was not possible to envisage redemptions of the onerous ones. Delays in these liquidations to creditors or even non-payments inevitably led to conflict. Therefore, municipal authorities sought to reverse the imbalance between incomes and expenses. One of the most frequent strategies dealt with the increasing of the tariffs of some taxes during concrete periods, a 27 Turull Rubinat et al. (1996). 28 Sánchez Martínez (2009a). 29 Sánchez Martínez (2003b).

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measure that generated protests in many places. At the same time, some local governments contacted professional financers that had to provide more efficiency in the application of theses mechanisms. In parallel, there were many attempts to issue new annuities at a lower interest rate and, specially, to reduce the rates of the current ones. It was possible thanks to negotiations with creditors or through more coercive methods.30 Very often, these agreements implied that the control of many fiscal resources of the municipality was ceded to the owners of annuities. At any rate, between the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the following one, several Catalan towns were on the verge of financial turmoil.31 Throughout the fifteenth century, few Aragonese communities also suffered from the effects of indebtedness, frequently arising from operations by the respective jurisdictional lords.32 More consequences even had the successive agreements reached by the representatives of Majorca with its creditors, most of them from Catalonia. Beyond the particularities of the political composition of this kingdom that we will see below, between 1392 and 1431, several royal edicts, contracts and concords were signed, but their results were uneven with respect to the reduction of the volume of debt and the dependence to foreign capitals.33 Within this framework, the most effective strategy to cope with interest payments consisted of the creation of public banks guaranteed by the wealth of all neighbours. It consisted of a financial solution that avoided increasing fiscal pressure. The city of Barcelona was pioneer in this regard with the foundation of the Taula de Canvi assegurada de la Ciutat de Barcelona or Taula de Canvi i de comuns dipòsits in 1401.34 It is actually considered the first banking institution with these features in Europe, even before the Banco di San Giorgio in Genoa35 The bank was created in order to reduce the long-term debt of the municipality. For this purpose, the institution had to receive compulsorily in deposit all the capitals immobilized by court order or related to testamentary executors, tutors or other similar juridical figures. These forced deposits were complemented 30 Verdés Pijuan (2004, 2012). 31 Orti Gost and Verdés Pijuan (2016: 213–220). 32 Sesma Muñoz (2015). 33 Morelló Baget (2007) and Urgell Hernández (2015). 34 Orti Gost (2007) and Feliu Montfort (2016b). 35 Feliu Montfort (2016b), Miquel Milian (2021).

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with voluntary deposits by any particular. The sums deposited in the bank could only be used to fund at zero interest the municipal treasury and, as soon as it was possible, to employ some amounts to redeem sold annuities. Although at a first stage it supposed that the municipality’s debt with respect to the bank became huge, the problem was solved consigning to the Taula the incomes from the regular indirect taxes and other rents or domains under control of the municipal government. By the mid-fifteenth century, these measures were clearly successful. Documents attest that the bank had progressively accumulated more capitals while the long-term debt of the municipality was reduced.36 In the city of Valencia, several measures were also intended to cancel debts and, finally, in 1407 a municipal public bank was also founded. Or it closed nine years later.37 There is unclear evidence on the opening of an analogous institution in Perpinyà. By contrast, in Girona, in spite of a royal concession for a public bank that, in fact, derived from a negotiation of a contribution to the queen Maria of Castile (1416–1458), an entity like this was not finally opened until a century later, in 1568. Indeed, it was during the sixteenth century that the vast majority of municipal public banks were born throughout the Crown of Aragon, definitively in Valencia, as well as in Majorca and in Zaragoza, apart from other Catalan towns such as Tarragona, Vic, Tortosa, Lleida and Cervera.38

4 The Creation of the diputacions del General or Representative Institutions of Each Territory We have seen that the war and fiscal demands were key to the development of municipal finances and, in short, the consolidation of the government institutions of local communities. A similar dynamic also explains the fact that the representatives of the estates gathered in Corts assumed a major control of these entities in each Iberian territory of the Crown of Aragon.

36 Orti Gost (2007). 37 Mayordomo García-Chicote (2002: 63–69). 38 Passola (1999).

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The Precedents of Commissions of the Corts General taxation was not a new phenomenon by the mid-fourteenth century. Regarding the specific case of Catalonia, for instance, scholars have shown that it was the result of a long-lasting dynamic that began in the reign of Peter the Great (1276–1285). During this period, it was agreed that taxes of general scope always required the consent of the estates, that means extraordinary taxation that pretended to affect beyond the strict limits of the patrimonial domains of the monarchy had to materialize through the negotiation within general assemblies, where the features of these taxes were decided. At the same time, the addressee of the final collection would not be the specific royal figure but the whole political community, referred in sources to as General. Consequently, the management of the process had to be assumed by commissions elected by the representatives of each estate. It was through this mechanism that, during the reign of Alfonso the Liberal (1285–1291) and the first half of that of James II (1291–1327), several subsidies were granted. Those commissions created for the subsidies of 1289 and 1292 stand out from the rest. This trend, however, deaccelerated at the beginning of the fourteenth century as a result of the incapacity of the monarchs to obtain general donations. It did not change until the year 1356, when the war against Castile broke out.39 Unlike precedent conflicts since the end of the thirteenth century, the war begun against the neighbour crown of Castile represented a real menace for the peninsular territories of the kings of Aragon and to defend them new forms of military contributions had to be developed and so forms of funding. These needs gave back to the estates’ assemblies and their representatives an important role. General subsidies to the monarchy were inevitability again under their supervision. During the successive Corts celebrated for each territory from the beginning of the war in 1356, those commissions emanated from the representatives of the estates, generally known as diputacions, increased their control over the amounts promised and the fiscal and financial instruments adopted. In Aragon, first steps in this direction took place in the Cortes of Cariñena in 1357. In Valencia, in the assembly celebrated in the same capital between the years 1357 and 1358.40 Finally, the gathering of Catalan estates hold 39 Sánchez Martínez (2011) and Baydal Sala (2021). 40 Sesma Muñoz (1979, 1989).

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in Cervera in 1359 opened the road for Catalonia.41 By contrast, the particular place of the kingdom of Majorca within the political conglomerate of the Crown of Aragon and its internal discontinuity implied that during those years, like precedent periods, no assembly was celebrated. As a result, this kingdom did not start any own way in this respect, and it did not develop a representative institution comparable to those of other territories.42 Generally speaking, the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, as well as the principality of Catalonia, had already experienced with general subsidies based on taxes levied on all the communities under any kind of jurisdiction and managed by commissions elected by the general assemblies. Or when the king Peter the Cruel of Castile resumed hostilities against his Aragonese homologous in the year 1362 General Corts were convened in Monzón. The aim of the monarch was to ask for a subsidy by the three peninsular territories and the kingdom of Majorca, which had to contribute along with Catalonia. Apart from the exact distribution of the promised amounts, the most important novelty of the assembly that took place between the years 1362 and 1363 was the design of a new group of indirect taxes, called generalitats. Excepting for some particularities, these taxes laid the foundation of the tax systems under control of the diputacions of each territory. At an initial stage, these taxes were conceived to be levied taking into account the borders of the whole Iberian domains of the Crown considered as a single economic and fiscal space, but during the following years their features were adapted and their scope reduced to the frontiers of each kingdom or principality.43 In addition, all the territories witnessed different dynamics for the development of specific tax mechanisms and, mainly, the adoption of financial resources to facilitate quick payments in cash before slow collection processes.44

41 Sánchez Martínez (2011). 42 Planas Rosselló (2021). 43 Sesma Muñoz (1983). 44 Sánchez Martínez et al. (2008).

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The Issues of Annuities by the Diputacions or Commissions of the Corts The principal strategy to nimbly gather the required sums dealt with the issue of life-long and perpetual annuities as a form of public debt. Certainly, the diputacions del General of each territory resorted to these financial instruments similarly to the municipalities and, as we will see, other institutions. Concretely, they did it successively from 1365 onwards. That year, first operations of this kind by the representatives of the Diputació del General of Catalonia are attested. Like the local treasuries, the emission of annuities had fundamental impact on the evolution of the representative institutions of each territory as long as they obliged to perpetuate taxes that became permanent until the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Corts convened for Catalan estates in Tortosa in 1365, within the framework of the urgent necessities of the war against Castile, decided, among other issues of complex subsidy, the sale of annuities consigned to the General or political community formed by the inhabitants of the principality. In practical terms, the interests of these bonds had to be paid through the collection of indirect taxes that we will discuss later and other extraordinary taxes under control of the representative institution.45 In successive assemblies of the years 1365–1366, 1368–1369, 1371 and 1374, the deputies of the General of Catalonia accorded again the issue of annuities to satisfy contributions in an immediate way.46 Throughout the following decades and the fifteenth century, new series of issues are attested. Simultaneously, several initiatives to reduce the interest rates were implemented and they tended to decline until 6.25 or 4.54% by 1430. Nonetheless, an in-depth analysis is still pending for these operations in the fifteenth century. The second diputació that issued annuities was that of the kingdom of Aragon. The first time coincided with the general Cortes of Monzón in 1376. The payment of the capital interest, like in Catalonia, had to rely on indirect taxes. To some extent, there was also the prevision of progressive redemptions. Yet in few years, the interests hogged incomes. It led Aragonese representatives to devise three successive reforms in the years 1398, 1436 and 1488. The general aim of them was to cancel the most 45 Sánchez Martínez (2009b). 46 Sánchez Martínez (2013).

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onerous annuities through new issues at a lower rate. It was combined with the introduction of transitory new taxes and a general policy devoted to reducing expenses.47 The General of kingdom of Valencia did not adopt the strategy of the deputies of Catalonia and Aragon until the year 1390. The pattern had to be similar to the aforementioned cases with respect to the satisfaction of interest thanks to indirect taxes. Compared to the other territories, the system seems to be more effective, at least before the first quarter of the fifteenth century. Until then, the annual payments were sold on time and annuities were redeemed after seven years of their sale. It did not prevent from the fact the interests that were paid doubled from the year 1418 to 1480.48 The Creation of a New General Taxation Apart from the Monarchy As announced, one of the bases of the tax systems developed by the representative institutions of each territory were indirect taxes. To begin with, it is important to stress that in Catalonia and Valencia this apparatus did not reduce to taxes levied on the circulation through the borders of both territories, but had a double axis: on the one hand, indirect taxes on the manufacturing and commerce of textile products; on the other hand, custom duties on a wide range of merchandises perceived in different border enclaves, both inland and maritime. Focusing first on the Catalan Diputació del General, we observe that among taxes on textile, called generalitats del drap, two figures were distinguished: the bolla de plom, which was levied on the manufacture of fabrics according to their quality, and the dret del segell de cera, a general tax of 10% on the value of resales and a 5% tax on consumption-oriented purchases. The taxes for external commerce were called drets d’entrades i eixides and consisted, in short, of a general amount ad valorem of 0.8%. All these figures perceived by the deputies of Catalonia were introduced in the Corts of Tortosa of 1365 following the precedent of the cited Corts of Monzón of 1362–1363. Despite the apparent continuity, some tariffs were modified from the end of the fourteenth century. If we

47 Sesma Muñoz (2015), De la Torre Gonzalo (2022). 48 Muñoz Pomer (1987, 1992, 1997).

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look at the subsidy granted in the Corts of Barcelona of 1481, we note that the general tax on the commercialization of cloths had increased from 10 to 15%, whereas that levied on imports and exports had grown from 0.83% on the price to 1.66%. The most frequent form of management of these taxes was their triennial lending in different packs. In the case of textile taxes, they took as reference several fiscal districts. Under different circumstances, the direct appointment of collectors was preferred.49 Concerning the kingdom of Valencia, the double apparatus similar to that of Catalonia developed later, specifically in the genenral Corts of Monzón of 1388–1389. It was based, firstly, on taxes on textiles, the socalled tall del drap, and also on taxes on foreign trade, known as tretes. The taxes levied on clothes became an ordinary income for the Diputació in 1404. Their features were consolidated in 1432 when the tax rate was set at 8.75%. The collection founded on three large circumscriptions with minor subdivisions.50 With regard to the kingdom of Aragon, the taxation system controlled by the Diputación of the General only dealt with taxes on imports and exports out of this territory. In the Cortes of Zaragoza of 1364, the general conditions approved in the aforementioned Cortes of Monzón finished the year before were readjusted. This way a general tax of 5% of the value of all goods that left the kingdom was established, whereas, at a first stage, only the entry of wine was taxed. Since 1376, though, there was a general tax of 20% on the import of clothes and in the Cortes of 1398–1399 another one of 1.25% on all entries into the kingdom. Therefore in 1414, both taxes on imports and exports were set, specially those affecting wool, wheat and livestock, basic items for the Aragonese commerce. A new turning point was in 1419, when several rates were modified, leaving, however, the general tax of 5% as the main reference. All these custom tariffs were collected through a network of collecting points located both in border towns and in the main urban centres in the kingdom. The territory was divided into several districts. The leasing to well-off investors was the most usual strategy of collection, exception for some specific periods.51

49 Berthe (1958), Sánchez Martínez (2003a), Riera Melis (2010), Orti Gost (2011). 50 Muñoz Pomer (1997). 51 Sesma Muñoz (1976, 2001).

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5 The Indebtedness Through Annuities by Other Institutions The huge burden acquired by life-long and perpetual annuities in the finances of the municipalities and its key role in the making of the diputacions of the General of each territory should not hide the importance of these financial instruments adopted by other institutions from the midfourteenth century onwards. All them fuelled an active financial market from that moment. If we refer to public debt, first actor to mention must undoubtedly be the monarchy. Though it is a subject pending to further studies, it seems evident that the successive Aragonese kings resorted to the issue of annuities just in exceptional cases and practically always in an indirect manner. In Catalonia or Valencia, for instance, from the first half of the fourteenth century, so before the consolidation of the debt issued by municipal governments, kings attempted three-way operations with municipalities and wealthy creditors. In these cases, the monarchy pawned a certain seignorial income to the lender in exchange of an annual payment at an interest rate between 7 and 8%. This rent, however, was not directly paid by the crown, but by a community or group of communities that dued the tax ceded to the creditor.52 During the fifteenth century, a more sophisticated mechanism was implemented implying the pawn of royal patrimony to municipal governments as a form of annuity, whose annual payment was satisfied to their authorities through the theoretical transfer of rents (batllies, terços of tithes, the quema and further incomes) with an equivalent value. Beyond previous experiences, operations undertaken by the kings Alfonso the Magnanimous (1416–1458) and John II (1458–1479) with the cities of Barcelona and Valencia stand out from the rest. Its local governments got to control the most part of incomes managed by the general batllies in their respective territories.53 Finally, there is also evidence from the mid-fourteenth century of the extraordinary consignment of royal rents by monarchs or the royal households to private financers as a form of the issue of an annuity, but the specific mechanisms in this regard deserve in-depth investigation.54 At any rate,

52 Sánchez Martínez (2006), Mira Jódar (1996), and Saguer (2020). 53 Hernández (1996) and Küchler (1997). 54 Ferrer Mallol and Vela Aulesa (2014–2015) and Ruiz Domingo (2022; 189–220).

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the debt issued by the Aragonese monarchy cannot be compared to that by the municipalities or the diputacions and it did not have a comparable impact. Allegedly, the main reasons for that were the limited fiscal capacity of the successive kings and the low creditworthiness they inspired among private investors. The particular case of kingdom of Majorca represents another example of how the public debt market got diversified in the investigated area. As indicated, the specificities of this insular territory prevented it from the development of a representative institution comparable to those described above. As a consequence, the public debt was actually split into the three different collective structures that represented the islands of Majorca, Minorca and Ibiza. Below them, each island had a complex internal composition formed by a general council with capacity to indebt, but also further subdivisions. For instance, in Majorca there was a specific organization, called Sindicat Forà, comprehending the communities apart from its capital, the City of Majorca. All that implied that these entities could separately issue annuities and they paid the resulting interests through indirect taxes or, when debt explicitly belonged to minor municipalities, mainly thanks to direct taxes. In this sense, there is no clear evidence of general taxes comparable to those perceived by the representative institutions of Catalonia, Valencia or Aragon. Yet the influence of the respective capitals of each island implied that taxes levied by their municipal authorities on maritime commerce and other activities had practically a general scope.55 Another type of entity that resorted to the sale of annuities were manors and their jurisdictional lords. Like city councils, seigneurial powers throughout the Crown of Aragon resorted to the issue of lifelong annuities and, specially, perpetual annuities to cope with general or royal demands, as well the obligation of military service and other personal needs of lords. In all case the local communities were, ultimately, those that sold annuities and had to face creditors’ pressures in case of non-payments. Thanks to the study of financial difficulties experienced by many of these manors from the end of the fourteenth their level of indebtedness becomes evident.56

55 Cateura Bennàsser (2008, 2009, 2019), Mayol i Llompart (2009), Morro Veny (2001), and Morelló Baget (2009a, 2009b). 56 Verdés Pijuan (2015), Sesma Muñoz (2015), and Viciano (2018).

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Jewish and Muslim communities placed in all Iberian territories of the Crown, both under royal or seignorial jurisdiction, were other entities that issued life-long and perpetual annuities. In parallel to municipal governments, their authorities did it to cope with royal or other lords’ demands, as well as communal needs. The cases of the Jewish communities in the cities of Barcelona, Perpignan, Girona and Tortosa are well studied. As for the Muslim ones, the case of the last city is known along with others in the kingdom of Valencia, but especially that in Zaragoza.57 Other institutions that resorted to annuities were the merchant guilds developed in the most important cities of the Crown, mainly the Consolat de Mar of Barcelona. Its representatives sold a great number of perpetual annuities during the fifteenth century in order to promote and defend the commercial interests of Barcelonese merchant groups. The debt was paid through and indirect tax, conveniently authorized by the king, called dret del pariatge.58 Finally, as we have seen, the Church played an important role as creditor, so beneficiary of annuities issued by other institutions or particulars. Nevertheless, it is also attested that some monasteries, convents and other ecclesiastical entities sold annuities to gather capitals needed for different uses. Although the phenomenon has not been systemically analysed, several examples have been identified in Catalonia, for instance, the Benedictine monasteries of Poblet or Montserrat and charities (pies almoines ) of the cathedrals of Lleida and Barcelona.59 A special mention deserves the emission of annuities done during the first decade of the fifteenth century by the antipope Benedict XIII (1394–1423), also known as Pope Luna. This pontifex issued long-term debt to fund their political campaign within the Western Schism by consigning the annuities to the rents of the Apostolic Chamber of the Crown of Aragon.60 Military orders and, specifically, the Knights Hospitaller proceeded similarly. From the year 1426, many annuities are documented as sold to citizens of Barcelona in order to organize the defence of the island of Rhodes face to the Mameluke menace and, later, that of Ottoman Turkish.61 57 Verdés Pijuan (2015) and Viciano (2018). 58 Maccioni (2019: 169–182). 59 Verdés Pijuan (2015). 60 Morelló Baget (2011–2013). 61 Bonneaud (2012).

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Conclusion: A(Nother) Financial Revolution?

We have described how the public debt got consolidated in most of the spheres of the Iberian territories of the Crown of Aragon in the Later Middle Ages, and we have argued it should be considered the most characteristic feature of the fiscal transition that took place during this period. Although a complete quantification is still pending, first approaches to general volume of the debt sold in part of the domains of the Aragonese monarchy prove the magnitude of the phenomenon and the impact it had on their financial structures.62 There is also a lack of studies to precisely assess the role of annuities within the context of the political and military competition of the Crown of Aragon in Late Mediaeval Western Europe, but it is evident that these financial annuities were drivers for its vigorous expansion in the Mediterranean.63 Lastly, the evolution of public debt in the long run deserves more attention. However, no one would dispute the solidity of a system that survived until the eighteenth century in parallel to the political institutions that articulated it.64 At any rate, among the questions that remain unanswered, there is an aspect really interesting from the comparative viewpoint this chapter deals with. It is the position occupied by the Aragonese public debt within the ‘genealogy’ that during the last decades several scholars have tried to trace for the so-called “financial revolution” that took place in England with the Glorious Revolution of 1688.65 With no pretense at completeness, the reconstruction of this ‘genealogy’ began with the studies by J. Tracy on the public debt issued by the Dutch Republic during the sixteenth century, which is generally considered as the direct precedent of the English revolution.66 Nonetheless, J. Munro was the first author to offer a general view on this subject taking into account the most part of European territories. With the purpose to identify the roots of the phenomenon in the Late Middle Ages, he examined different cases in the light of the elements Dickson used to definite the idea of ‘revolution’,

62 Orti Gost and Verdés Pijuan (2016), Viciano (2018), and Furió (2018). 63 Küchler (1997). 64 Ena Sanjuan (2021). 65 Dickson (1967). 66 Tracy (1985). See also Hart (1991, 1997), Fritschy (2003), and Gelderblom and Jonker (2004).

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that is: the emission of negotiable annuities or rents, that were voluntary acquired by creditors and guaranteed by the ‘national’ estates (not personally by the prince). They had also to be funded with specific taxes, legally guaranteed in case of political unfairness and, finally, negotiable in a secondary market. According to Munro, the cases documented in the sixteenth century (Holland, France and Spain) did not strictly meet all the cited conditions, neither the Italian city states did it when they attempted several forms of public debt from the twelfth century onwards. Despite all that, during the Late Middle Ages few cases of the use of different forms of consolidated public debt can be documented, since they evaded the prohibitions of usury and laid the foundation for a later financial development.67 Some years later, M. Fratrianni and F. Spinelli shared a similar view focusing on the three main Italian city states: Venice, Genoa and Florence. These scholars, though, avoided the use of the term financial ‘revolution’ as they considered it inaccurate and preferred that of ‘evolution’. They added there was not a unique pattern of ‘evolution’, but it differed according to each institution. From this standpoint, they argued the contributions made by the aforementioned city states in the thirteenth century to this evolution. They did it paying attention to the elements identified as ‘revolutionary’ by historians in the English Glorious Revolution: the commitment mechanisms, public banks and financial and monetary innovations. In this regard, they pointed out the financial development reached by the Italian cases in the Middle Ages, in spite of their evident limits and the political demise that masked their later influence.68 A successive key study by J. Zuijderduijn sought the mediaeval roots of ‘financial revolutions’ in the county of Holland, concretely in the first general issue of annuities by the States of Holland in 1515. Reviewing extraordinary experiences of collective indebtedness by towns in this county from the end of the thirteenth, he identified the reasons for the reorganisation of province-wide public debt system. He asserted that it was mainly due to the crises experienced by ‘decentralized’ public debt issued by municipalities at the end of the fifteenth century and the need to avoid negative effects on urban commerce by the application of the law of reprisal. He also noticed this new model reinforced the links between the

67 Munro (2003, 2013). 68 Fratianni and Spinelli (2006).

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sovereign and public bodies.69 Lastly, among other studies, we can look at that by J. Haemers on the county of Flanders. Apart from his critics to the teleological discussion about the concept of ‘financial revolution’ and his preference for the term ‘financial evolution’, he challenges some conclusions by the cited Zuijderduijn, specially with respect to the exceptionality of the sixteenth-century experience of the county of Holland compared to that of Flanders during the 1480s. In this case, however, drivers were not only economic, but also political, since Flemish Estates voluntarily pretended to enlarge the control by representative institutions over central government in the context of a financial crisis arising from a revolt against the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Nonetheless, the initiative failed, and it cannot be qualified as a successful ‘financial revolution’.70 As we have tried to prove, the case of the Crown of Aragon can fit into most of the general trends documented in other European areas during the Later Middle Ages. Nevertheless, we do not consider pertinent referring to ‘financial revolution’ to present the developments registered in the Iberian territories under the kings of Aragon during the studied period; at least we do not consider it stricto sensu and following the parameters established by Dickson, Munro or Fratrianni-Spinelli, among others. Certainly, the appearance of public debt issued by the estates in a collective manner is already documented in the second half of the fourteenth century. It was along with the creation of general taxes to fund it and the making of representative institutions, the Diputacions del General, in Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia, that progressively acquired political power to the detriment of the king. Yet there was not a unique public debt, but every territory composing the Crown had its own debt. It was, then, a ‘decentralized’ public debt as a result of the particular political structure of the Aragonese crown, as well as it implied different public bodies since the indebtedness of municipal governments and other coetaneous entities grew simultaneously. Similarly, as indicated, there was legislation willing to protect the vested interests of creditors, even in front of possible arbitrariness of the monarchy. Following the statements by D. North and B. Weingast, this circumstance reinforced the creditworthiness and solvency of

69 Zuijderduijn (2010). 70 Haemers (2015).

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Aragonese institutions.71 However, the strong opposition of the state assemblies (Corts) against any royal arbitrariness and the coercion exerted by the political and financial capitals of the Crown, that is Barcelona and Valencia, also increased the confidence in public debt. It would confirm this way the thesis by D. Stasavage.72 In parallel, we cannot omit the pressures by the political and economic elites, including the Church, that was also one of the main beneficiaries of the system and even protected annuities through spiritual guarantees.73 Notwithstanding, the system was fragmented due to the particular political and jurisdictional composition of the Crown of Aragon. This structure possibly was a limit for the attraction of international investors, but it worked, after all, receiving internal capitals from a wide range of social sectors. Last but not least, financial innovations and the important development of credit were a reality following the sharp rise of public debt by the mid-fourteenth century. Among other manifestations of this development, there is the progressive reduction of interest rates in the different territories of the Crown from the end of the fourteenth century onwards. It is comparable or even major than the trends registered in other places of Europe at the same moment.74 The formation of a strong secondary market is also a significant indicator. Despite the absence of insightful research, it apparently worked very fluidly and, thanks to the negotiability of annuities, contributed to counterbalance the limitations of the monetary system. Not in vain, millions of solidos circulated throughout the Aragonese Crown feeding the financial circuits. Additionally, the creation of first municipal public banks, with the pioneer example of Barcelona in 1401, gave place to a fundamental basis for all public and private agents in the territories under investigation. On balance, the aforementioned elements were key for the political expansion and economic growth of the Crown of Aragon. Or they were not enough to transform it into a real case of success and fully assumed by international scholarly literature.75 The subordination to the Habsburg Empire from the beginning of the sixteenth century is probably the main 71 North and Weingast (1989). 72 Stasavage (2011, 2015). 73 Verdés Pijuan (2015). 74 Schmelzing (2020). 75 Furió (2015).

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reason for the limited attention the early Aragonese case has deserved. Consequently, its possible influence on later Habsburg institutions has not been explored. Only J. Munro suggested a relationship between the analysed system and the public debt adopted by the Crown of Castile at the end of the fifteenth century with the financial instruments called juros al quitar.76 This question, though, overpasses the aims of this chapter and should be the object of further research.

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Why Holland Had a Financial Revolution, but Flanders and Brabant Did not Marjolein ’t Hart

The state finances of the Dutch Republic were exceptionally efficient during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although many larger absolutist states possessed more resources, few managed to weather wars and political crises without running into serious financial difficulties. Even in 1672, when the Northern Netherlands had to fight wars with England, France, Munster and Cologne simultaneously, the financing of the Dutch army and navy continued unabated. The Netherlands’ adversaries, by contrast, were confronted with mutinies and state bankruptcies, which eventually forced them to abandon their attacks.1 The ability to raise war loans rapidly constituted the crucial difference. Creditors were willing to invest in state debts when they knew beforehand that a regular resource of revenue would pay for the interest. Some states relied on steady flows from mining for that purpose. Spain and Portugal used silver and gold from the Americas to pay their creditors. Yet states 1 Israel (1995, 813).

M. Hart (B) Huygens Institute—VU, Amsterdam, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_14

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that did not have such resources needed an efficient, domestic tax system. Historians describe the ability to raise war loans on a broad domestic tax base as a Financial Revolution, leading to a ‘fiscal state’.2 Holland in the sixteenth century and England in the eighteenth century constituted telling examples of states following a certain path that eased the levying of manifold taxes: namely, the payment of interest upon public loans secured with revenues from tax duties, above all excises (taxes on consumer goods) that ensured a steady flow of state revenue. This enabled the contracting of large-scale public debts at relatively low rates of interest, since the investing public trusted the commitments made by the respective states.3 Thanks to the Financial Revolution, both the Dutch Republic and England emerged as powerful European states. Indeed, the inhabitants of the Dutch Republic were subject to exceptionally high rates of per capita taxation and public debts.4 Historians and social scientists have explained this with reference to the high degree of commercialization and the large proportion of inhabitants living in towns, rendering the Netherlands a prime example of ‘capital-intensive’ state formation. Others have pointed to the high degree of ‘inclusive’ state formation, that is to say, the rather high level of involvement by non-state actors in political processes relating to tax payments.5 Those in power often had active careers in finance and commerce, or at least their forebears did. The exceptional economic growth of the Golden Age, despite the long and expensive war against Spain, was not only due to extensive commercial relations, but also to the Financial Revolution and the concomitant military logistics that supported local commercial interests. Most of all, these arrangements ensured that military contractors and soldiers were paid on time, either by taxes or by loans. The ensuing commercialization of war resulted in the substantial enrichment of towns with garrisons or admiralty establishments.6

2 Brewer (1989), Dominguez (2019, 18). 3 Dickson (1967), Tracy (1985). Tracy’s thesis has been adapted in minor respects

(Fritschy, 2003; Gelderblom & Jonker, 2004), yet the fundamental notion underlying the thesis still stands. 4 ’t Hart (1993, 150). 5 Glete (2002), Prak & Van Zanden (2006), Tilly (1992). 6 ’t Hart (2014).

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Urban settings provided an advantageous starting position for latemediaeval and early modern states. The high degree of commercialization and urbanization eased the flow of rapid resource mobilization. States with relatively low rates of urbanization, such as France, profited from the presence of vast resources in powerful cities such as Paris and Lyons. Yet there was a danger that royal control over capital cities such as these would curb public trust in state finances. Monarchs, after all, were tempted to look for quick and easy solutions when under threat of war. Unexpected new taxes were imposed at will; rates of interest upon public loans could be altered arbitrarily; the payment of interest was sometimes even halted altogether; and the value of coins was manipulated in order to pay soldiers with less cash or lower the existing burden of public debt, measures that hurt the business of virtually all traders and bankers.7 Town authorities in densely urbanized districts, such as in the Low Countries,8 were able to prevent random princely incursions into their finances thanks to the overarching impact of urban interests in the economy. They maintained control over the collection and management of numerous taxes and loans. This also explains Dutch trust in public loans, the willingness to pay taxes, and the strong interrelationship between private and state finances. However, the question remains: why did the Northern Netherlands develop such efficient state finance machinery, unlike the institutions of the Southern Netherlands, which came to lag behind in this respect? After all, the prospects for the powerful provinces of Flanders and Brabant had appeared much better than those for the North in the sixteenth century. Their cities enjoyed enormous leverage in international commerce and finance, much more so than Holland. The merchants and bankers of Holland paled by comparison with their Flemish and Brabant counterparts. State formation was even more ‘inclusive’ in the South, since artisan guilds enjoyed far more political power than in the North. 7 Bonney (1981, 20), Dominguez (2020, 20),’t Hart et al. (2018). 8 Territory: the term ‘Low Countries’ designates the territory of the Burgundian (1384–

1482) and Habsburg (1482–1581) overlords of these provinces between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. ‘Southern Netherlands’ constitutes the area that remained under Habsburg rule up until 1795. The ‘Northern Netherlands’ eventually became the Dutch Republic during the Eighty Years’ War. Flanders and Brabant were the most prominent provinces of the Southern Netherlands, whereas the Province of Holland dominated the Northern Netherlands. ‘Dutch’ refers to the territory of the Northern Netherlands and/or to Holland in particular.

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Without a doubt, Holland was still a rather peripheral European backwater by the end of the fifteenth century, and depended strongly upon the financial and trade networks of the southern provinces. However, during the Dutch Revolt and thereafter, Holland stood out among the constituent provinces of the North for its exceptionally efficient taxation and the ease with which it contracted state loans. Up until 1795, Holland’s institutions and Holland’s solutions saved the Dutch Republic from abject failure; Holland’s taxes enjoyed the highest yields; and Holland’s loans repeatedly acted as the last resort. The States General, which represented the constituent provinces, was always strongly influenced by Holland’s provincial government.9 This article explains the evolution of Holland’s exceptional state finances by way of a comparison with the contrasting path-dependent developments in sixteenth-century Flanders and Brabant. It starts by describing the various starting positions within the respective provincial estates, in which the towns, the nobility and sometimes also the clergy enjoyed representation. Significantly, efficient coalition-making in the South was hampered by inter-urban rivalry. The following section shows how urban communities in Holland managed to extend control over financial matters in the sixteenth century, resulting in much higher per capita taxation than in any other province of the Low Countries. By that time, a smooth system of contracting public loans was already in place. As a result, Holland entered the Revolt in a far better financial state than the other provinces, with a rather centralized provincial financial administration that could rise above the bickering of the individual constituent members of the province.

1

Inter-Urban Rivalries

Cities played a dominant role in the politics of the densely urbanized regions of the Low Countries, above all in Flanders, Brabant and Holland. As the territorial overlords had to raise taxes and loans to finance the continually expanding costs of warfare, funds that came above all from urban communities, town officials were in a position to demand privileges 9 Nijenhuis (2018). Provincial Estates: representation of nobility, clergy and towns at the provincial level. States General: representation of the provinces of the Low Countries, initially for the whole of the Low Countries, but later split into the States General for the Southern and Northern Netherlands, respectively.

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in return. In doing so, urban representatives gained more say in political decision-making within their own towns and within the province. The result was a rather high degree of autonomy for the most powerful cities and the increasing impact of the urban vote in the respective Provincial Estates. Driven by the late-mediaeval commercial revolution, the County of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant were trailblazers in this respect in North-western Europe. They copied urban institutions from the powerful cities of Northern Italy, such as banks and credit enforcing institutions.10 In both provinces, the larger cities had formed powerful coalitions against counts and dukes in the past. Time and again, they managed to demand stricter control over expenses through their representation in the Provincial Estates.11 The large cities thus dominated the political playing field in Brabant and Flanders, at the expense of the interests of the nobility and clergy.12 Minor urban agglomerations in Brabant, such as Lier, Diest, Nijvel, Jodoigne and Herentals, enjoyed political rights as well, including access to the meetings of the Provincial Estates. However, they found themselves deprived of these rights during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The failed revolt against the overlord Maximilian in the 1480s strengthened the position of the Habsburg prince and resulted in the subordination of the small towns to Leuven, Brussels, Antwerp and ’sHertogenbosch, the capital cities of the four districts of Brabant. Likewise, smaller urban agglomerations in Flanders came to be dominated by the powerful district capitals of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres. The smaller towns of the so-called Brugse Vrije (Bruges district) enjoyed a separate vote in the Flanders Estates, yet stood no chance against the much more powerful cities and were outvoted regularly.13 As a result, by the end of the fifteenth century the large Brabant and Flemish cities had gained substantial influence vis-à-vis the overlords, the nobility, the clergy and the smaller, non-represented towns. At the same 10 Caferro (2008, 207–208). 11 Blockmans (1978, 288), Dhondt (1965, 208), Van Uytven and Blockmans (1969,

413). 12 The clergy were represented in Brabant. The Flanders clergy initially had no position in the Provincial Estates, but they eventually gained a vote. They remained a rather weak political factor, in contrast to the Brabant clergy (Cloet, 1972). 13 Jacobs (2000, 565), Marnef (2004, 291), Van Uytven (2004b, 220–223).

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time, however, urban coalition-making was becoming weaker as the dominant cities became increasingly entangled in a complex inter-urban rivalry. The backlash against the continuously expanding autonomy of the most powerful cities also brought the threat of fragmentation of ‘power from below’. Inter-urban rivalry became more and more intense, and the overlords of Flanders and Brabant became increasingly successful in playing one city against another. For example, rivalries endangered the relations between Bruges and Ghent in Flanders. Bruges had been one of the foremost international trade centres for centuries, but Ghent was increasingly jostling to establish itself as the one true representative of the urban vote, pushing Bruges into submission. The Ghent revolt of 1540 aimed to take control of Flanders at the expense of both the Habsburg Emperor Charles V and the other major Flemish towns of Bruges and Ypres. Although Charles V curbed Ghent’s ambitions and punished it severely for the uprising, Ghent did not abandon its ideological claims. This resulted in Ghent eventually becoming the seat of the ‘Pacification Treaty’ for the rebellious Low Countries in 1576 and the temporary seat for the new States General, in which all of the provinces of the Low Countries were represented. With these actions, Ghent was also aiming to eclipse Brussels.14 The short-lived Calvinist coup that followed the Pacification Treaty installed Ghent as the central ruling power in Flanders as a whole, yet this did not last.15 There was likewise fierce competition in Brabant, emanating above all from rivalry over the position of the ducal administrative residence. Leuven, home to the oldest university in the Low Countries, claimed primacy as a provincial centre, but the dukes of Burgundy preferred Brussels. A tradition gradually emerged whereby the Brabant Provincial Estates met in the latter city. Leuven refused to accept this, and often sided with the nobility in the voting process in order to frustrate the extension of Brussels’ powers. Brussels also experienced strong competition from sixteenth-century Antwerp, which was rapidly developing into the largest commercial metropole in Europe. All in all, inter-urban rivalry was fierce, and became even more complicated when certain Burgundian dukes decided upon Malines, not Brussels, as the seat for their

14 As early as 1508, Ghent had claimed priority over Brussels as the seat of the StatesGeneral. 15 Blockmans (1996, 29).

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private households.16 Malines even obtained a separate vote in the Provincial Estates in the 1570s, further complicating urban coalition-making. Meanwhile, the comparatively large role of the nobility and clergy in the Brabant Estates added to the complexity of the political rivalries. The establishment of a central administration in Brussels and the ducal household in Malines had attracted many of the higher nobility to Brabant, and they sometimes voted tactically with one city against the other.17 Another factor that tended to fragment the urban vote in Flanders and Brabant was the far-reaching influence of the guilds on local government, which had consequences for provincial decision-making. The provincial vote of Brussels, for example, was divided into three ‘city members’: the magistrate, the urban council and the ‘Nine Nations’, the latter representing the major guilds. Urban authorities always had to consult with master craftsmen, who had their own reasons for demanding certain privileges in return for political support, or could opt to take sides with the overlord or the nobility. This made voting a thorny matter, and the sixteenth century Charles V therefore decided that unanimity was no longer required for the urban vote.18 All in all, coalition-making between towns stalled in both Brabant and Flanders. This enabled the Habsburg overlords to exploit the space left by the fierce rivalries, using the representation of the nobility and the clergy to vote down initiatives that might have been in the interests of the urban communities.19

2

Holland’s Urban Front

On these points, the County of Holland scored remarkably differently. Its landscape was characterized by a large number of medium-sized towns with varying degrees of power. Their traditions as independent charter towns were more recent as compared to the Southern Netherlands, expressed in fewer privileges and a lower degree of urban autonomy. From the early sixteenth century, the six ‘good’ cities of Dordrecht, Haarlem, Delft, Leiden, Amsterdam and Gouda were represented in the Estates.

16 Gilissen (1965, 276), Van Uytven (2004c, 241–242). 17 Cools (2001). 18 Van Honacker (2000, 420–426). 19 Marnef (2004, 294), Van Uytven (1976).

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Unlike in Flanders and Brabant, the smaller towns that did not meet in the Estates were not subordinated to the political power of these cities; indeed, the six exercised very little authority over ‘their’ rural districts. Only Dordrecht resembled a Flemish or Brabantine city somewhat in this respect regarding control over ‘its’ countryside, yet Dordrecht’s competencies were much less far reaching.20 All of the towns outside the six that held a seat were represented by the ‘noble’ vote, which embodied ‘the countryside’ in the Provincial Estates. The nobility constituted a much weaker factor in Holland than in Brabant. Their vote in the provincial assembly (only one vote against the six votes of the six larger cities) included the representation of the substantial urban interests of the smaller towns, and particularly during times of crisis, the invitation to attend the Estates was extended to the smaller towns as well. Urban autonomy was thus more restricted than in Flanders or Brabant. The towns of Holland had also suffered disproportionally during a prolonged financial crisis of the late fifteenth century. When they were unable to meet the demands for interest payments on massive loans contracted for the overlord, towns such as Leiden and Haarlem temporarily returned to lordly control.21 Nevertheless, the urban say over town finances remained quite significant; all of the towns of Holland, including the smaller ones, were in a position to conduct relatively independent financial policies, thanks to the rich revenues raised by their respective urban excises.22 The political playing field was thus much more level, with no major towns pitted against each other. Although urban rivalries did exist, they were focused mainly on trying to curb down Dordrecht, the oldest town in Holland. In comparison with other towns in the county, this riverside trade centre had amassed economic privileges in the past, in return for supporting the counts of Holland. Numerous traders despised the cumbersome Dordrecht staple rights and the tolls and duties levied on behalf of the town. Within the Provincial Estates, the other Dutch towns regularly joined forces to reduce Dordrecht’s powers. Dordrecht’s

20 Zuijderduijn (2008). 21 Van der Heijden (2006), 435–436. 22 ’t Hart and Limberger (2006).

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economic power was waning, since maritime trade came to supplant the domination of river trade, and the town had to give in to the pressure.23 The nobility in the Estates rarely broke the urban front, mainly because of their formal role as the representatives of the smaller towns.24 Nor did guilds fragment the urban vote. Holland’s guilds were weaker than those of Flanders or Brabant, due to the relatively late development of urban industries in Holland. Guilds had no formal say in urban administrations, apart from Dordrecht, yet the voting of the latter was never formally split between the magistrate and the craftsmen. While Dordrecht’s networks declined, those of Amsterdam expanded. This town increasingly became a dominant regional trading centre, supported above all by its international beer and grain trade with the Baltic. This did not give rise to political antagonism on the part of the other cities, however. On the contrary, Amsterdam’s key role in maritime trade proved to be an incentive for the sales markets in numerous towns in Holland. Export opportunities multiplied, supported by the excellent water network within the province itself. As a result, the other towns did not oppose Amsterdam policies, and they supported Amsterdam’s resistance to a new tax on incoming grain (congé-gelden) in the 1530s; any threat to Amsterdam’s trading position would potentially endanger the economies of many other towns as well. Then, as on many other occasions, the urban representatives constituted a united front in the Provincial Estates against the Habsburg overlord.25

3

Tax Burdens and Provincial Loans

Of all the topics discussed by the Provincial Estates, finances were the topic that came up most frequently. In the course of the sixteenth century, and particularly after the introduction of new taxes in 1542–1544, the provincial assemblies of Flanders, Brabant and Holland gradually established their own provincial financial administrations.26 These administrations followed substantially different trajectories, however, resulting

23 Van Herwaarden et al. (1996, 74). 24 Zuijderduijn (2009, 268). 25 Tracy (1990, 103). 26 See Freire Costa (2009, 22), on the comparable impact of changing tax regimes in

Portuguese state building.

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in different path dependencies. In Flanders, the bulk of financial management continued to be dominated by the urban administrations of Bruges, Ypres and Ghent. The provincial administration remained fragile, since these cities regarded any outside claim on funds collected in their districts as a threat to their power base. The situation was comparable in Brabant, its four districts being ruled, respectively, by the urban governments of Leuven, Brussels, Antwerp and Den Bosch, although provincial claims over tax funds became somewhat stronger due to Brussels’ relative dominance in this area. However, only in Holland did a true provincial administration emerge.27 The traditional provincial tax in the Low Countries was the bede, repartitioned over villages and towns roughly according to size and property, and eventually also levied more strictly upon landed property.28 In order to gain political support, the overlords engaged in bilateral bargaining with the towns. These bargains resulted often in tax cuts known as graciën, with the result that the three large Flemish cities paid only 20– 30% of the provincial share. This should have been much higher, given the extensive riches of their urban residents. The citizens of Bruges did not even have to pay for the property they owned beyond the city walls. As a result, the countryside and the smaller towns became relatively overburdened. Tax exemptions ‘competitions’ between towns was also observed in other countries, such as in Portugal in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.29 Likewise, there were cuts for the most powerful members in the Estates in Brabant, including for the clergy, who paid only 4% instead of 12% they should have paid. In addition, numerous individual noblemen and clergymen enjoyed separate reductions that were granted by the district tax receivers of Flanders and Brabant, respectively. Higher officials and foreign merchants also enjoyed exemptions, or at least more favourable rates. All in all, the elites in the southern provinces remained substantially undertaxed, and this was a problem, as the elites owned a considerable part of the provincial wealth. Moreover, commercial wealth was undertaxed altogether.30

27 Tracy (1990, 118). 28 Bos-Rops (1993). 29 Dominguez (2019, 70). 30 Dhondt (1965, 260); Maddens (1978, 14, 216, 248–284, 412).

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The occurrence of graciën was not unknown in Holland,31 but it had much less impact than in Flanders or Brabant. Amsterdam also openly expressed its opposition to these practices, arguing that a town should strengthen the prosperity of the country as a whole and not only look after its own interests.32 In 1542–1544, Charles V imposed new taxes, mainly excises levied upon consumer goods, throughout the Low Countries. These new duties were exceptional in that everyone had to pay them, both in the North and in the South. Yet the average tax burden again remained quite low in the South. Lower rates of taxation were even used as a method to lure new migrants to settle in particular towns. Implementation was particularly lax in Flanders, where the authorities feared resistance from the urban lower classes, who were already disproportionally burdened.33 By the early sixteenth century, the per capita tax yield in Holland had already grown substantially,34 meaning that the provincial government had become richer in relative terms. Taxes were grounded in a highly urbanized society in this province, too, yet they were based on much more equitable and flexible foundations. Even Philip II’s much-hated ‘tenth penny’ achieved higher yields per capita in the North than in the South.35 This strengthened the development of stronger provincial administrative institutions. In the South, the path that was chosen—exploiting the possibilities for bilateral graciën and the lax imposition of excises—resulted in much lower potential for a powerful provincial government. In the meantime, the regular cooperation between the six ‘good’ cities within the Provincial Estates of Holland had also resulted in agreements to levy loans for the territorial overlord on a common footing. All six would issue loans, yet they would also stand bail for each other in case of a failure to pay interest rates. In 1515, this agreement was put on a permanent footing, which enabled the rise of an exceptional credible commitment in provincial long-term public debt, based on future income from the bede tax. The introduction of provincial excise duties in 1542– 1544 strengthened these arrangements further. As a result, a tradition 31 Tracy (1990, 116). 32 Koenigsberger (2001, 103). 33 Dhondt (1940, 180), Maddens (1979, 884). 34 Blockmans (1995, 302). 35 Grapperhaus (1984, 135, 178–184).

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emerged in Holland of a wide range of domestic investors entrusting their funds for public loans.36 This enabled general financial support for wars without damaging the public credit of the province. The importance of reputational mechanisms in order to find investors, based on strong social and institutional networks, cannot be overestimated.37

4 The Crucial Role Played by a Strong and Independent Provincial Administration In the meantime, Flemish and Brabant cities continued to be very reluctant to enter into a system of joint responsibility, whereby one town would guarantee the loans issued by the other. Like Holland, Brabant sold longterm bonds on provincial funds, but to a much lesser extent. From 1544, Flanders started to sell short-term bonds, which initially enjoyed a lively trade. They soon suffered from a substantial loss in value when interest payments faltered, however, since most tax funds were reserved for the prevailing concerns of the town districts, not the province.38 Meanwhile, Holland obligations remained a fixed and solid investment.39 The management of taxes and loans in Holland necessitated the extension of the provincial administration. The Provincial Estates appointed special delegates to investigate new tax tariffs and their collection; to employ surveyors to measure acreage in order to impose land taxes properly; to control the accounts of the increasing number of tax receivers; and to discuss requests for tax reductions. Gradually, this body assumed new executive tasks beyond financial matters alone. By the time of the Revolt, the group of special appointees, the Gecommitteerden, had obtained permanent positions and become the actual government of Holland. In the meantime, the number of tax collectors, tax farmers and civil servants continued to increase.40 Comparable temporary committees working for the Estates also existed in Brabant and Flanders, yet their tasks remained

36 Tracy (1985), Zuijderduijn (2008). 37 Cf. Strum (2019, 2). 38 Maddens (1979, 867), Maddens, (1978, 336–339, 364). 39 ’t Hart (1993, 165). 40 Koopmans (1990, 71–72, 86, 115).

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limited. The southern district receivers even extended the competences of their offices at the expense of the provincial tax receivers.41 The relative efficiency of the financial administration became a trump card for Holland; the provincial structures were easily deployed for revolutionary purposes. When the rebellious Holland towns convened as Provincial Estates in Dordrecht in July 1572, against the wishes of the Spanish authorities, their strong financial base constituted a powerful instrument.42 A remarkably large number of towns sent representatives, apart from those, such as Amsterdam, that remained loyal to the Spanish king for the time being. The absence of Holland’s largest town further levelled the playing field and enabled several small and medium-sized towns to gain political power by obtaining a seat in the Estates.43 Eventually, 19 votes were cast in the provincial assembly: no fewer than 18 towns gained the right to cast an independent vote, whereas the nobility controlled one vote only. The Dordrecht meeting appointed William of Orange, the leader of the rebellious army, as Stadtholder: the highest official post in the province and formerly the position of the king’s representative.44 Yet this was certainly not the only revolutionary act. The Estates of Holland appropriated much political power, including competences that had belonged to the overlord or Stadtholder. Eventually, they also appropriated institutional powers that had belonged to supra-provincial institutions, such as the Court of Audit (financial control) and the Court of Holland (Court of Appeal).45 The property of the Catholic Church was confiscated as well; these funds were managed by a separate board, which would use the monies for matters such as education and poor relief. The new provincial government also introduced various new taxes. At first, the six major cities continued to act as intermediaries in the contracting of loans, but by the 1590s, provincial tax receivers in Holland were issuing the bonds. Because of the previous tradition of contracting loans for the sovereign, the investing public accepted the new bonds. Rates of interest increased

41 Dhondt (1965, 162–163), Gunn et al. (2007, 118). 42 Ward (2001, 40–41). 43 Tracy (2008, 126). 44 Parker (1977, 145). 45 Koopmans (1990, 122, 144).

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substantially at first in the 1570s because of the military insecurity, but they declined gradually again thereafter. The new provincial assembly proved to be a reasonably effective form of government. The fact that a large number of towns were represented increased the degree of inclusion in political decision-making, and thus broadened the tax base, which in turn strengthened the credit of the provincial loans. The numerous excises safeguarded funds for the payment of interest.46 In August 1572, for example, thirteen towns in Holland, together with the Estates’ member of the nobility, issued a single bond for no less than 500,000 guilders to pay for William of Orange’s troops in the South, barely a month after the first independent provincial convention in July. Funds raised by other means, such as William of Orange’s network of family and friends in Germany, as well as French Calvinists, had been completely exhausted. A single piece of parchment showing the seals of the towns was apparently considered such a credible indication of future payment that William of Orange’s campaign was able to continue. In order to pay the interest on this bond, new taxes were agreed and imposed across the province, with no exemptions.47 Thanks to the rich flow of funds, controlled in a rather transparent fashion, the defence of the region was put on a solid foundation. The leaders of the army, above all William of Orange and Maurice of Nassau, realized that they were utterly dependent upon the political and financial support of the towns. The latter abhorred the presence of unruly armies and demanded orderly troops. The strict army reforms that became known as the Military Revolution were based on precisely this principle: regular pay for soldiers in return for a solid system of army financing, resulting in exceptionally disciplined troops.48 In the meantime, the lack of provincial coordination in the South enabled the Spanish leadership to continue with their ‘divide and rule’ tactics there. The southern provinces suffered disproportionally from the presence of the unruly Spanish army, which further hampered the collection of regular taxes for a possible alternative political regime.49 46 Fritschy (2003). Cf. for a comparable development in which liquidity in debt payments constitutes a crucial factor in Iberian state formation: Ladero Quesada (1982), Freire Costa et al. (2021). 47 Fritschy (2017, 49, 57). 48 Rogers (1995);’t Hart (2014, 52). 49 Parker (1979, 106ff).

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These two matters—the unruliness of the soldiers and difficulty of finding the funds needed to pay the soldiers on time—went hand in hand.50 The deeply embedded traditions of tax exemptions could not simply be swept away and the fierce inter-urban rivalry continued unabated. At the provincial level, government was further complicated by the fact that the craft guilds had been granted even more political powers. These guilds had a tendency to prefer administrative models that harked back to the fifteenth-century golden age of urban autonomy, instead of embracing the advantages of far-reaching provincial cooperation.51 In 1577, Ghent refused to vote for the establishment of a regional military command; instead, the city mobilized its own armed forces. A new, Ghent-dominated administration was imposed on the surrounding towns, and Ghent soldiers even occupied Bruges and Ypres. New taxes were levied and new loans were issued, but only by and for Ghent.52 Flanders thus continued to be hopelessly split. Brabant attempted certain coordinated actions and continually stressed the need for a joint States General. In 1580, the revolutionary Brabant Council of State claimed to be the government of the province in an echo of the proclamation by the Holland Estates in July 1572.53 Yet, the Spanish army’s counterattack under Farnese had meanwhile gained so much momentum that the fragile political structure of the South stood no chance.54

5

Conclusion

In the early sixteenth century, no one would have envisaged that Holland, then still an economic backwater, would become the core of a powerful republic. The historiography has too easily assumed that the fiscal successes of the new-born Dutch Republic were due to its high degree of commercialization and urbanization. This article has shown that commercial riches and the facilitation of massive resource mobilization in urban settings alone do not explain the emergence of the Financial Revolution in Holland, which enabled the easy raising of state loans under war 50 Swart (2011). 51 Van den Nieuwenhuizen (2000, 487). 52 Blockmans (1996, 28); Van Peteghem (1976, 343). 53 Gilissen (1965, 313–317), Woltjer (1976, 312). 54 Marnef (2004, 303–306), Parker (1979, 208ff).

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circumstances. Rather, the sixteenth-century provincial cooperation that established the management of financial resources on a territorially coordinated footing was a conditio sine qua non for success. Without firm administrative control over resources, the northern provinces could never have put a stop to Farnese’s military successes. The southern provinces, by contrast, eventually succumbed to the Spanish campaign. Flanders and Brabant, the richest provinces in the Low Countries, failed to create a province-wide system of fiscal management. Complex voting systems and the continued existence of manifold tax exemptions hindered administrative efficiency. Most of the larger cities simply wished to restore old privileges, their former autonomy and the financial power of their own districts. Administrative fragmentation took a particular toll in Flanders. Brussels in Brabant had always harboured a certain supralocal responsibility, yet even Brabant was held back by complex voting patterns. In practice, the ambitions of the Flemish city of Ghent hindered all coalition-making in the South. Its rebellious leaders strove for the establishment of Ghent as a city state with a large, subjugated territory consisting of Flemish villages and towns, including Bruges and Ypres, and ideally also stretches of neighbouring provinces. Its desire to establish a city state based on the Venetian example was doomed to fail, however. In the sixteenth century, existing city states continued to function, but the dominant mode of state formation was one that required a larger territorial base, and would eventually evolve into the system of European nation states. City states were eclipsed by the European war dynamics of ever larger armies, which put larger territorial states at an advantage. The Northern Netherlands became thus a territorial, proto-national state based on the financial power of the Province of Holland. The paradox was that the towns of Holland lost a certain degree of their autonomy while the province gained more and more fiscal powers, yet this also enabled these same towns to win economic glory in international trade. The inclusion of new towns in the provincial government of 1572 constituted a substantial boost in status for these entities. The system of regular pay for the Republic’s troops facilitated an exceptional military discipline and an efficient army and navy, ensuring the defence of the territory as a whole. For centuries, confidence in Dutch loans remained exceptional within Europe, enabling the Dutch to benefit continuously from their financial resources, a process that was sustained by even more commercialization and urbanization. In this way, Dutch independence was maintained up until the revolutionary invasion by French troops in 1795.

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Fritschy, W. (2017). Public finance of the Dutch Republic in comparative perspective: The viability of an early modern federal state (1570s–1795). Brill. Gelderblom, O., & Jonker, J. (2004). Completing a financial revolution: The finance of the Dutch East India trade and the rise of the Amsterdam capital market, 1595–1612. The Journal of Economic History, 64, 641–672. Gilissen, J. (1965). Les États Géneraux des Pays de Par Deça (1464–1632). Standen En Landen, 33, 262–321. Glete, J. (2002). War and the state in Early Modern Europe: Spain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden as Fiscal-military States, 1500–1660. Routledge. Grapperhaus, F. (1984). Alva en de tiende penning. Walburg Pers. Gunn, S., Grummit, D., & Cools, H. (2007). War, state, and society in England and the Netherlands, 1477–1559. Oxford University Press. Israel, J. (1995). The Dutch republic: Its rise, greatness, and fall 1477–1806. Clarendon Press. Jacobs, M. (2000). De ambachten. In R. Van Uytven (ed.), 560–566. Koenigsberger, H. G. (2001). Monarchies, states generals and parliaments: The Netherlands in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Cambridge University Press. Koopmans, J. W. (1990). De Staten van Holland en de Opstand. De ontwikkeling van hun functies in de periode 1544–1588. Hollandse Historische Reeks. Ladero Quesada, M. A. (1982). El Siglo XV en Castilla: Fuentes de renta y política fiscal. Editorial Ariel. Ladero Quesada, M. A. (1991). Fiscalidad regia y génesis del Estado en la Corona de Castilla (1252–1504). Revista Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, 3(4), 95–135. Maddens, N. (1978). De beden in het graafschap Vlaanderen tijdens de regering van Keizer Karel V, 1515–1550. UGA. Maddens, N. (1979). De invoering van de nieuwe middelen in het graafschap Vlaanderen tijdens de regering van Keizer Karel V. Belgisch Tijdschrift Voor Filologie En Geschiedenis, 57 , 342–363. Marnef, G. (2004). Nieuwe geluiden en sterke tegenstellingen (1531–1629): roerig Brabant. In R. Van Uytven (2004a), 289–295. Nijenhuis, I. (2018). Representation by numbers: How attendance and experience helped Holland to control the Dutch States General (1626–1630). In M. J. M. Damen, 182–202. Parker, G. (1977). The Dutch revolt. Penguin. Parker, G. (1979). Spain and the Netherlands (1559–1659). Fontana Press. Prak, M., & Van Zanden, J. L. (2006). Towards an economic interpretation of citizenship: The Dutch Republic between medieval communes and modern nation-states. European Review of Economic History, 10, 111–145. Rogers, C. J. (Ed.). (1995). The Military revolution debate: Readings on the Military transformation of Early Modern Europe. Westview Press.

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Strum, D. (2019). Institutional choice in the governance of the early Atlantic sugar trade: Diasporas, markets, and courts. Economic History Review, 72, 1–27. Swart, E. (2011). The field of finance. War and taxation in Holland, Flanders and Brabant, ca. 1572–1585. The Sixteenth Century Journal, 42, 1051–1071. ’t Hart, M. (1993). The making of a bourgeois state. War, politics and finance during the Dutch Revolt. Manchester University Press. ’t Hart, M. (2014). The Dutch Wars of independence. Warfare and commerce in the Netherlands, 1580–1680. Routledge. ’t Hart, M., & Limberger, M. (2006). Staatsmacht en stedelijke autonomie. Het geld van Antwerpen en Amsterdam (1500–1700). Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, 3, 36–72. ’t Hart, M., Brandon, P., and Sánchez, R.T. (2018). Introduction: Maximising revenues, minimising political costs—Challenges in the history of public finance of the early modern period. Financial History Review, 25, 1–18. Tilly, C. (1992). Coercion, capital, and European States, AD 990–1990. Blackwell. Tracy, J. D. (1985). A financial revolution in the Habsburg Netherlands: Renten and Renteniers in the County of Holland, 1515–1565. University of California Press. Tracy, J. D. (1990). Holland under Habsburg Rule, 1506–1566. Berkeley, University of California Press. Tracy, J. D. (2008). The founding of the Dutch Republic. War, finance, and politics in Holland, 1572–1588. Oxford University Press. Van den Nieuwenhuizen, J. (2000). Antwerpen. In R. Van Uytven, 485–488. Van der Heijden, M. (2006). State formation and Urban finances in sixteenthand seventeenth-century Holland. Journal of Urban History, 32, 429–450. Van Herwaarden, J., et al. (1996). Geschiedenis van Dordrecht tot 1572. Verloren. Van Honacker, K. (2000). Bestuursinstellingen van de stad Brussel. In R. Van Uytven, et al. (eds.), 420–426. Van Peteghem, P. (1976). Vlaanderen in 1576: Revolutionair of reactionair? Tijdschrift Voor Geschiedenis, 89, 335–357. Van Uytven, R. (1976). ’Vorst, adel en steden: Een driehoeksverhouding in Brabant van de twaalfde tot de zestiende eeuw’. Bijdragen Tot De Geschiedenis, 59, 93–122. Van Uytven, R., et al. (eds.). (2000). De gewestelijke en lokale overheidsinstellingen in Brabant en Mechelen tot 1795. Algemeen Rijksarchief. Van Uytven, R. (ed.). (2004a). Geschiedenis van Brabant: van hertogdom tot heden. Davidsfonds. Van Uytven, R. (2004b). De kern van een dynastieke federatie. In R. Van Uytven (2004a), 220–223. Van Uytven, R. (2004c). De triomf van Antwerpen en de grote steden. In R. Van Uytven (2004a), 241–242.

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Van Uytven, R., & Blockmans, W. (1969). Constitutions and their application in the Netherlands during the middle ages. Belgisch Tijdschrift Voor Filologie En Geschiedenis, 47 , 399–424. Ward, J.P. (2001) The cities and states of Holland (1506–1515). A participative system under strain. Dissertation University of Leiden. Woltjer, J. J. (1976). De vrede-makers. Tijdschrift Voor Geschiedenis, 89, 299– 321. Zuijderduijn, J. (2008). Het lichaam van het dorp: Publieke schuld op het Hollandse platteland rond 1500. Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geschiedenis, 5, 107–132. Zuijderduijn, C. J. (2009). Medieval capital markets: Markets for Renten, state formation and private investment in Holland (1300–1550). Brill.

Public Finance and Fiscal Policy. The Papal States in Early Modern Age Fausto Piola Caselli

1

Central and Local Powers

At the end of the Italian Wars, in 1559, the Italian peninsula had finally split into many small States, which were often subject to a foreign powers control, according to different political models. Spain was ruling over Naples, over the big islands of Sicily and Sardinia and finally over the entire Milan duchy. After the 1713 Utrecht agreement, the Spanish Bourbons had to hand over Milan and Naples, and their role was taken from the Austrian Hapsburgs, who in turn were dominating Sicily as well, which for a short period had been also ruled by Piedmont. Genoa was under the Spanish political pressure, whilst since 1737 Austria was keeping under strong control the entire Tuscany region. Piedmont only had been able to keep its full independence, which had economically based on the growth of a productive middle class, more than that of feudal landed proprietors. Closest partners of Piedmont sovereigns were not the local aristocratic classes, but the towns with their citizens selected groups,

F. P. Caselli (B) University of Cassino and Meridional Lazio, Cassino, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_15

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particularly those in Turin.1 After all, the efforts to establish good and efficient relationships between the centre and the periphery had brought to the creation of an efficient state bureaucracy, so that to put a check on local powers. Therefore, Piedmont was in Italy the only one State— able to assume an international role, in cases of need. Venice could had also come afloat within the difficult Italian political panorama, but it had much engaged with its overseas territories defence, and could not spread out an influence over terra firma Italian states. Back to Italy after the controversial and chaotic Avignon period, the Papal State had succeeded as well in the difficult task of gaining a reasonable level of political autonomy, thanks to the respect bestowed to the Popes religious authority, even more than to the deterrent of his weak army. However, there were no economic structures and no social cohesion within its large territory, which in Italy was smaller only to the kingdom of Naples. Besides ambitions and influences of curial hierarchies, the weakness of Popes’ central powers towards local towns and peripheral areas was more than clear. From a formal point of view, Roman Pontiffs got the role of absolute Monarchs, endowed with unrestricted powers. However, without a strong standing army and a wide branched bureaucratic network over the territory, papal powers were in fact quite weak towards the daily government duties. According to the various local situations, papacy was therefore compelled to afford an everlasting game to face the changeable policies of local powers. It used military forces only for extreme cases, when the State autonomy itself was in a serious danger. A military campaign had then launched then against Bologna (1506) and Ferrara (1598). However, on the long run, all this had considered as minor episodes. In 1649, the heavy and bloody Castro war had started by Urban VIII to catch again under full control the Farnese territory, which was a rich and absolutely necessary thank of grains for the capital town. Then, the town of Castro, which was loyal to the enemy and had sustained by Florence, had fully destroyed by the papal army, just as to clearly show that the way of mutual agreements was more convenient than that of a military fight against dominant powers. In the case of the Papal States, therefore, it is not possible to highlight a gradual path from a domain State to a fiscal State, based on a well agreed and respected tax system, as it had often happened in Europe.

1 Pezzolo (2015: 134).

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The State autonomy, an efficient coordination with its local institutions and more generally a good and successful government policy were not the final results of a general administrative capability, but came mainly from the agreements, the compromises and the good relationships with local bodies. From an administrative point of view, all main towns were largely autonomous and the same was for a quantity of large land estates, minor towns, villages and hamlets or farmhouses. Moreover, privileges and immunities of any kind had recognized to abbeys, shrines and monasteries, as it happened in the case of the big Montecassino Abbey, a kind of State within the State. Since long, the Papal States could survive only thanks to gifts and contributions—considered as spiritual duties—coming from the biggest catholic Nations. A relevant yearly fiscal yield came also regularly from trades at the gates of Rome. The six territorial provinces of the State could also provide the Roman Chamber with floating amounts, collected when it was possible to bring to good end agreements and pacts with local leading classes, which in turn had to exert an efficient tax collection power over lower levels. The papal financial policy had therefore compelled to follow two completely different tracks, when bargaining with the Capital town, or with the State periphery. Within the town of Rome, the sovereign pontiff had allowed to rule businesses directly, without any obstacle by local municipal powers. Rules and constitutions published first in 1580, and then frequently confirmed, allowed the Apostolic Chamber to cash directly all rich yields coming from town excise duties.2 Not by chance, in 1585 Sistus V had firmly cut off any power previously hold from the Capital town, without any bloodshed conflict but simply enacting a short decree which directly conveyed all political powers and all administrative tasks to the Apostolic Chamber. Rome governors could only clean streets, or issue fines to fraudulent dealers, and a few other jobs. In a few cases, Rome citizens could be supported, appealing to the Congregazione del Terrore, a sort of local court erected to defend citizens from eventual abuses and oppressions coming by Capitol officers.3 It was the best way to get rid from all possible internal opposition. Anyway, within the complex political gambling among the most powerful families,

2 Pavan (1996: 327–331). 3 Pecchiai (1948: 175).

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an attitude against the actual in office town government, never mind what it could be, was always deeply rooted. Up to the eve of Eighteen century, the opposition of Roman barons had been able to create many obstacles to the Congregazione del Sollievo. a wide economic and social programme launched by Clement XI, which provided for the parcelling out of big real estates, the agrarian education, the recovery of sanitary conditions among labourers, the rise of agrarian credit and a for general improvement of trades and communications.

2

State Expenses

Revenues from Roman consumptions could barely cover a part of State yearly current expenses, but could not at all cover extra costs, and above all those for military expenditure. Wars were firing nearly everywhere, and always needed big amounts of money. Military conflicts have been the true protagonist of Italian public finances in Early Modern Age. Wars spread out everywhere, and were always in search of capitals. Even local conflicts were able to swallow any possible fiscal yield and gave start to a never-ending public debt spiral, which in turn gave rise to prices increase and money debasement. Financial resources were not yielded to improve the country welfare or to finance public works, but for wars. At the very beginning, forced loans launched in Venice and in Genoa during the XII century, to meet wars’ expenses, usually remained within those financial limits considered as bearable by the yearly revenues of a merchant town. Later on, international conflicts required huge amounts of armies and fleets, often engaged in the risky games of alternate alliances. It was an enormous, never-ending expense, which was in small part compensate only by a stronger State territorial control, by the development of the excellent Italian industries of weapons, by some tariffs and trading costs reductions.4 No economist or politician could be able to calculate the real cost of an army in battle, fighting over an area devastated and sacked for months, mutilated of its best and richest items. The Duchy of Milan, at the beginning of sixteenth century, spent two third of its yearly expenditures for wars.5 Between 1590 and 1604, nearly 12 million liras had spent by the Milan local authorities to quarter troops only, and in

4 Béguin and Genet (2015: 3). 5 Di Tullio (2015: 73).

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the following ten years such amount had increased up to 20 million.6 In Piedmont, wars had burnt during the 17th c. more than 200 million liras, an amount which was equivalent to the yield coming from the rich town of Turin throughout ten centuries. Later on, some additional 44 million liras had spent for the Spanish war of succession.7 Anyway, in this case the Savoy had been able to obtain wide financial subsidies from outside countries. A good 50% of military expenses for the Spanish war had paid to Piedmont by its allied forces and nearly the same amount went for the 1742–1748 campaigns.8 In Italy, the amounts spent for wars from other regional States were enormous, incalculable. From late fifteenth century up to the 1630s, at least 10 million ducats had diverted from Naples and from Sicily towards Milan and Genoa.9 A further amount of 12 million went out from Naples to Madrid in the period 1631–1644, and therefore State financial authorities were compelled to turn to public banks to issue paper money, seen a great metallic money shortage.10 The Candia war, which was obstinately carried on by Venice to defend a colony which had not an economic role any more, had swallowed during the whole 17th c. nearly 50 million ducats.11 The Papal State had never been absent in this costly and bloody competitions. Since the fourteenth century, during the Avignon period, it had clearly shown how to finance largely all allied forces, sending flows of gold coins throughout the Alps, by mule convoys, to support the Ghibelline fight in Lombardy. Even when the Curia had finally come back to Rome, the papal support for those wars considered as “fair”, was never been missed. Since the Holy League Lepanto battle in 1571, up to the big coalition against Turks who laid Vienna under siege in 1683—when the Roman mint had to melt more than seven silver tons in testoni coins12 — for more than one hundred years the Papal State had to spent enormous amounts to hold in check the Ottoman Empire ambitions. Historian Marchetti envisaged that for “catholic causes” the Papal state had sent 6 Bognetti and De Luca (2012: 40). 7 Stumpo (1979: 153–155). 8 Pezzolo and Stumpo (2008: 87). 9 Pezzolo (2013a, 2013b: 387). 10 De Rosa (2001: 531). 11 Stumpo (1986: 319). 12 Londei (1990: 310).

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abroad nearly 20,000,000 scudi, an amount which could be raised only by a large public debt subscription.13 Close to the Seventeenth century end, the scenery began to change, at least within the Papal State, where conflicts began to be colder and less frequent. At the Spanish succession war, in 1706, just when a big 50,000 soldier army laid siege to Turin, the Papacy had implicated only for a small campaign near Ferrara, which had easily faced up with a few troops recruited at random. As a matter of fact, the papal fleet, which had to guard a nearly 500 km seashore along the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas, was made of 5 battle galleys only—and badly armed. At last, the Apostolic Chamber had spent out all the financial means devoted to wars, and had to take care of other more urgent issues. Which sources the amounts to finance conflicts came from? It is not possible to envisage for the Papal State a history such as that of a “fiscal military state”, a title who can be used for the big European states much better than for the small, shaky Italian states. Wars in Italy had funded thanks to the never-ending support of public debt: an easy financial source which did not give raise to strong conflicts with the local élites, and which had anyway known very well as it had already exploited from ancient medieval towns. From the sixteenth century onwards, tax burden became then heavier, as the amounts for ancient loans interests had added to those coming from the new military expenses. Yields came mainly from consumptions duties, but soon State financial departments started to tax profits, rents and generally speaking all private richness, together with some first attempt to set up a progressive taxation system. In Naples, local taxes on each family tripled, and fiscal burden over trade and consumption increased fifteen times in a short period.14 Towns had to bear more taxes, because consumption and businesses could be more evident than in fiefs and in lands. In the Milan land, to finance those amounts who had forwarded to Madrid, local monthly taxes had often collected well in advance, thus creating costly and dangerous relationships with bankers and lenders.15 In Venice, war costs—mainly for the defence of Candia— had met with a new policy of free trades city, which did not give rise to a

13 Strangio (2008: 500). 14 Bulgarelli (2008: 243). 15 Ostoni (2010: 106).

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further sudden tax increases, and in the long term could assure a fruitful trade increase. Anyway, this fiscal regime had soon annulled, in 1683. Later on, fiscal pressure on the mainland became harder, together with the practise of offices’ sale, the sale of patrimonial assets and with a sharp public debt growth. Close to seventeenth century end and the beginning of the following one, Venetian military forces still swallowed big amounts of money, between 30 and 40% of the whole Republic total expenditure.16 In the Papal State, heavy public expenses afforded by the Apostolic Camera were not only a wars outcome. The town of Rome had to demonstrate—mainly to the Reformed world—the good policies and sharp successes of papal reigns. Rome had to become the Catholicism brilliant window, able—among many other sceneries—to defeat poverty. All this required enormous expenses not only for public works and for the arts, but also for collecting adequate grain supply in view of the many and recurrent shortages. The Roman Annona—the food administration service—was always ready to impose prices’ control over grains, and to provide with enormous grain stocks in order to face all recurrent agricultural crisis. The traditional Roman loafs, made since centuries by Roman bakers, had usually sold at the price of one baiocco each. When their weigh went below eight ounces, the risk of a hard period of famine and poverty was very high. During the 1648 very hard famine, the loaf weigh at the price of ‘one baiocco each’ had collapsed to four ounces only, a level never reached before, which could be a good bait to fire general rebellions. At that time, the Annona depositary Giuseppe Nerli, a Genoese banker in good and solid business relationships with the pontifical curia, was able to import 80.000 rubbia of grain at the price of 19 scudi each, mainly coming from the rich Amsterdam market.17 Amounts of money as high had also required by public buildings. Public debt only was able to collect quickly monetary means in such quantities. Between 1552 and 1661, it was launched 26 loans known as “for the Papal State capital town”. They had fed by meat taxation incomes, and 20 of them had erected for the town urbanistic needs.18 The large network of Rome public assistance had thus left mainly to private charity.

16 Pezzolo (2006: 77). 17 Reinhardt (1997: 215–217). 18 Colzi (1999: 71–99).

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The Apostolic Chamber gave only a yearly contribution, about 5% of the Chamber incomes, which was send out thanks to the aid of the 80 roman parishes. In the year 1657, the papal Dataria branch, through the good offices of the Roman pawnshop, gave for charity the big amount of 126.000 scudi.19 However, making a rough calculation, this was something close to three daily loafs—at the cost of one baiocco each—to feed a troop of nearly 10.000 beggars. As matter of fact, the assistance network was much wider and more efficient. Many hospitals, hospices, orphanages, girls’ schools and various other assistance centres had managed by town corporations and had totally financed by private gifts, through donations and inheritances, which generally had generously given. Martin Luther, who visited the town of Rome in 1510, got an excellent image from the Holy Spirit Hospital cleanliness and efficiency. Papal main offices did not financially intervene in favour of the town assistance network, but kept it under strict control by frequent visits and inspections. At the end, assistance in Rome did not represented a further cost for the Apostolic Chamber, but at the end it was a formidable indirect support—thanks to the generosity of private donors—given that it could represent a valid social shocks security cushion which could avoid further weighs on public accounts.

3

Debts Instead of Taxes

Beside consumption duties collected in towns, the Papal State did not create—at least up to early sixteenth century—a national fiscal system branched in the periphery. The ‘spiritual’ gifts and contributions generously given to Rome as the main centre of the Catholic world were enough to cover the Roman Court expenses, to maintain a Nunciatures’ network abroad and to finance wars’ alliances. Papacy could therefore count on many and various amounts. They could come from the most various sources: yearly census paid by catholic States, gifts and transfers coming by religious orders, periodical withdrawals on benefits, which had granted to Bishops, Abbots and high clergy members, monetary amounts collected at the occasion of anniversaries and various customary feasts as it was for the large amount coming from the Peter’s pence. Furthermore, to all such amounts, which had donated more or less on a voluntary basis,

19 Parigino (1999: 139).

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the Chamber could count on the many taxatio, which in fact were a kind of tithes on agrarian income, granted periodically to the Church. The Datary and the Apostolic Chamber also cashed taxes on marriages, for exemptions, for absolutions, for various honours granted, for public offices appointments and generally for all steps requiring a curial agreement or registration: within an immense territory, which included the whole Christianity.20 There were no needs, no skills and above all, there was not a strong political power able to create and run a fiscal system, which could be able to channel financial means from the periphery to the administrative centre. The general scenery had suddenly changed during the first decades of the sixteenth century, when the Reform had erased in a few years many spiritual financial flows. Chamber finances had therefore sunk quickly, as confirmed in 1530 by the Venetian ambassador Gasparo Contarini, who wrote that papal yearly revenues, which were once close to 450.000 scudi, do not actually reach the level of 200.000 scudi, as Alamagna (the German area) is now Lutheran.21 A few years later, the Act of Supremacy by Henry VIII had also cut the traditional and generous English contributions. There was any more time to build up in a few years a national and efficient fiscal system. The forced path to compensate the spiritual revenues’ shortage was that of public debt, which was launched just at the sack of Rome vigil, in 1526, by pope Clement VII—an influent member of the Medici family from Florence—according to the ancient and efficient Florentine model. From then onwards, for a long period, papal public debt had mainly issued in order to cover war expenses, but not only for war expenses. Papacy turned to debts to guarantee urgent grain stocks in time of shortages, or to assure a safe navigation along the Tiber river, for the new Roma aqueducts, to finance the magnificent buildings and artworks which enriched the Christianity capital town—as the St. Peter basilica showed magnificently, and to satisfy the needs of papal nepotism as well. Debt increase was not only a political choice, due to the urgency of a dramatic period, under the pressure of the Landsknecht troops. It was also the result of a wellskilled financial policy, because it contributed to mobilize capitals—which otherwise could be left unprofitable within the many agencies of Roman bank houses—in search of good returns. As far as concerns interest rates,

20 Partner (1999: 365). 21 Berchet et al. (1899: col. 16).

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after the medieval peaks, from mid-sixteenth century onwards they went slowly down, lining out close to 12% and 10% in Rome as everywhere in Italy.22 Then rates went down quickly, reaching 8% and 6% during the first half of the following century, to stabilize close to 3% between 1684 and 1687, when the debt had at last funded.23 New lower rates were an excellent financial chance, which encouraged the Chamber to launch additional loans. From the first 200,000 scudi issue, the papal debt reached a peak of 50,000,000 scudi at the eighteenth century end. However, those high amounts were nearly unknown by the Cameral balance sheets, which never mentioned them: whilst the real danger came from accrued interests, which had to have paid regularly in order to avoid a sudden financial Papal collapse. Chamber’ yearly account books are a good source to investigate the amount and the trend of papal debt in the long run. In rough figures, Fig. 1 shows the papal public debt increase and the amount of yearly interests paid, which absorb a relevant part of all incomes.24 After a period of quick increase, particularly hard during the Castro wars, with a peak reached in 1679 for the Holland war at the time of Nijmegen treaty, the amounts of paid interests remained more or less stable close to the same levels up to the Napoleonic period.25 Interests’ weight was then wavering between 50 and 60% over yearly incomes. It was a very relevant percentage, which made impossible to launch any further financial manoeuvre, but at least the debt weight did not demolish yearly public accounts. As far as the final destination of amounts collected from investors, who had bought the papal debt up to a total of 47.000.000 scudi, in rough figures, we may suppose that at the beginning of eighteenth century a good 44% had probably spent for wars and the army. Furthermore, nearly 25% went for papal nepotism, 11% for Roman public works and a further 6% for the Roman Annona, which anyway had supported by other sources as well. The remaining 14% had gone for many different expenses, but probably the amount had spent for fiscal

22 De Luca (2008: 54). 23 Masini (2005: 136–137). 24 Apostolic Chamber balance sheets between 1525 and 1796, with all data concerning Figs. 1, 2 and 3, are actually kept in Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale II, Conti dell’Entrata e dell’Uscita della Reverenda Camera Apostolica. 25 Piola Caselli (2007: 221).

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3,000,000

2,500,000

2,000,000

1,500,000

1,000,000

500,000

0 1587 1605 1626 1652 1667 1678 1689 1692 1712 1732 1744 1752 1770 1788 1793

Fig. 1 Papal debt in the long run. Interests paid (left) and Chamber’s incomes (right). Papal scudi. (Sources check footnote 24)

remissions, mainly in favour of local towns, with the aim to get a better consensus towards the central Chamber authorities.26 How was it possible such a quick and widespread debt growth, within a State politically weak? Were government rule and public finances strongly influenced by various political pressures more than from an efficient fiscal system? All this could have explained in terms of efficiency and of benefits. The debt was politically harmless. It did not create conflicts with the local élites, did not affected the privileges of major feudatories and did not touched the benefits of big merchants. At the end, it was a neutral tool, which fully left to government only the decision and the times of any eventual reimbursement. Furthermore, given that savers demonstrated to buy promptly any new debt launch, the problem of gradual reimbursement had always been deferred, or even ignored. The success of papal debt grounded on an efficient administration, on the free transferability of bonds and on the punctual payments of interests without any further costs. If the savers market had only heard a rumour about a delay or a problem related to interests’ payments, investors should have turned 26 Piola Caselli (2013: 425–426).

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their capitals far away from the papal debt system, investing in favour of another Italian regional capital town. Which at those times was quite easy: there were nearly no financial borders. Furthermore, the papal currency had been capable to maintain a quite surprising stability, at least up to times when the largest part of papal debt had already subscribed. Fine silver inside a papal scudo was about 2.94 grs. in 1566, and was still close to 2.91 grs. in 1684. Then it went slowly down to 2.45 grs. in 1754.27 It was a very restrained devaluation, nearly not perceptible during the seventeenth century, which anyway did not discouraged investments in the very long run. Furthermore, investors had no alternatives and this can explain why the papal debt was so attractive. By financial markets, not only on the Roman one, bonds had traded always over nominal values. When a new Monte had conceived and then launched, the first sale of luoghi or bonds had made through a public auction, and usually the Apostolic Chamber got a good price, more than the nominal 100 scudi each. Furthermore, all bonds well known or more popular had always traded in Rome over the nominal, as it happened in many Italian towns, at least from mid-sixteenth century onwards.28 Still at the eighteenth century end, in Rome, Chamber bonds at 3% interests had traded at the price of 127 scudi each. This demonstrate that—in real value—a yearly 2% profit had still considered attractive and, may be, that there were no alternatives for capitals on the local markets.29 A similar market with bond values over the nominal price was active in Genova, for the local parti of S. Giorgio bonds30 ; and the same levels were usual in Milan and Venice.31 At such market values, local Chambers or financial Authorities had no preoccupations in order to reimburse their own bonds, given that investors in search of liquidity could easily sell them on the local financial markets, getting always a satisfactory price.

27 De Gennaro (1980: 31). 28 Pezzolo (2013a, 2013b: 173). 29 Strangio (1994: 93). 30 Chilosi (2015: 218). 31 De Luca (2008: 46).

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State Accounts’ Imbalance

Time by time, Papal States public finances developed in a paradoxical way. From one side, public debt was always much welcome by savers and increased with a non-stop growth. However, at the same time it mirrored a significand weakness of the central political powers towards the local ones, and this may in part explain why an efficient and widespread fiscal system had always been lacking in the Papal States. Extraordinary expenses had financed by debt, which in turn had fed by a heavy indirect taxation on the flourishing consumptions, mainly within the Rome area. A very similar financial chain was active in all main towns, as it happened in Bologna. Everywhere, fiscal systems grounded on consumption had developed during the period of the medieval communes, under the town political control, which decided all tariffs, without any State control. Taxation system was thus quite simple: it was easy to manage and always produced a good yield. Moreover, it did not need an ad hoc bureaucracy because all families of bankers from local aristocracy, which got duties by contracts, were able to manage all businesses with their own personnel, just as it was their branch of business. Usually, contracts had agreed for a well-fixed period: they provided for a yearly amount, without any reference to consumptions volume, except for some special cases—as for wars—when business could decrease quickly. As far as could concern equity in taxation, duties on consumptions were only apparently neutral, because they weighted mainly on the poorest classes, whilst very often they produced good profits for tax farmers, particularly when the general economic trend was in its full growing phase. As far as concerns the Apostolic Chamber, fiscal yields on Rome grew very often, because of the pilgrims’ continuous flows, because of the many Embassies settled in Rome and for the cardinals and aristocratic courts crowded in town. Rome population thus grew constantly and had triplicated in three centuries, from nearly 55,000 citizens in 1526 up to 170.000 in 1794. During the same period, total population of the whole Papal State territory—except the Roman area had grown only a 60%, from nearly 1,450,000 to 2,300,000 inhabitants.32 Beside consumption, the Papal State could count on some additional fiscal sources, which more or less could feed the State yearly balance sheets. Nearly 20 different taxes had launched during the Reform period, just to compensate the lack of those 32 32Beloch (1994: 197, 263).

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revenues with a ‘spiritual’ origin. Therefore meet, salt and wine were at last taxed; people were called to contribute to finance the army, the fleet, the central bureaucracy costs and for many various purposes. For instance, the triennial subsidy, which had been launched in 1543 for a triennium only, then extended up to early nineteenth century, was a fiscal contribution with reference to all provinces and then to all many various local territories, in proportion to “the assets which all inhabitants might belong ”. It was then an envisaged as good example of a modern fiscal system, to be applied to all papal territories, without exemptions and privileges. However, the subsidy had soon lost its original nature and had then transformed into a permanent duty paid by the periphery to the centre. Each town or district had to collect a share of the total State fiscal burden, and could freely choose how to levy it by its own territory. In Romagna, the fiscal burden affected nearly all real estates, while the big Bologna town had chosen to tax silk, grain and all trade going through the town doors.33 At the end, the Apostolic Chamber decided which amount had to collect from each province or community, and left free all local levels to choose the best way to pick up the amounts, which would then transfer to Rome. The fiscal map mirrored therefore only the strength of local powers and not the image of taxable richness. For the Marca region, with 280,000 inhabitants, the Triennial Subsidy had fixed up to 62,000 scudi, whilst the rich Umbria region, with 300,000 inhabitants, had to pay only 42,000 scudi.34 In many cases, further taxes had deleted, according to the power of local big families. Quite often, when the Centre and the Periphery administrators had found a good agreement on the final yearly amount to be paid, each local power was free to collect further amounts: by sale of estates, by various rents, or taxing consumption, or by a tax for each family or by other means more or less accepted from the local populations. At the end, the Rome central power did its best to avoid all conflicts with the peripheral local powers: the triennial subsidy had disapproved strongly since the very beginning, because at local level it had considered as an incomprehensible fiscal weight. The town of Imola, on its turn, had to pay a yearly amount of 5000 scudi. Imola had strongly protested, however, getting finally a good discount and a long payment delay. The Camerino town got a full exemption from the heavy ‘triennial

33 Carboni (2015: 149–166, 153, 161). 34 Pezzolo and Stumpo (2008: 88).

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subsidy’ and from the meet taxes, paying only a one-time big amount. At the seventeenth century beginning, the Fano town rebelled against a tax to maintain the army, and got soon a good 30% discount. The navy tax had established in 1589 for the new fleet, but it had never been entirely collected and it had soon reduced to a mere 40% of its original amount in many districts. In Rome, the Sgravi congregation was responsible to manage with all such financial conflicts and it had established with the precise task to keep smooth all fiscal troubles with the periphery. However, Bologna became soon a privileged town from a fiscal point of view, whilst in Rome the fiscal burden had soon duplicated.35 The Apostolic Chamber was in fact compelled to tax all Roman rich consumptions, in order to cover the debt interests, but in other Italian States more advanced governments had since long tried to establish new fiscal patterns, more equitable and more productive. In Florence, the so-called gradual tithe—established in 1499—was a first attempt to introduce a progressive fiscal system, since the period of the medieval communes. Later on, about 1750, in Florence, the general contract on consumption duties had abolished, according to a quite revolutionary general policy, aimed to compensate credits from the Government—for public debts interests—with debts to the Governments for taxes to pay.36 In the big town of Naples, direct taxation had prepared with a long and thorough study by all local communities of the twelve kingdom Provinces, between 1610 and 1637, from the Vicar magistrates under the guidance of the reigning Charles Tapia.37 All town yearly balance sheets were analysed with the final writing of a ‘state’ of accounts and a ‘situation’ which suggested all financial steps to be done in order to guarantee a good balance of accounts.38 Taxation had then conceived on a strictly demographic basis—a ducat for each hearth—in full evidence of an unvarying and clear contribution. Local authorities had the task of cashing this direct taxation, but each town was left free to exploit other

35 Piola Caselli (1996: 456–457). 36 Capra (1990: 163). 37 Bulgarelli Lukacs (2016: 338). 38 Bulgarelli Lukacs (2012: 18–19).

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sources, in order to collect such contribution, for instance through patrimonial incomes. In 1669, half of all Kingdom income came from hearth tax: an amount of money went entirely to face public debt.39 In Milan, the fiscal situation was quite different. A first attempt to tax profits coming by trade had done from the end of sixteenth century, when the power of towns on the territory began to decline and the balance of power between urban and rural élites was already in favour of the latter.40 A well-skilled businessman, Antonio Greppi from Bergamo, was then appointed to collect all indirect taxes. He made a strong struggle against tax frauds, thus giving back again a good degree of dignity to public powers. Later on, the cadastre registers and many new reform laws gave the boost to recover many incomes already alienated, with the consequence of a public debt reduction. On its turn, the Piedmont regional state had soon established an efficient fiscal system, able to collect funds from the periphery to the political centre, and public debt had thus kept at very low levels, even in times of war. The Piedmont Tasso—a tax quota— represented a well-known amount by populations, which was generally not variable and had levied on local districts according to various parameters based on population and richness: it could have been be paid with a reasonable flexibility. Some exemptions granted to local authorities had agreed case by case, even if generally their amount had influenced by local powers.41 In the Papal territory, a ‘Good government’ congregation had established in 1592, with the aim of reviewing all local balance sheets, which had become compulsory. Around 1650, the Apostolic Chamber had set for all towns a model of yearly balance sheet, which had then checked under Nunziato Baldocci responsibility, in charge as Chamber main accountant.42 The new system got an excellent result, as it enabled officers to consult accounts in a comparative key, to know better the global situation and eventually to claim amounts back from the periphery. As a matter of fact, a long-term overview on figures shows that in one hundred years—from 1587 to 1689—total yearly income had increased of a good 60%, with a pick in 1667. It was therefore an expansive period, nearly one

39 Bulgarelli Lukacs (2007: 331). 40 Bognetti and De Luca (2012: 35). 41 Stumpo (2007: 161). 42 Parigino (1999: 9).

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hundred years, with a general price increase: The Apostolic Chamber had been able to organize its role in a better way. During the following on hundred years, the Apostolic Chamber incomes were more or less on the same level, giving the image of a long stagnation period, which in fact was hiding a declining trend, according to the silver scudi devaluation and to a slow population increase. As concerns to expenditure, in order to evaluate possible yearly deficits, available documentation suggests that yearly balance sheets usually got a final profit: some losses within the period 1669–1679 had soon reabsorbed. On the eighteenth-century first years, accounts were usually in balance, with a deep loss registered only once, in 1706. However, later on, the financial situation became more difficult. 400,000 200,000

-200,000

1729 1731 1733 1735 1737 1739 1741 1744 1746 1748 1750 1752 1754 1756 1758 1760 1762 1764 1766 1768 1770 1772 1774 1776 1778 1780 1782 1784 1786 1788 1790 1792

0

-400,000 -600,000 -800,000 -1,000,000 -1,200,000

Fig. 2 Yearly Chamber’ surplus and losses, 1729–1793. Papal scudi (Sources check footnote 24)

Figure 2 deals with yearly papal balance sheets between 1729 and 1793: a long period which can be investigate thank to a full balance sheets series still kept in Archives—but for a small gap.43 From 1729, yearly deficits seem to be very frequent, except for the Benedict XIV period, with an economic policy more careful and for the reign of Pious VI, a Pope who had elected in 1775, after a long period spent in the Roman Curia as treasurer. The 1793 negative figure is obviously the financial mirror of a dramatic period with a political crisis, marked by the Avignon massacre of all those who had been loyal to the Pope, and then by the 43 Sources same as for footnote 24.

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Ugo de Basseville murder in Rome. In short, it is possible to envisage that the cumulated Chamber deficit from 1729 up to the end of the century political crisis had reached more than 3 million silver scudi. It was then extremely urgent to face such losses by all possible financial manoeuvres, not only to get again a good positive trend, but also to make financial relationships between centre and periphery more balanced and fruitful. Nobody could then envisage how the Papal State could face a possible hostile invasion, without turning again to indebtedness. With a large delay, the Apostolic Chamber had compelled to follow the same financial policy already adopted since long by many other Italian states.

5

The Reforms Period

In the Italian states, the new economic policy had particularly directed towards a general cadastral system establishment: a trend which had been strongly hindered by all Landlords because it wore away all feudal powers. The Latin motto “laudat populus cadastrum” summed up in a few words the image of lower classes victory against rich Landlords.44 In Genova, a first attempt to establish a cadastral system started in 1656, but soon had suspended because of the plague. One hundred years later, a new cadastral regime had approved, but it had related only to buildings within the new town walls.45 On the contrary, in Piedmont, the new cadastre established in 1729 went soon to a good end, just to show that the traditional relationships among central power and local élites were changing, and that the government could now rely on a more fruitful proportional taxation.46 Lombardy was more or less on the same fiscal pattern and soon started again with the approval of a cadastre, which had soon blocked because of the local aristocracy opposition and by the Austrian succession war. In the Naples kingdom, the cadastre had never been approved: the total income got by the Government from direct taxation was however very high, much more than the indirect taxation yield during the seventeenth century and for a big part of the eighteen century.47 On the contrary, within the Papal State all cadastral reforms met strong and

44 Grohomann (2008: 17). 45 Felloni (1998: 219). 46 Capra (1990:149). 47 Bulgarelli Lukas (2016: figg. 6–7, 344–345).

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continuous obstacles. In order to get a reasonable fiscal yield, the Apostolic Chamber had the only one choice to turn on consumption duties, trying to eliminate gradually the many intermediaries or bankers who undertook tax contracts getting high margins. From 1650s onwards, the Apostolic Chamber had suffocated under the pile of an enormous number of trials, new calculations, agreements and pleas to get some diffalco or discount on the yearly contract price. On their turn, bankers claimed to get a remuneration because of the big drop of takings, after the Rome 1656 plague which had sunk consumptions, or because of war ‘rumours’ which frightened consumers, or for all sort of trafficking which the local governments and the police forces were not able to hinder. At the end, the Chamber itself had to manage directly the system of consumption taxes through various steps, with the final aim to replace private bankers and contractors with more trustable functionaries, closer to the papal Curia.48 Therefore, a new group of collectors and custom officers had established very soon, whilst in 1698 an entire new building for the staffs was opened in Rome, as a clear sign of care for such relevant duties. Under the Chamber control, all accounts had also displayed in a statistic and historical perspective: and they had soon shown a sharp income increase. Later on, profits from taxation began to decrease, because of the personnel costs, of a general managing incompetence and other inconveniences. Smuggling was increasing as well. At the end, the Chamber was compelled to change many times all taxes collection services: from its own organization to the old traditional bankers’ services, and vice versa. However, in the difficult field of direct taxation, something was in the meantime changing. In 1708, an innovative attempt had made with the million tax, which on the other hand had conceived at the very beginning only as a provisional issue. In order to finance the papal army sent to Ferrara for the Spanish Succession wars, pope Clement XI had been compelled to introduce an extraordinary tax on income by Roman crafts ‘according to their businesses, capitals and profits’. Such attempt had immediately opposed by Roman tradesmen and by the arts corporations: the whole matter had finally left to the brokerage of many Cardinals who protected various corporations, with a complicate follow

48 Piola Caselli (2012: 17).

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up of quarrels, tribunals and arbitrations.49 Chamber tax collectors—at the end—were able to raise only 346.908 scudi, one third only of the forecast global income. The tax had then suppressed in 1710, with many residual pending cases, which involved the Chamber for a long period. In order to afford realistically the fiscal problem, it was necessary to tax lands ownership, at least on the territory who surrounded the town of Rome. The first decrees to create a cadastre concerning all lands in the Roman territory had approved by Alexander VII in 1655–67, but they failed because of plague. Further attempts for the whole Papal State territory had started later on in 1681, then in 1708 and in 1726. At the very beginning, they had conceived with the aim to exclude any privilege or exemption. However, all projects met the strong resistance of proprietors and local powers. The cadastre had become a problem without solution, and it had always opposed with the same energy by all Landlords. As far as concerns duties coming from the Church State periphery, the traditional system of shares was still in force: taxation had calculated on the ground of unlikely demographic data, which on turn had been traditionally in use in the past two centuries. At the end, the amount had in fact paid thanks to local agreements and eventual conflicts had settled by an Apostolic Chamber arbitration.50 However, the true problem for the State public finances was the enormous imbalance between the yield coming from the State territories and that one coming from the town of Rome. In 1740, when Benedictus XIV had elected, the Rome town contributions—without taking into account the 40-km district around it—paid one third of total State incomes, whilst the remaining two third came from provinces and from international contributions or gifts. This was a big burden over the capital town, and the financial situation became even worse in the second half of the century.

49 Travaglini (1998: 15). 50 Capra (1990: 151).

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2,500,000

2,000,000

1,500,000

1,000,000

500,000

0 1619

1652

1678

1708

1730

1740

1744

1752

1762

1772

1782

1792

1793

Fig. 3 Financial contribution to Chamber accounts from Rome (left) and periphery (right). Papal scudi (Sources check footnote 24)

Figure 3 shows the rise and the decrease of cameral incomes from the Papal State periphery, which was strongly compensate by the Rome financial flows increase.51 In the second half of eighteenth century, the town of Rome, having nearly 150.000 citizen, gave a contribution to public accounts only a few thousands scudi less than the financial flows coming from a big periphery with more than two million inhabitants. The financial role of peripheral towns was decreasing, because in many cases they were conquering their own stronger autonomy, as in the case of Bologna. Pope Benedictus XIV in 1746 had started a revolutionary reform of Chamber accountancy, which included 16 big ledgers, with the aim to keep the whole Papal State territory under a satisfactory accounting control. However, from 1750, the trend had become even clearer: yearly papal balance sheets had fed only—or mainly—by Rome incomes. The consequence was an evident political and economic lack of balance. The cameral accounts’ reorganization required however a firm and difficult fiscal intervention on the whole territory. The opposition came once again from the feudal class, which was soon able to demonstrate its firm and untouched power. Too many people agreed to sabotage the new cadastral system that the Braschi pope had finally been able to introduce on the

51 Sources as for footnote 24.

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end of 1777.52 The new project left off the rich districts around Bologna, Ferrara and Rome, which had considered too much marshy to produce a relevant fiscal product according to the new system. However, given that no exemptions had provided in favour of nobility and clergy, an enormous quantity of protests and claims flooded into the Chamber, which on its turn had formally approved the new cadastre but at the end had not been able to carry it into effect. The only realistic fiscal income from the periphery still came—once again—from the painless and compulsory choice to tax consumptions. Within the Papal States, rents and profits seemed well protected and untouchable. However, in the most progressive curial milieu, a new climate was finally blowing. In 1766, the Jesuit priest Saverio Bettinelli, a learned writer who was well in contact with the major European enlightenment representatives, and among them with Voltaire, made a long tour around the Papal State borders, nearly 400 miles. Some years later, he prepared a new fiscal project for the Chamber treasurer Braschi (then Pious VI, from 1775), suggesting that all goods coming into the State by sea or by land should have been taxed at the border, without any further duty or charge up to their final consumption. It was an innovative fiscal project, which probably was then circulating in the Chamber milieu, where the future Pious VI was surrounded by a group of economists and intellectuals, not only Italian, among whom it was already well clear that free circulation of all internal trade—as well as exports—should be guaranteed.53 After many debates and further researches, the Papal States finally approved in 1786 a very detailed system of customs, including 86 compulsory entrance gates around the State borders. It was thus a widespread control, which had to oust all taxes and duties on internal trade and consumption, according to a national compulsory tariff with a wide tax rate range, from 0.50% to 20%. The apostolic Chamber should had diverted a share of cashed amounts to local towns, thus giving to duties a double run: from State borders to centre and from centre to peripheral towns. The Papal government was able to manage the new system in a quite efficient way, as it had soon understood that an efficient fiscal control of its territory—through customs gates—had now needed for the State survival. A new corps of 327 tax officers at the borders was

52 Strangio (2008: 505). 53 Lo Sardo (1994: 37–39).

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then set up. They were well equipped, with a good salary and uniforms suitable for winter times. They could also enjoy of a primitive but efficient cash for illness and medicines. Apparently, it was an efficient reform, easy, without problems, which did not clash with the unruly and proud major towns of the State. However, seen the risk to lose a direct flow of income by local taxation, the town of Rome, Bologna and Ferrara protested in order to have their own excise duty fence with additional taxes on consumptions, to add on those already paid when entering through borders. Seen the big towns protest, the State had to modify all fiscal rules already adopted. In any case, the project of tolls at the borders got soon positive results, with a fiscal yield increase close to 14% on exports and to 26% over the first two years.54 With a great delay, the Papal State was finally behind the times. However, the Napoleonic era was at the gates and it put an end to every project for a more incisive and fruitful tax reform.

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Limberger (Eds.), Taxation and debt in the early modern City (pp. 13–28). Pickering & Chatto. Piola Caselli, F. (2013). Spese della Corte e spese dello Stato. Le uscite della Camera Apostolica tra XIV e XVII secolo. In Á. Galán Sánchez, & J. M. Carretero Zamora (Eds.), El alimento del Estado y la salud de la res publica: orígenes, estructura y desarollo del gasto público en Europa (pp. 403–430). Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Piola Caselli, F. (2015). Il problema dell’efficienza fiscale nello Stato Pontificio. Dalle dogane cittadine alle dogane ai confini (sec. XVIII). In P. Cafaro, G. de Luca, A. Leonardi, L. Mocarelli, M Taccolini (Eds.), La Storia Economica come Impegno. Saggi in onore di Angelo Moioli (pp. 99–114). Franco Angeli. Reinhardt, V. (1997). Annona and Bread Supply in Rome. In P. van Kessel & E. Schulte (Eds.), Rome-Amsterdam: Two growing Cities in Seventeenth Century Europe (pp. 209–220). Amsterdam University Press. Strangio, D. (1994). Debito pubblico e riorganizzazione del mercato finanziario nello Stato ecclesiastico nel ’700. Roma Moderna e Contemporanea, 2, 83– 103. Strangio, D. (2008). Debito pubblico e sistema fiscale a Roma e nello Stato Pontificio tra ‘600–700. In S. Cavaciocchi (Ed.), La fiscalità nell’economia europea secc. XIII-XVIII (pp. 499–508). Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini”. Stumpo, E. (1979) Finanza e stato moderno nel Piemonte del Seicento. Istituto Storico Italiano. Stumpo, E. (1986). La crisi del Seicento in Italia. In N. Tranfaglia, & M. Firpo (Eds.), La storia. I grandi problemi dal Medioevo all’Età contemporanea (Vol. V. L’età moderna (3: Stato e società), Torino, pp. 313–337). Stumpo E. (2007). Città, stato e mercato finanziario: il diverso ruolo del debito pubblico in Piemonte e in Toscana. In G. De Luca, & A. Moioli (Eds.), Debito pubblico e formazione dei mercati finanziari in Italia. Secoli XIII–XX (pp. 147–165). Franco Angeli. Travaglini, C. M. (1998). The Roman guilds system in the Early Eighteenth Century. In A. Guenzi, P. Massa, & F. Piola Caselli (Eds.), Guilds, markets and working regulation in Italy, 16th–19th Centuries (pp. 150–170). Ashgate.

Portugal and the Europe: Similarities, Bridges and Potential Avenues to Explore in Future Works on Comparative Fiscal History Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez and Amélia Aguiar Andrade

As we observed throughout the readings in this volume, Portugal and the rest of Europe had many features in common concerning the construction of fiscal and financial solutions to enable state’s growth in late medieval and early modern periods. Another aspect that clearly comes to the front is that the Portuguese state maybe was/is in the periphery of Europe. On the other hand, its pioneering role in oceanic expansion opened doors and possibilities for greater financial consolidation and, at the same time, generated demands that the crown, on many occasions, was not

R. da C. Dominguez (B) Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] A. A. Andrade Institute of Medieval Studies—NOVA FCSH, Nova University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. da C. Dominguez and A. A. Andrade (eds.), Portugal in a European Context, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06227-8_16

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fully capable of responding to. In many instances, the answer came from immediate experimental but pragmatic solutions, through the mixture of existing institutions with modern arrangements that met the needs of the moment. This was arranged through private initiatives or some type of partnership with investors to create the necessary conditions, for example, for the establishment of Portuguese entrepots in India or the colonization of the Atlantic islands and the establishment of hereditary captaincies in Brazil. The immediate comparative is clear when we think of Portugal’s neighbor, Castile. Pablo Ortego Rico describes the ongoing transformations within Castilian finances during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs and the resources utilized to wage wars against Portugal between 1475 and 1479. On the other hand, Portugal used the very same tools to prepare warfare against Fernando and Isabella: the heavy use of extraordinary resources, i.e., direct taxes granted by the Cortes and even the forced—and sometimes violent—collection of churches’ silverware to sustain an army inside Castilian territory in an offensive campaign,1 and under difficult financial conditions for the Portuguese Crown. Sequential military activity in North Africa consumed a large part of the ordinary and extraordinary income, which drained the Royal treasury: Ksar es-Seghir (1458), Anfa—actual Casablanca (1464), Asilah and Tangiers (1471). Beyond that, the difficulties of centralizing processes and payments, especially related to the management of extraordinary taxation also denotes a significant level of similitude between both fiscal structures. The degrees of similitude with the Crown of Aragon are quite relevant, especially the pressures of political and economic elites on debt issuance procedures, as demonstrated by Albert Reixach Sala and Pere Verdés Pijuan. If we go deeper in the analysis, we can notice further similar fiscal mechanisms between Portugal and the rest of Western Europe. As observed by Tony K. Moore in his chapter, in England, by the fourteenth century, an increasing proportion of royal revenues were not coming into the treasury but were being paid out by the collectors at source. In Portugal, the same procedure was followed at the almoxarifados, with the

1 A comparative study of fiscal tools used by both Portugal and Castile during the War of Castilian Succession (1475–1479) has been recently submitted and accepted for publication by Dominguez and Triano Milán (in press). For the use of churches’ silverware in that context, see Marques (1989). For the Castilian case, see Del Pulgar (2008) and Ortego Rico (2012).

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payments being made directly at the source from the almoxarifes (local fiscal officers) to the receivers determined by the king. Furthermore, the solicitations of smaller loans from local landholders and towns, repaid from forthcoming taxes, with some degree of similarity to the pedidos (requests) and empréstimos (loans), normally demanded by the king to the municipalities’ representatives at the parliamentary assemblies. The impact of wars on states’ finances is also a common thread that links most of those cases to Portugal. The degrees of similitude and proximity between Portugal and the Crown of Aragon are explainable through the impact of growing war costs from the end of thirteenth century onward. Regarding Aragon, it had to do not only with sovereignty, i.e., the preservation and redefinition of frontiers, but also with a “mercantile side”, that is, the protection of trading routes by land and in the Mediterranean.2 On the Portuguese side, the internal wars regarding the Reconquista and, later, civil wars in sequence between Dinis I (1279– 1325) and his heir Alfonso IV (1325–1357), and between Alfonso and his heir, Peter I (1357–1367) damaged internal production and, consequently, faded Portuguese tax revenues on those goods’ trading and circulation. Furthermore, the levels of financial exigence imposed by the Ferdinand wars against Castile represented a game changer for Portugal’s tax system. It pushed the Crown toward a fiscal breakthrough: the systematic use of sales taxes, the sisas, not anymore as the result of a punctual direct request from the king to the municipalities, but now as a constant tax to subsidize the Royal treasury, providing financial sustainability to wage wars. Fausto Piola Caselli illustrated the difficulties faced by the Papal States to organize their finances in a sustainable way, but for peaceful times. War demands drained Italian public finances in early modern period, similar to what happened to Portugal since the fifteenth century. Offensive campaigns in different fronts—against Castile in Europe, and the maintenance of outposts in Africa and Asia, not to mention war at sea to maintain naval hegemony—drained most of Portugal’s capacity of revenue streaming, despite the profit margins in the 1520s and 1530s. It was fundamental to keep the Cape route and sustain investment on transportation at all costs. But no private investors wanted to face the risk against privateering, both English and Dutch. With further competition,

2 Sánchez Martínez (1995); Sánchez Martínez et al., (2008).

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and under Habsburg rule (1580–1640), the alternative was to finance shipping through tax revenues, which represented an “institutional breakthrough”.3 Luciano Pezzolo’s chapter on fiscal tradition and innovation in Italy explains the transition to modern state finances in Italy. And one of the interesting features in this process is to seek for equitable fiscal devices. The issue of “distributive justice” was one of the fundamental pillars of early modern societies. However, this “innovation” of fiscal fairness was not restricted to Tuscany, Italy or other states of ancient regime Europe. In 1640, the Portuguese government started imposing the décima, a 10% rate on various incomes (rents, profits, interests and wages),4 in order to fund Portugal’s war efforts to secession with Spain and break the Habsburg rule. It proved to be a significant tax but was spread rendering to the traditional principle of a proportional burden. The similarities between Portugal and the United Provinces can be seen in Marjolein t’ Hart’s chapter. Her approach on Holland’s state finances and the differences between the Dutch republic, Flanders and Brabant evidenced the growth of political disputes in each case, which were balanced by a key institution: the Estates General. Despite the urban rivalries between them, they were able to unite under Holland’s leadership to fight Spanish dominance. In Portugal, the king had to recognize the parliament, i.e., the Cortes, as a key instrument to negotiate proportional fiscal solutions,5 constructing a balanced and light-burden tax system, especially in such a critical moment which was the Portuguese Restoration wars (1640–1668). Florent Garnier analyzes the French fiscal constitution and its transition from domain to tax state, under the perspective of taxation normative and legal dimensions. He affirms the essence of taxes as a strengthening tool to royal power when confronting other lay or ecclesiastical rules. This balance of powers meant a new paradigm for the society: it legitimizes the king’s right to tax in order to benefit the collective, the res publica, creating a new standard in terms of state control and financial sovereignty. As seen on Hermínia Vilar’s chapter (part I of this

3 Costa (2013: 45–46). 4 Costa and Brito (2018). 5 Torgal 1981–1982, Cardim (1993), Costa (2009), Costa et al., (2021).

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volume), the Portuguese fiscal constitution went through the consolidation of a legal corpus that was not circumscribed only to taxation, but also extended its relationship to the definition of ownership, i.e., what was the king’s property and what belonged to the community/state. Moreover, legislation was conceived to enhance the state’s ability for ensuring the existence of mechanisms working for social balance and provide financial means to sustain institutions and state governance. What is interesting to notice is the fact that even with so many similar features in terms of fiscal constitution, Portugal heavily relied on its colonial empire to enhance its state capacity. Recent studies6 have challenged traditional pessimistic views of economic recession,7 based on new data sets and econometric exercises. However, they demonstrate Portugal’s decline, in terms of GDP, between 1600 and 1650, which corroborate the traditional view of decadence in a broader perspective. In this sense, Portugal’s Early Modern economy combined a low level of income with a significant colonial system and “this raises the issue of whether the latter was a help or a hindrance to its long-term economic performance”.8 Yet, despite significant profits from the empire, Portugal’s economy diverged from European counterparts. Moreover, further studies on taxation and fiscal governance are necessary and key to understand Portugal’s modern divergence with Europe. More work is needed to understand long-term evolution of indirect taxation, the national budget’s level of support from colonial revenues, and the fundamental role of parliamentary representation and financial control regarding Portuguese political economy in the long run. At the end of the 1600s, Portugal was starting to assemble a new state which would be underpinned by a tax state framework, with greater implications to the kingdom but whose empire functioning would very much depend upon English support.9 It is clear that more comparative work can be done between Portuguese historiography and other European scholars, especially in the area of comparative colonial potential and State capacity, differences in patterns of fiscal governance and trends of long-run performance

6 Costa et al., (2014), Palma and Reis (2018). 7 Azevedo (1973), Godinho (1955), Macedo (1982), Sérgio (1984). 8 Costa et al., (2014: 4–5). 9 Yun-Casalilla (2019: 432).

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regarding fiscal revenues and allocation of resources for specific purposes, such as warfare and consolidation of sea power. In this sense, the editors of this volume are pleased to present a work that can be a solid and positive contribution to this debate and expand this cooperation trend among our European colleagues.

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