Taxation and Public Finances in the Spanish Empire : 1550-1750

The emergence and consolidation of the so-called modern state was one of the most remarkable features of the early modern period and went hand in hand with the development of fiscal and financial systems.

The emergence and consolidation of the so-called modern state was one of the most remarkable features of the early modern period and went hand in hand with the development of fiscal and financial systems. This book explores the case of the Spanish Habsburgs who ruled over a vast collection of states and principalities in the burgeoning Spanish empire. In this edited volume, a cast of expert economic historians each explores the fiscal and financial systems created in the different territories of the Spanish Monarchy, including Castile, Aragón, Navarre, Spanish America, Portugal, the Italian States and the Southern Low Countries. While each of the components of this ‘composite monarchy’ laboriously created its own fiscal and financial apparatus, there are interesting similarities behind the at-first-sight impenetrable jungle of different fiscal and financial institutions which indicates more commonality than is sometimes assumed. Also, the medieval heritage of these fiscal systems did not preclude change and evolution, as the massive expansion of public credit in Portugal and Castile demonstrates. However, the chapters also provide convincing evidence to question the adequacy of the almighty fiscal state paradigm which dominates similar work on the Dutch and British empires and shows that a unified imperial fiscal and financial bureaucracy never existed. The book demonstrates that the imperial center consistently observed local privileges and rights while negotiating its mounting fiscal requests with the Empire’s different cities, territories, and corporations separately. This book will find ready readers among all those interested in European and American economic history, early modern history and the history of public finance.