From Negotiation to Coercion: 1635 Donation’s Revenue

Abstract

The bad economic situation of the regal tax office and the war break up with France motivated Phillip IV to require from his subjects a new donation. In this paper the methods employed by the crown to raise the 1635 donation are studied, specifically the regals delegates practices that requested it individually to Castillian citizens. In said occasion, the monarch did not delivered gifts who served him with prodigiousness like happened before, rather the opposite, his ministers used diverse forms of coercion, from threatens and fines to prison sentences, in order to force population to give donations. Every social class was requested the donation, but with a special stress in the more well-off groups, given the quantity of the remittance had to be based on the vassal’s wealthiness.

Keywords

• donativo
• coerción
• fiscalidad