Finances, currency and taxation in the 14th and 15th centuries

Abstract

The emergence of state taxation in the 14th century is intrinsically associated with monetary and financial development. In Catalonia, the crux of this joint evolution was the emergence of general taxes over the entire land, which required the towns to implement the censal, leading, in turn, to consolidated public debt and the financial slump of the 1380s, followed by difficulties caused by errors in monetary policy. The creation of the Taula de Canvi de Barcelona in 1401 mitigated both problems, but after 1440 the manufacturing crisis and currency problems prompted heavy clashes with the municipal power, one of the factors in the 1462-1472 Civil War, which would prove ruinous to the country. The subsequent redress was not enough: the war had depleted Catalonia’s economic and political power.

Keywords

• currency
• finances
• state taxation
• catalonia
• late middle ages