Trade, credit debt and legal violence: aragonese public institutions and the Catalan retaliations (1484-1564)

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of legal violence on political negotiation carried out by public institutions to solve litigation regarding economic matters in mediterranean Europe at the beginning of the early modern age. Different legal frameworks and economic goals, as well as mistrust between public institutions governing Catalonia and Aragon hampered the resolution of two legal disputes concerning public debt. As a result, Catalan retaliation on Aragonese trade did persit during long time. In the first case, the Spanish monarchy imposed in 1499 a political mediation and solution. In the second, damage of this legal violence to regional trade weakened the Aragonese bargaining power: the Diputación or permanent government accepted in 1532 the Catalan conditions to suppress retaliation. These practical considerations ruled proposals of mutual tariff reductions coming from the Aragonese Parliament since 1537, finally approved by the Catalan Parliament in 1564, in order to promote trade between both territories.

Keywords

• comercio, deuda censal, violencia legal, instituciones públicas, cataluña, aragón, siglo xvi