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State Cash Resources and State Building in Europe 13th-18th century

 | 
Katia Béguin
, 
Anne L. Murphy

Tax or Borrow or Borrow and Tax?

The Real Thing: the Pedidos of Portugal and the Demands for Extraordinary Revenues in the Later Middle Ages

Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

Texte intégral

1By the end of the 1450s, Portugal had a very serious issue to deal with: extraordinary expense and the almost constant necessity of extraordinary revenues, which resulted in great part from its military activity. This chapter reflects on Portuguese tax collection structures in the later medieval period and the dynamics of its revenues, and, based on mid-fifteenth-century documents, offers a brief comparison between extraordinary revenues and ordinary incomes, specifically during Afonso V’s reign.

2Medieval monarchs regularly abused their power over their currency and Portuguese monarchs were no different. Understanding of the damage that could be done by the monarch’s arbitrary actions against the currency led to a preference for paying an extraordinary subsidy when the monarch was in dire financial straits. This led the so-called royal ‘requests’ (pedidos) or ‘loans’ (empréstimos), as they were known, to become a regular feature of Portugal’s fiscal system.

3Yet the extraordinary use of indirect taxation (the sisas) urgently needed to be made ordinary. For the Portuguese, money and credit were constant needs in that context. New expenses – such as the Atlantic expansion, the attempt to take hold of the Castilian crown and the Portuguese presence in Africa – brought economic turbulence during that period. However, Portugal did not follow its neighbours Castile and Aragon, or other European countries, not adopting the consolidated debt model, created in Italy in the later Middle Ages, in order to address financial problems and still utilized by most of the kingdoms of western Europe. In fact, the Portuguese crown took the option of directly ‘redistributing’ income among the nobility to sustain the political project of the monarch.

4The purpose of this chapter is to analyse some of the features of Portugal’s extraordinary revenues and to compare them with its regular incomes, its direct collection or leasing, to ask who the leaseholders were, to explore distribution and spending, and to consider how much it cost the Portuguese crown to collect these revenues and how much, in fact, entered the royal coffers. The discussion will be based on a selected sample of mid-fifteenth-century acquittance letters. The ultimate aim will be to explore how much money was actually at the king’s disposal.

Portugal: the Need for a Fiscal Orientation and the New Historiography

  • 1 Martin Körner, ‘Expenditure’, in Richard Bonney (ed.), Economic systems and state finance, Oxford, (...)

5Martin Körner, in a publication edited and coordinated by Richard Bonney and entitled Economic systems and state finance, cites Braudel’s assertion that because there is a natural inclination by administrations to spend disproportionately,1 income growth has been, since the late medieval and early modern periods, a real necessity, as well as a central aspect of the tax policies of European countries.

  • 2 Filipe Themudo Barata and António Castro Henriques, ‘Economic and fiscal history’, in José Mattoso (...)
  • 3 Ibid., pp. 277–278.

6Incorporating Portugal into this structure is not simple, but it is worthwhile. There is a particular need to understand the dynamics of Portuguese taxation before undertaking the analysis proposed at the beginning of this chapter. Historiographically, Portugal’s state finances and political and administrative issues were analysed by the authors in the 1980s and 1990s from an institutional perspective, and indeed as a chapter within the long-run narrative of the creation of a centralized state and the organization of a royal bureaucracy. There has been intense debate between José Mattoso, Armando Luis de Carvalho Homem, Vitorino Magalhães Godinho and Oliveira Marques about the turning points which led to the creation of an organized tax system. According to some, this took place in the 1300s, during the reign of Fernando I (1369–1383). Before that, some of those historians classified it as a ‘not very coherent system’.2 On the one hand, according to Carvalho Homem, the establishment, during the 1360s, of a central officer responsible for supervising the finances – the Vedor da Fazenda – along with the introduction of the sales taxes (sisas) was a turning point in the organization of the Portuguese fiscal system. On the other hand, following José Mattoso, it has been argued that the reforms implemented under Afonso III (1248–1279) together with the creation of a countrywide complex of fiscal districts, the almoxarifados, with the foundation of the local branch of Guimarães, was key because it established a system that was no longer controlled by the courtly nobles.3

  • 4 See António Maria Braga de Macedo de Castro Henriques, State finance, war and redistribution in Por (...)

7The most recent historiography on this subject has, however, challenged this view and introduced new concepts and models.4 Yet difficulties with primary sources and the utilization of relatively new conceptual models must still be overcome. Also, the question of hoarding and the controversy about the real potential of the sisas as an instrument for managing the tax burden on the population are topics that still cause controversy.

  • 5 Paulo Merêa, ‘Organização social e administração pública’, ch. III, Fontes de Receita do Estado, in (...)

8During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Portuguese tax collection model was based on direct taxes. Its origins were in the Roman tradition fused with the quasi-servile condition of its ‘taxpayers’ in relation to grants, letters of settlement, violence and extortion.5 Complicated and expensive, but convenient, it was not used for ordinary expenditure, but it was kept as a normal source of income for the kings and the nobility.

  • 6 José Mattoso, ‘1096–1325’, in José Mattoso (dir.), História de Portugal – vol. III: A Monarquia Feu (...)
  • 7 Jorge Faro, Receitas e despesas da Fazenda Real…, op. cit., p. LII.

9Although King Afonso III (1248–1279) had left a healthy Treasury,6 his son Dinis I and his grandson Afonso IV, during the 1300s, were still faced with problems relating to the usurpations of the clergy and nobility. They attempted to tackle these through legislation preventing the acquisition of goods in crown lands.7 Furthermore, numerous disputes in the form of small civil wars between the kings who followed caused serious damage to the Royal Treasury.

  • 8 Filipe Themudo Barata and António Castro Henriques, ‘Economic and fiscal history…’, op. cit., pp. 2 (...)

10Fernando I took over the throne at a time when its finances were stable, although disturbed by the political situation in Castile. This would be the first milestone on the journey towards a ‘tax state’, when consumption became the main target of the Portuguese fiscal system. Nevertheless, the currency and coinage were also central issues concerning extraordinary taxation, since the pedidos derived from this royal right. The choice of an indirect tax rather than a direct tax demonstrates, according to the new historiography, the choice made in favour of the elites of agrarian cities at the expense of market towns.8

  • 9 Richard Bonney, ‘Revenues’, in R. Bonney (ed.), Economic systems…, op. cit., p. 428.
  • 10 Armindo de Sousa, As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490), Porto, INIC, 1990, vol. I, p. 291.
  • 11 Ibid., vol. I, pp. 255–256.

11At that time, Portugal urgently needed to normalize the extraordinary use of indirect taxation (sisas).9 For this reason, the Portuguese medieval parliament (the Cortes) first granted rights to Fernando I and, after that, to João I of Avis, on both occasions for short periods, first in the 1360s and then during the 1383–85 crises, until the conflicts with Castile for the Portuguese crown were finished.10 Although the representatives knew it was temporary and necessary, they also knew that those revenues would never find their way back into the people’s pockets. Here, two central questions must be highlighted: first, the fact that much of the tax collection was leased to ‘private investors’, which, on one hand, facilitates the entry of money into the royal coffers but, on the other, as a side effect, marks the revenues’ stagnancy. Second, there was a continual struggle during the fifteenth century between the representatives and the kings about ending the collection of indirect taxes – the sisas in particular – which did not cease even when Manuel I took control, by force, of those incomes.11 Not surprisingly, after that point the Cortes lost political relevance.

  • 12 António Maria Braga de Macedo de Castro Henriques, State finance, war and redistribution in Portuga (...)
  • 13 Martin Körner, ‘Expenditure…’, op. cit., p. 402.
  • 14 Saul Gomes, D. Afonso V: o Africano, Mem-Martins, Circulo de Leitores, 2006, p. 133.
  • 15 Those numbers are applicable when combined with the dízimas (a 10% customs taxes) and tolls of the (...)
  • 16 Armindo de Sousa, ‘A Estratégia política dos municípios no reinado de D. João II’, in Revista da Fa (...)

12During the reign of Afonso V (1438–1481), the state’s tax policy rested on three fundamental pillars: the maintenance of individual privileges, retaining the elites as part of the administrative structure and the direct redistribution of resources among the nobility. The sisas provided the financial basis for this ‘redistribution’ project.12 In western European countries, between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, an average of 10 to 40% of expenditure was directed towards the maintenance of the kings’ courts.13 In Portugal, spending on the king’s court was a normal feature, especially with regard to annuities. For the representatives, the issue was very clear: the absurdly high number of grants awarded to the nobility, especially annuities and wedding gifts, was undermining public finances. In 1470, funding for the establishment of the households of Prince João and Prince Fernando, the dukes of Viseu and Beja, accounted for 50% of annual ordinary expenditure.14 It is clear that the king did not neglect indirect taxation as a source of income since these revenues could reach amounts that ranged from 75% between the years 1398 and 1402, up to approximately 91% of the Royal Treasury’s ordinary income in 1473.15 There is, however, some doubt about these figures since we lack complete statistical and specific data. For this reason, when João II started to rule, at the Cortes of Évora-Viana in 1481–1482, the representatives produced 27 chapters detailing the finances of the nobility and their pensions.16 This indicates how urgently the Royal Treasury needed a solution for Portugal’s financial difficulties.

  • 17 Martin Körner, ‘Expenditure…’, op. cit., p. 416.
  • 18 Saul Gomes, D. Afonso V: o Africano…, op. cit., p. 173.
  • 19 See José Marques, ‘O Príncipe D. João e a recolha das pratas das Igrejas para custear a guerra com (...)

13Crucial and often unpredictable in the ‘budget’, war was also a key factor in the states’ expenses during the last centuries of the Middle Ages.17 During Afonso V’s rule, military spending was high since he needed to protect the legitimacy of his dynasty (hence the need for gifts), and deal with the crown’s increasing need for money after the conquests in northern Africa. The evolution of Portuguese medieval warfare involved heavy expenses, in order to buy equipment and hire a skilled workforce to operate it. All these factors together led to medium-term successive deficits and a near-insolvency of the Royal Treasury.18 To overcome that, Afonso V appropriated as much as he could, including direct revenues from land, ecclesiastical revenues, customs, the sisas, short-term loans from Italian merchant-bankers and the Jewish communities – even the churches’ silverware.19 That debt model brought the Portuguese kingdom close to bankruptcy, but the revenues from overseas mitigated this process and sometimes even reversed it, meaning that the state was never forced to build an adequate fiscal system or even re-structure its fiscal regime in order to achieve better revenues and a better system of administration. With money flowing more easily from the 1480s onwards, the crown did not have to worry about developing a proper fiscal model until the second half of the sixteenth century. But even then, since the Portuguese Empire had grown too much, the requirement for rapid revenues was more urgent and meant that the crown could not wait for the sclerotic collection system to work. Thereafter, consolidation of the public debt combined with bond-selling became the only solutions for a resource-intensive and worldwide administrative system.

Credit and Extraordinary Revenues: Definitive and Constant Needs

  • 20 This is one of the aspects we intend to treat in our PhD research, currently underway. By now, we h (...)
  • 21 Richard Bonney, ‘Revenues…’, op. cit., p. 442.
  • 22 Iria Gonçalves, As finanças municipais do Porto na segunda metade do século XV, Porto, Câmara Munic (...)
  • 23 A document of 1363 reports loans granted by female intermediary traders to Porto’s fishermen, from (...)
  • 24 The acquittance charter to João Afonso, receiver of the sisas collected on coloured cloth in Lisbon (...)
  • 25 Charter of grace granted to Abraham, a Jewish resident of Porto, which allowed him to negotiate wit (...)
  • 26 See Mário Júlio Brito de Almeida Costa, Raízes do Censo Consignativo: para a história do crédito me (...)

14Credit in Portugal during the Middle Ages is still seen in a simplistic way. On the one hand there are obvious differences in scale, with lenders and some Jewish families who participated actively in the tax leasing process (tax farming) linked to Italian merchants living in Portugal, apparently having great investment capacity.20 The confusion between the structures of collection and credit constituted an important issue for the Portuguese to the extent that tax leaseholders would be potential sources of lending in the absence of appropriate banking structures.21 Despite the presence of Italian businessman, the situation had created opportunities for the Jewish community to work with both short-term credit and tax leasing. Their success can be measured through their contributions to Porto’s municipal finances which were frequently paid in advance.22 The money raised through tax-farming initiatives could have provided them with the appropriate and necessary cash flow for lending and other investments. In this sense, the country was developing rudimentary instruments of urban credit,23 both in partnership24 and individually.25 Existing within complex legal structures, the system was first and best analysed by scholars of the history of law.26 Nonetheless, lending in small measures was also an important part of ‘normal’ people’s needs and truly fundamental to the economic dynamics of Portuguese cities.

  • 27 Filipe Themudo Barata and António Castro Henriques, ‘Economic and fiscal history…’, op. cit., pp. 2 (...)

15Issues of credit accumulation and financing within the economy are essential to our understanding of the real role of the central actors (merchants) and their status within a broader process of influence and access to certain markets of higher or lower scales of credit and trade.27 Furthermore, the connection between private investors and the state through the tax farming processes and the composition of those groups are factors that are still under-investigated.

  • 28 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal durante a Idade Média, Lisbon, Cadernos (...)

16Another question to be addressed is: where did extraordinary subsidies come from? The right to attribute a value to the currency and to mint it was under royal prerogative. This mechanism drew its legal justification from the consuetudinary law of monetagium. However, the need to use these expedients came when the gap between revenues and expenses became more visible with the conquest of the Algarve in 1249. The spoils of war, looting, judicial fines and some taxes levied by the king and privileges granted over land, thus far had been sufficient to the maintenance of the royal household and the administration of the country. Until this point, there was no sign of an organized and elaborate fiscal apparatus.28

  • 29 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal…, op. cit., pp. 26–27.
  • 30 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 34, fl. 162 vº.

17The extraordinary revenues discussed and voted on at the Cortes can be classified into two categories: the ‘requests’ (pedidos) and the ‘loans’ (empréstimos). The former have a particular and central characteristic: they are an additional input of a direct nature, that is, distributed among the subjects and collected by means of a kingdom-wide organization for evaluation and collection, with officials being responsible for these functions – in this case, the evaluators or avaliadores, the quantifiers or aquantiadores, and finally the drawers or sacadores. The difficulty here is to distinguish each one of the multiple expressions utilized to designate the revenues (finta, talha and the peita) in the sources, a problem already explored during the 1960s by Iria Gonçalves. Concerning the differences between the pedido – which supposedly could only be used by one person, that is, the king or a landlord – and other terms used, we can perhaps establish differences according to use: the first was a levy that was to be used by the municipalities (concelho); the second and third could be used at regional or national levels.29 Another term utilized to designate the extraordinary revenues is ‘service’ (serviço). Nevertheless, within the sample of documents selected, that word appears only once, in a charter of 1450 to the almoxarife of Guimarães and Ponte de Lima. 30

  • 31 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal..., op. cit., pp. 31–32.
  • 32 Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, La Hacienda Real de Castilla (1369–1504): estúdios y documentos, Madri (...)
  • 33 Armindo de Sousa, As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490)…, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 182–183.

18The empréstimo was a determined amount attributed to the monarch under the condition of eventually ‘returning it’ to the people, an action that did not happen frequently, thus essentially converting the nature of that imposition.31 Comparatively, it was also defined as a ‘loan’ or préstamo by the Castilians, or as a ‘donation’ (donativo),32 and can also be analysed from the perspective of the parliamentary debates about its collection. On many occasions, the kings, using very humble speech, called the attorneys of the counties to the assemblies and discussed their economic difficulties. However, after a long rhetorical battle between the representatives of both sides, what began as a modest appeal for extra funds ended up as a request. In other words, what was asked first as a pedido ended up as an empréstimo. On the other hand, the income behaved as a pedido, because of how it was requested and levied, that is, as if it were a tax. Moreover, all this reveals the restricted power of municipal prosecutors at the Portuguese Cortes: despite their exercising an advisory role and being gathered on many occasions just to take care of the economic issues of the realm,33 they usually ended by yielding to the king’s will, showing some degree of dependence and attesting to the strength and autonomy of monarchical power.

  • 34 Saul Gomes, D. Afonso V: o Africano…, op. cit., p. 56.
  • 35 Ibid., p. 69.

19During his reign, Afonso V took particular advantage of those tactics, utilizing, as one of his bargaining tools, the prerogative of ending the collection of the sisas. The endowments, the process of raising a young sovereign and the need to please those who helped educate him, their descendants and friends may have opened the door to his excessive granting of annuities and privileges during his uncle Pedro’s regency (1438–1448).34 Another idea that has confirmed Oliveira Marques’ conclusions about the monarch is that the Cortes were essentially an opportunity to dispatch the financial needs of the Crown, which was always hungry for more resources, and to leave aside what could be some of the kingdom’s important administrative decisions, since Afonso V tended to make decisions without consulting the assembly.35

  • 36 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal…, op. cit., pp. 45–46.
  • 37 Ibid., pp. 50–52.
  • 38 Armindo de Sousa, As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490)…, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 254–256.

20Despite this individualistic and centralist tendency of the sovereign, and considering the fact that he could not impose new taxes without the consent of the Cortes, the representatives gathered were, in fact, responsible for analysing the situation and the royal needs, seeking solutions and, finally, asking for financial help. The deputies were not caught off guard, since, in most cases, their towns had already given them instructions and procedures depending on the subjects addressed.36 Once they had determined the amount, which was defined by a ratio scale – half, one whole pedido, one and a half, two, and so on – the total sum to be paid was divided between the counties. The evaluators, responsible for the assessment (survey) of the possessions of the ‘taxpayers’, the quantifiers, that is, those that determined the amounts to be paid by each one (on a scale from 0.5 to 3 libras) by the ’attribution’ of values facing every person’s properties,37 and the drawers, directly in charge of collecting the money, were part of a weighty and complex structure that would be assembled only in extraordinary cases. Notwithstanding, the frequency of those extra revenues turned it virtually into a permanent mechanism, particularly from the 1450s onwards. Not coincidentally, the parliament was convened 24 times in 43 years of Afonso V’s reign, an average of one meeting every two years.38 This demonstrates both the institutional relevance of the Cortes and the measure of the kingdom’s financial needs.

  • 39 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 27, fl. 133–136 vº.
  • 40 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 5, fl. 83 vº.
  • 41 In 1435/1436, Duarte I created a new account currency: the real, with more silver in its compositio (...)

21Although there is a lack of surviving account books, one method of making a financial study of the Portuguese situation is to sample the acquittance letters granted by the king to the officers responsible for royal finances’ local branches (almoxarifes) and also to the receivers (recebedores), officers in charge of receiving the money from tax leaseholders. Regarding the extraordinary incomes voted on at the assemblies, these could be collected together with ordinary incomes, as demonstrated by a charter of 1442, written to João Louvado, almoxarife of Lamego.39 This charter provides us with important information about the pedido of 1437 collected in that jurisdiction under Duarte I’s rule, in order to pool resources for the failed attempt to conquer Tangier. It is important to note here the lack of coherence and organization discussed above. Indeed, in this case with regard to extraordinary revenue, the officer responsible realized a total of 24,738,049 libras in revenues and 24,057,315 libras in expenses. The residue – 698,734 libras – was ‘transited’ as part of the following year’s ordinary income. Moreover, the almoxarife was arrested because of money missing from the extraordinary revenues paid by the Jewish communes. He was replaced by a temporary officer for two months. Meanwhile, the debt was honoured by his wife, and he returned to his office in the following year. Comparatively, the ordinary income of the same year was 19,454,330 libras, approximately 21% less, although the extra income was calculated at a ratio of 1.5 (pedido e meio). If we convert it to a ratio of 1, that is, to a single pedido, we find a total of 16,038,210 libras, almost as much as the ordinary income. In other words, the Royal Treasury could double its revenues with these extraordinary taxes. However, the sums could vary according to the area of the country where they were collected. A charter of 1446,40 giving acquittance to Afonso Cerveira, receiver at the almoxarifado of Guarda, in the northeast part of the realm, reveals an extraordinary collection of 106,654 reais for 1437 – equivalent to 3,732,890 libras41 – which when compared to the total of the ordinary income of that same year – 906,857 reais – is equivalent to 12% of that amount. Yet it is important to highlight the fact that it was levied only at the local Jewish communes and part of the payment was made in kind – in this particular case, with 420 pieces of cloth from Castile.

  • 42 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 27, fl. 5 vº–6 vº.
  • 43 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 27, fl. 129 vº–130 vº.
  • 44 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 24, fl. 3–3 vº.

22Nonetheless, the sources reveal particular instances of this extraordinary income, such as a charter of 1443,42 which provided acquittance to Diogo Alvares, squire and member of the Royal Household, showing the utilization of that revenue for a specific purpose: the maintenance of walls and castles in the district of Entre Tejo e Odiana, in the southeastern part of the realm, which covers the lands from the Sado and Tagus Rivers and the Atlantic Ocean at the western limits to the border with Castile in the east. At the same time, taxes could be used to cover ordinary expenses, attested by another charter of 1443,43 giving acquittance to Garcia Fernandes, esquire of the king’s uncle, Infante Pedro. Many of the expenses related in this particular document were graces, which means amounts of money given by the monarch, with regular frequency or not, without any particular counterpart, contrasting with the pensions paid for services rendered. Along with that, lots of annuities and some money to cover Pedro’s regular expenditures relating to food supplies can be identified. Another interesting feature is the presence of Moorish drawers collecting money in the Algarve region, confirmed by a charter of 1444,44 which gives acquittance to Afonso Soeiro, another of Pedro’s esquires, receiver of a pedido approved in 1441 and collected during the two following years in Faro, Loulé, Silves and Tavira.

  • 45 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 34, fl. 68 vº–69.
  • 46 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 3, fl. 13 vº–15.

23As mentioned earlier, minting and war were important factors relating to the financial needs of the realm. For the Portuguese, extraordinary incomes could represent a major boost in raising funds for these expensive enterprises. Two acquittance documents of 145045 and 1453,46 the first to Rui Lopes, receiver of the pedidos at the almoxarifado of Lamego and the second to Vasco Afonso, also a receiver at the almoxarifado of Torre de Moncorvo, a small town at the border in the northeast, are illustrative. The former example gives us an amount collected in 1444 to help the Castilians in the war against Aragon – 363,062 reais – and the latter gives examples of extraordinary revenues to the same military campaigns – 163,252 reais in 1441 and 169,769 reais in 1444 – and also measures to avoid the devaluation of the currency and the drain of silver to other countries. In order to establish some comparable standards of scales and values, the sisas collected on wine in Lisbon, in 1447, could yield to the respective leaseholder 127,568 reais; the same tax collected on fruit, also in Lisbon, in 1449, could yield 176,600 reais. The main issue here is: if small towns such as Moncorvo could contribute such a sum, how much could the monarch obtain from the whole kingdom through each extraordinary levy? Here, given that we have some parts of the puzzle, we can speculate.

Table 1. Ordinary versus extraordinary revenues in Portugal (in libras)

Ordinary income

Extraordinary income (pedido)

Lamego (1437)

19,454,330

16,038,210

Lamego (1441)

14,499,975

8,343,195

Guarda (1436)

33,660,636

3,732,890*

(plus payment in cloth)

Guarda (1449)

38,647,630

3,640,630

Beja (1440)

38,606,540

---

Beja (1442)

27,754,160

---

Abrantes (1441)

---

7,195,965

Setúbal (1439)

34,060,374

---

Guimarães (1445)

4,059,685

281,400

Ponte de Lima (1442)

---

24,151,400* (1.5 pedido)

Torre de Moncorvo (1441)

---

5,713,820

Torre de Moncorvo (1444)

---

6,319,635

Source: Portuguese National Archives (ANTT), Chanc. D. Afonso V, books 3, 5, 11, 18, 23, 25, 27 and 34; Leitura Nova, Guadiana, book 4.

  • 47 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal…, op. cit., p. 79.
  • 48 Ibid., p. 80.
  • 49 Ibid., pp. 82–83.
  • 50 Ibid., pp. 84–85.

24Although they were directly related to the privileges granted by the monarch, in general, cities’ and towns’ representatives resisted royal interference in the selection of those officers in charge of the collection of extraordinary incomes. In some instances, officers had been designated by a charter and were expected to present themselves for duty every time those extraordinary revenues were requested.47 But the general precept was that the positions were occupied by different people each time an extraordinary subsidy was levied.48 On the other hand, on a number of occasions, the sovereign accepted the conditions requested by the municipalities; in other words, they got to elect the officers.49 This was a pragmatic decision by the monarch since he generally did not want to alienate his taxpayers. It is notable that the evaluators and the drawers could be chosen by popular election, even when the others were designated by the king.50

  • 51 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 23, fl. 2–3.
  • 52 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 18, fl. 63–65.

25Concerning the ‘ordinary’ input, most of the regular incomes were indirect taxes. Another charter of 1442 shows that 98% of the regular incomes at the local branch of Setúbal came from indirect taxation (sisas) on wheat, bread, meat, cloth and wine.51 But if we consider the customs’ taxes (dízimas), this proportion rises to approximately 99.5%. Another charter from 1439 at the local branch of Guarda shows revenues totalling 93% via indirect taxes and only 6% from direct taxation (most of all, rents, and a couple of exploration rights of some localities).52 Relating to expenses, the same document shows 15% of endowments and rents granted to the nobility, with one major exception: Afonso V’s uncle Infante D. Henrique (Henry the Navigator). By receiving money to run the settlement of Ceuta and its blacksmiths – which he could manage at his own discretion – he was responsible for 82% of the total expenses related to that year’s collection.

Table 2 – Values of some of Portugal’s sales taxes – sisas (in libras)

Sisas collected on wine (Lisbon – 1447)

4,464,880

Sisas collected on fruit (Lisbon – 1449)

6,181,000

Sisas collected on coloured cloth (Lisbon – 1446)

27,120,765

Sisas collected on coloured cloth (Lisbon – 1447)

48,000,015

Sisas collected on coloured cloth (Lisbon – 1448)

48,041,350

Sisas collected on coloured cloth (Lisbon – 1449)

49,199,990

Sisas collected on cloth (Setúbal – 1439)

1,350,000

Sisas collected on coloured cloth (Setúbal – 1449)

1,382,500

Sisas collected on wine (Setúbal – 1439)

2,539,820

Sisas collected on wine (Setúbal – 1449)

2,502,500

General sisas collected (Beja – 1439)

7,836,325

Sisas collected on cloth and wine (Beja – 1439)

4,663,675

Source: Portuguese National Archives (ANTT), Chanc. D. Afonso V, books 11, 18, 25, 27 and 34; Leitura Nova, Guadiana, book 4.

26Not all sisas or other indirect taxes could automatically generate profits when farmed, and for that reason investors were very careful about their money. Setúbal and Guarda, two cases mentioned above, had the total amount of their indirect taxes leased, but in Beja 61% of the indirect taxes collected were leased. Regarding the presence of Jewish families in the tax leasing process, contrary to the traditional understanding, in the sample analysed, many of the farmers were Jews, but the majority were Christian – in the case of Beja, one-third and two-thirds respectively. However, in Setúbal, 28.5% came from the Jewish community (alone or in partnerships with other Jews or Christians) and 71.5% were Christians. In Guarda, the division was 25% Jewish and 75% Christian. One caveat should be noted here: converted Jews might be ‘classified’ in the sources as Christians but these cannot be identified without a more detailed study.

  • 53 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 27, fl. 65–65 v.

27In another example from 1443 the almoxarife of Beja accounted for a volume of incomes of which 70% were indirect taxes (sisas), with the rest coming from direct taxation.53 In that year’s expenditures, an astonishing 78% went to endowments and rents, with a very large slice taken by three people – two of the king’s uncles and the count of Arraiolos held 80% of those grants. Of the remaining 22%, 12% was spent on wages – many of those mixed with other graces – and 10% on alms and other small expenses (paper and ink to write the accounting books, cloth and rope to fabricate bags to carry money, etc.).

  • 54 Ordenações Afonsinas, Edição facsimilada da edição feita na Real Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbr (...)

28The interval between the collection of both ordinary and extraordinary taxes and the effective delivery of money to the Royal Treasury was another problem to be overcome, as well as being the source of another phenomenon: the emergence of moneylenders among public officers and people who became leaseholders and were probably privileged with precious ‘inside information’. In Portugal, this practice was not unusual, given the amount of legislation against usury and ‘onzena’, which dates back to the reign of Dinis I (1279–1325) and was reiterated in the Afonsine Ordinances – a compilation of laws – made in the 1450s, and also in the Manueline Ordinances, made during King Manuel I’s rule in 1512.54

Loan or Tax? Tax and Loan?

  • 55 Luís Miguel Duarte, ‘A memória contra a História: as sisas medievais portuguesas’, in Denis Menjot (...)

29In Portugal, cities had limited autonomy, as the need for the king’s consent to institute and collect extraordinary taxes suggests. On the other hand, some municipalities established, collected and held possession over those levies with some degree of independence from the crown or from the landlords, by keeping the money after the collection period was over or even setting up a new collection.55 Overall, indirect taxes were used by the monarch for a specific purpose: the Portuguese sovereign opted for a model of ‘direct redistribution’, using the sisas as the main source of revenue to meet most of the ordinary expenses, that is, for the regular payment of annuities, weddings, graces and other endowments, for example to sustain Afonso V’s monarchical project of maintenance of the nobility in exchange for political support for the preservation and consolidation of an ephemeral and fragile dynasty.

30Nevertheless, the pedidos and empréstimos, along with the sales taxes, seemed to give a new impulse to Portuguese finances from the 1200s onwards, since these resources could double the economic possibilities for a strong-minded crown that wanted, in the long run, to expand its limits southwards, to conquer important strongholds in Africa, to take over the Castilian crown and, at the same time, to maintain an ambitious Atlantic expansion project, although at many stages all those initiatives drained most of the country’s human, material and financial resources, leaving the government with almost nothing at all to draw on.

  • 56 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal…, op. cit., pp. 115–118.

31It is also important to highlight the leading role of the Cortes in this process, fighting against the abuses committed,56 and trying insistently to make themselves heard before the monarch, regardless of their limited range of action.

  • 57 Ibid., pp. 148–149.
  • 58 Saul Gomes, D. Afonso V: o Africano…, op. cit., pp. 124–125.
  • 59 In the parliamentary assembly of 1472–1473 (Coimbra-Évora), the people called for reform of the kin (...)

32The ‘lack of coherence’ of the Portuguese fiscal system mentioned at the beginning of this chapter is demonstrated by the numerous difficulties faced by its officers. Did they always manage to collect the revenues evaluated and requested? Probably not.57 But the reasons for this are too many to elucidate and are complicated by the lack of sources. Despite the fact that the Portuguese state had, to some degree, a bureaucratic culture,58 coordination between the central government and the local branches remained problematic. The large number of grievances, the excessive number of offices, their lavish endowments and fiscal insubordination of landlords provides us with striking examples of those problems.59

33The situation described above demonstrates that revenue collection in Portugal during the Middle Ages behaved very much more like the collection of extraordinary taxes – whose frequency made them almost ordinary – than a loan given by the subjects as a form of financial assistance, without the necessity of subsequent interest payments.

Notes

1 Martin Körner, ‘Expenditure’, in Richard Bonney (ed.), Economic systems and state finance, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995 (reprinted 2002), p. 393.

2 Filipe Themudo Barata and António Castro Henriques, ‘Economic and fiscal history’, in José Mattoso (dir.), The historiography of medieval Portugal (c. 1950–2010), Lisbon, IEM, 2012, p. 277.

3 Ibid., pp. 277–278.

4 See António Maria Braga de Macedo de Castro Henriques, State finance, war and redistribution in Portugal (1249–1527), doctoral thesis, Department of History, University of York, 2008.

5 Paulo Merêa, ‘Organização social e administração pública’, ch. III, Fontes de Receita do Estado, in História de Portugal, Prof. Damião Peres (ed.), vol. 2.0, p. 472. Quoted in Jorge Faro, Receitas e despesas da Fazenda Real de 1384 a 1481: subsídios documentais, Lisbon, Instituto Nacional de Estatística, 1965, p. XLVIII.

6 José Mattoso, ‘1096–1325’, in José Mattoso (dir.), História de Portugal – vol. III: A Monarquia Feudal, Mem Martins, Circulo de Leitores, 2006, pp. 269–270.

7 Jorge Faro, Receitas e despesas da Fazenda Real…, op. cit., p. LII.

8 Filipe Themudo Barata and António Castro Henriques, ‘Economic and fiscal history…’, op. cit., pp. 279–280.

9 Richard Bonney, ‘Revenues’, in R. Bonney (ed.), Economic systems…, op. cit., p. 428.

10 Armindo de Sousa, As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490), Porto, INIC, 1990, vol. I, p. 291.

11 Ibid., vol. I, pp. 255–256.

12 António Maria Braga de Macedo de Castro Henriques, State finance, war and redistribution in Portugal…, op. cit., p. 272.

13 Martin Körner, ‘Expenditure…’, op. cit., p. 402.

14 Saul Gomes, D. Afonso V: o Africano, Mem-Martins, Circulo de Leitores, 2006, p. 133.

15 Those numbers are applicable when combined with the dízimas (a 10% customs taxes) and tolls of the same period. Data extracted from Jorge Faro, Receitas e despesas da Fazenda Real…, op. cit., pp. LXXVII–LXXXI.

16 Armindo de Sousa, ‘A Estratégia política dos municípios no reinado de D. João II’, in Revista da Faculdade de Letras, Porto, University of Porto, 1989, pp. 145–147.

17 Martin Körner, ‘Expenditure…’, op. cit., p. 416.

18 Saul Gomes, D. Afonso V: o Africano…, op. cit., p. 173.

19 See José Marques, ‘O Príncipe D. João e a recolha das pratas das Igrejas para custear a guerra com Castela’, Separata das Actas do Congresso Internacional Bartolomeu Dias e a sua época, Porto, Universidade do Porto-Comissão nacional para as comemorações dos descobrimentos portugueses, 1989, vol. I, pp. 201–219.

20 This is one of the aspects we intend to treat in our PhD research, currently underway. By now, we have some statistics and numbers relating to credit activities found at the Portuguese National Archives of Torre do Tombo (ANTT), connecting important Jewish merchants and important Italian businessman in Lisbon. ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 3, fl. 86 v–87. The Portuguese data are accessible through the online registers at the website: http://digitarq.dgarq.gov.pt/. There, all chanceries’ records of King Afonso V, for example, are available in digital format. See also Virginia Rau, ‘Uma família de mercadores italianos em Portugal no século XV: os Lomellini’, in Estudos de História: mercadores, mercadorias, pensamento económico, Lisbon, Editorial Verbo, 1968, vol. I, pp. 13–57.

21 Richard Bonney, ‘Revenues…’, op. cit., p. 442.

22 Iria Gonçalves, As finanças municipais do Porto na segunda metade do século XV, Porto, Câmara Municipal do Porto, 1987, pp. 53–55.

23 A document of 1363 reports loans granted by female intermediary traders to Porto’s fishermen, from whom they bought all the fish. Descobrimentos Portugueses: documentos para a sua História, publicados e prefaciados por João Martins da Silva Marques, Lisbon, INIC, 1988, suppl. vol. I, 41–42, doc. no. 31.

24 The acquittance charter to João Afonso, receiver of the sisas collected on coloured cloth in Lisbon, records Jewish merchants, alone or in partnership with other Jews, leasing those taxes. ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 34, fl. 157 v.

25 Charter of grace granted to Abraham, a Jewish resident of Porto, which allowed him to negotiate with and on behalf of Christians, and also to exchange and give money at interest (credit). ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 38, fl. 64.

26 See Mário Júlio Brito de Almeida Costa, Raízes do Censo Consignativo: para a história do crédito medieval Português, Coimbra, Edições Atlântida, 1961; José Gabriel Pinto Coelho, Lições de Direito Comercial, 2nd ed., Lisbon, 1945, vol. I.

27 Filipe Themudo Barata and António Castro Henriques, ‘Economic and fiscal history…’, op. cit., pp. 275–276.

28 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal durante a Idade Média, Lisbon, Cadernos de Ciência e Técnica Fiscal: Centro de estudos fiscais da direcção-geral das contribuições e impostos, Ministério das Finanças, 1964, pp. 13–15.

29 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal…, op. cit., pp. 26–27.

30 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 34, fl. 162 vº.

31 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal..., op. cit., pp. 31–32.

32 Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, La Hacienda Real de Castilla (1369–1504): estúdios y documentos, Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, 2009, p. 222.

33 Armindo de Sousa, As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490)…, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 182–183.

34 Saul Gomes, D. Afonso V: o Africano…, op. cit., p. 56.

35 Ibid., p. 69.

36 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal…, op. cit., pp. 45–46.

37 Ibid., pp. 50–52.

38 Armindo de Sousa, As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490)…, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 254–256.

39 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 27, fl. 133–136 vº.

40 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 5, fl. 83 vº.

41 In 1435/1436, Duarte I created a new account currency: the real, with more silver in its composition. The currency value of 1 real = 35 libras. For that monetary reform, see Henrique da Gama Barros, História da Administração Pública em Portugal nos séculos XII a XV, 2nd ed., Torquato de Sousa Soares (ed.), Lisbon, Livraria Sá da Costa, 1945, vol. III, pp. 148–149, and Luís Miguel Duarte, D. Duarte: requiem por um rei triste, Mem-Martins, Circulo de Leitores, 2005. See also Sérgio Carlos Ferreira, Preços e salários em Portugal na Baixa Idade Média, master’s thesis, Porto, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, 2007.

42 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 27, fl. 5 vº–6 vº.

43 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 27, fl. 129 vº–130 vº.

44 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 24, fl. 3–3 vº.

45 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 34, fl. 68 vº–69.

46 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 3, fl. 13 vº–15.

47 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal…, op. cit., p. 79.

48 Ibid., p. 80.

49 Ibid., pp. 82–83.

50 Ibid., pp. 84–85.

51 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 23, fl. 2–3.

52 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 18, fl. 63–65.

53 ANTT, Chanc. D. Afonso V, book 27, fl. 65–65 v.

54 Ordenações Afonsinas, Edição facsimilada da edição feita na Real Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, no ano de 1792, Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1984, vol. II, p. 303 and pp. 521–525; vol. IV, pp. 93–99; Ordenações Manuelinas, Edição facsimilada da edição feita na Real Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, no ano de 1797, Prefacio de Mário Júlio de Almeida Costa, Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1984, vol. II, pp. 148–150.

55 Luís Miguel Duarte, ‘A memória contra a História: as sisas medievais portuguesas’, in Denis Menjot and Manuel Sanchez Martínez (ed.), Fiscalidad de Estado y Fiscalidad Municipal en los reinos hispánicos medievales, Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, 2006, p. 439.

56 Iria Gonçalves, Pedidos e empréstimos públicos em Portugal…, op. cit., pp. 115–118.

57 Ibid., pp. 148–149.

58 Saul Gomes, D. Afonso V: o Africano…, op. cit., pp. 124–125.

59 In the parliamentary assembly of 1472–1473 (Coimbra-Évora), the people called for reform of the kingdom’s government. The people’s representatives wrote around 27 proposals about the administration of justice, and another 162 chapters called místicos (mystics), propositions concerning sundry themes: justice, economy, fiscal affairs, etc. They asked the king, for example, to punish officers already condemned for abuse; to forbid the corregedores from forcing townspeople to provide them with men, animals or wagons for prices other than those legally set; and to empower judges to determine the restitution of goods thus forcibly obtained. Armindo de Sousa, As Cortes Medievais Portuguesas (1385–1490)…, vol. I, pp. 397–398; vol. II, pp. 384–434.

Auteur

Graduate in History from the University Center of Belo Horizonte (Brazil, 2001), Master in Medieval and Renaissance History (2006) and PhD in History (2013) both from the University of Porto (Portugal), former Research Fellow of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-MCTES), Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez is now a CITCEM/FLUP Associate Researcher. He has recently published: ‘Echando la casa por la ventana: Alfonso V de Portugal y las demandas por crédito público a finales de la Edad Media’, Revista Signum. Associação Brasileira de Estudos Medievais, 13 (2), 2012, pp. 59–78; Mercadores e banqueiros: sociedade e economia no Portugal dos séculos XIV e XV, Brasília, Editora Hinterlândia, 2009; ‘Entre el discurso y la práctica: religión, comercio y negocios en Portugal a finales de la Edad Media’, in Juan Francisco Jiménez Alcázar, Jorge Maíz Chacón and Concepción Villanueva Morte (eds.), Actas del IV Simpósio Internacional de Jóvenes Medievalistas. Murcia, Universidad de Murcia, Ayto. Lorca-Real Acad. Alfonso X el Sabio-Fundación Cajamurcia-Lorcatur-SEEM, 2009, pp. 51–64.

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