Fiscal History

« Un monde d’argent. Le difficile financement milanais de la coûteuse paix de Fribourg (1516-1519) », dans Alexandre DAFFLON, Lionel DORTHE et Claire GANTET (dir.) Après Marignan. La paix perpétuelle entre la France et la Suisse. Actes des colloques (Paris, 27 septembre / Fribourg, 30 novembre 2016), Mémoires et Documents publiés par la Société d’Histoire de la Suisse Romande, 4e série, t. XIV,  2018, p. 229-246.

Résumé : Arme décisive de la victoire et du maintien de la paix, l’impôt peut mettre cependant en péril le fragile consensus politique. Un des buts annoncés de la paix de Fribourg était de protéger le duché de Milan redevenu français après Marignan de toute nouvelle descente des carrés suisses. Or, le roi paie la sécurité de ses frontières au prix fort : un million de ducats doublé de 50 000 ducats de pensions annuelles aux cantons et à des particuliers. Mon article tend à montrer comment la sécurisation du duché de Milan par la paix de Fribourg a largement contribué à fragiliser le consensus politique autour de la domination royale en Milanais. Afin de couvrir le coût de la paix, il apparaît légitime au pouvoir royal que les Lombards contribuent à l’effort financier (communes, élites marchandes, feudataires, artisans, peuple manouvrier, paysans, mais excepté le clergé jouissant du privilège d’exemption). Trois traites à chaque premier 1er janvier des années 1517, 1518 et 1519 sont prévues pour honorer l’accord. C’est à chaque fois l’occasion d’étudier de façon précise les tensions qui se firent jour au moment des négociations.

Fiscal history is a booming field of research that shines a new light on colonial state formation, the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized and the political economy of colonialism in Africa. The fiscal history of colonial Africa has been interpreted on different levels: local, colonial, imperial and global. This case study on colonial taxation in the Congo Basin emphasizes the importance of an additional historical layer. I argue that trans-colonial and trans-imperial connections are essential to take into account in order to fully understand the fiscal histories of the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo, and the French Congo. The two Congos continuously had to adjust their customs policies to fiscal decision-making across the border.

1933 yılı itibariyle Almanya’da Yahudilerin nüfusu yüzde 1’den azdı. Bununla birlikte, Nazi propagandası, Almanya’daki Yahudilerin olağanüstü zenginliklerin varlığına inanıyordu ve bunun da, milli servetin yüzde 20’sine kadar yükseldiği tahmin ediliyordu. Bu makalede, müttefik askeri yönetimler için 1945 yılından sonra vergi tahsilatına ilişkin veriler kullanılarak bu iddialar üzerinde yeniden bir değerlendirme yapılmaktadır. Bu kapsamda; makul varsayımlar altında, Almanya özelinde reel sermaye stokunun Yahudilerin sahip olduğu pay ile nüfus payı geniş ölçüde eşleştirilmiş olup, yüzde 1,6 skorluk bir üst tahminde bulunulmuştur.

The present article resorts to the case of Portuguese state finances during a period of intense military confrontation (1369-1401) in order to assess the impact of war in the change in fiscal systems. This implies a revision of existing scholarship on taxation associated with military effort, resorting to both published and unpublished sources. The article concludes that not all wars can be regarded as influential enough to change fiscal systems and that the transition from “domain state” to “tax state” does not imply a large increase in revenues.

明初，由于存在大量合法却不可核算、储存的劳役征调，故在集权架构之下，法定财政管理呈现出分散运作的特点，法定与法外征调界线模糊。随着白银成为财政运作的主要手段，不可核算的征调变得可以核算，州县官府形成了不为上级掌握的财赋储备和收支信息。法定财政核算信息在州县与上级官府间出现不对称。16 世纪前期抚按等因应于省级财政职责增强的现实，编制覆盖全省、带有固定化倾向的财政计划( 赋役经制册籍，后定型为赋役全书) ，采取类似预算管理的方式来规范财政收支，强化省内财政集中管理。法定财政核算信息的不对称从州县与上级官府之间转移到省级官府与户部等中央衙门之间。明末，户部试图通过掌握赋役全书来了解在外官府收支信息以筹饷，但未成功。清初，户部通过监督各省纂修赋役全书重建全国财政体系，将各地法定赋役收支纳入中央集权控制之下。作为财政集中管理的工具，赋役全书的服务对象从省级官府变为中央( 户部) 。这消除了法定财政核算信息在官府各层级间的信息不对称，为清朝法定财政管理的全面中央集权奠定了预算基础，并在扩大中央掌控财政规模的同时明确了合法和非法征收的边界。这也是国家财政治理焦点从临民向治官转移的集中体现，折射出明清国家治理的内在逻辑，也提示我们对国家能力的理解要结合具体时空脉络和社会环境。

《万历会计录》是明万历十年户部纂成的国家财政册籍。万明和徐英凯合著《明代〈万历会计录〉整理与研究》对这一珍贵史料做了全面整理，并且以白银为统一计量标准，通过折算对万历初年户部掌握的财政规模、结构及其货币化程度做了估计和统计分析。这一成果将会成为明代财政史研究的一块里程碑。
围绕着这一成果，本文讨论了三个问题: 首先，对《会计录》的性质提出一些补充意见，进一步解释了《会计录》
所载数字反映的是户部会计职责范围内的财政收支情况，指出《会计录》虽不是预算，但具有提供财政计划成例的意义。其次，针对数据整理，特别是财政规模、结构与白银货币化程度的估算，分析了推算方法的合理性，同时也提出了进一步改善的可能方向。最后，在梳理万明从讨论白银货币化到白银财政的学术理路基础上，提出今后的研究需要注意考察市场机制与贡赋体系的关联，探索中国式市场经济的脱嵌机制。

Political Science neglect classical insights on constitutional and economic conditions of the so called "tax state" as a fiscal institutional architecture sui generis. While studies in Political Economy focus on distribution quality of the welfare state or compare budgets from local to international level fiscal research should also consider the capitalist structure of tax paradigm again. Only after such a regeneration the discipline could better reflect old and new democratic challenges of fiscal problems. Recalling former theories of interdependencies between fiscal, constitutional and ideological orders, this article suggests to make sense of conceptualizing democratic regime itself as prime public good. Because if it is fiscal sovereignty that is foremost to produce with democracy's budget it should be easier to analyze tax state driven regressive effects of democratic integrity.

La política económica desplegada por los gobiernos franquistas hizo que la reconstrucción económica tras la guerra civil fuera mucho más lenta que la reconstrucción en las democracias de Europa occidental tras la segunda guerra mundial, a pesar de que esta última tuvo efectos mucho más devastadores. A diferencia de sus colegas europeos de la posguerra mundial, los ministros de Hacienda españoles, anclados en la ortodoxia financiera clásica, no hicieron el más mínimo intento por aplicar una política anticíclica que paliara las consecuencias negativas de la guerra. Por el contrario, si la economía española había crecido desde finales del siglo XIX a ritmos modestos pero sostenidos, la política económica del primer franquismo, asentada sobre la voluntad de aislamiento económico frente al exterior, la búsqueda a ultranza del equilibrio presupuestario, un grado extremo de intervencionismo, la arbitrariedad en la toma de decisiones y la descoordinación entre los ministerios con competencias económicas, generó una brutal depresión que situó los niveles macroeconómicos en marcadores inferiores a los de la preguerra hasta que comenzó la década de los cincuenta y tuvo efectos terribles sobre la sociedad, como el desabastecimiento de productos de primera necesidad, el deterioro general del nivel de vida de la población y la extensión de la pobreza.
Hemos optado por comenzar nuestro trabajo en 1936, pues creemos que en la guerra civil se sientan algunas de las bases que caracterizaron la política autárquica: la voluntad de aislamiento, el férreo intervencionismo en todos los ramos de la economía, la descoordinación entre los ministerios y la pérdida de competencias del Ministerio de Hacienda frente a otros departamentos económicos, la configuración del sistema tributario, el fuerte peso de la empresa pública o los rudimentos de los seguros sociales.

Encore tout récemment, on a pu réaffirmé en y voyant "une rupture ou un tournant décisif" que "tout un champ d'activités financières «capitalistes» sous l'Ancien Régime passe (…) dans la sphère publique à la suite de la Révolution". Or si on ne se borne pas à une vue juridique et impressionniste sur les transformations révolutionnaires comme nous y incitent lesrécents travaux de M. Bruguière et de P. F. Pinaud, un tel jugement apparaît par bien des côtés comme un des derniers avatars de cette "légende administrative" dont furent imprégnés les premiers les agents du système eux-mêmes. L'approfondissement en cours de la connaissance du fonctionnement réel du système fiscal du XIXe siècle conduit au contraire à considérer qu'il existe dans le domaine fisco-financier à cette époque un contraste "violent entre la théorie et le fait" et qu'on ne peut plus admettre sans discussion des affirmations comme celles qui voudraient que "la perception directe par l'État avec (…) mise en place d'une administration fiscale moderne" succède à la vénalité des offices de finance et «au trafic des finances royales par les fermiers et traitants».

Recent work by scholars on the early colonial history of the Congo basin has made reference to the subject of customs and contraband. Their work has focused mainly on how smuggling networks operated across the borders of the Congo Free State (CFS). As a result of this perspective on traffickers, the role of Leopold’s administration has tended to be oversimplified. Illicit trade is usually presented as an issue that the Free State attempted, but failed, to curb. This representation of the colonial attitude towards trafficking is at odds with the general literature on contraband, which paints a rather different picture of the relationship between the state and smugglers. Rather than trying to stop trafficking, states usually tolerated contraband and had no knowledge of the majority of trafficking operations. Smuggling was tolerated because monitoring and taxing cross-border trade effectively was not considered to be cost-effective or was thought to be impossible. State rule also had to be negotiated in border regions with local elites who monopolized most local economic resources: a further reason why trafficking was often tolerated. States were unaware of most trafficking because the same officials that were supposed to monitor cross-border trade were usually involved in smuggling themselves.
By focusing on customs and contraband in the M’Bomu basin this article aims to fill in the gaps in current research on smuggling and border control in the CFS. Firstly, I examine to what extent colonial agents were involved in trafficking. Secondly, the article investigates whether Leopold’s administration was aware of smuggling and how far illicit commerce was tolerated. Finally, the article tries to explain why the Free State dealt with contraband as it did. I explore to what extent customs practices in the M’bomu borderland were based on a cost-benefit analysis and how far the attitude towards contraband might be explained by the negotiation of colonial rule with local elites.
This article demonstrates that the Free State and its agents were involved in trafficking in various ways. The CFS established a system of rule and exploitation that encouraged European officials to smuggle for the benefit of the state. Whether Leopold’s men and their African soldiers also trafficked on their own account is less clear. We do have a lot of information about the contraband activities of the sultans who ruled and exploited the majority of the M’Bomu basin in Leopold’s name. The Free State understood little about the smuggling that went on in the M’Bomu basin. Gradually, however, there was growing awareness amongst colonial officials. Nevertheless, tolerance usually prevailed with only a few futile measures taken to curb contraband. The CFS was convinced that the cost of controlling the uncontrollable M’Bomu border would exceed the benefit. Nevertheless, this cost-benefit analysis only partly explains the colonial attitude towards smuggling. This article argues that the Free State and its agents were involved in trafficking and were either unaware of contraband or tolerated illicit commerce because colonial rule in the M’Bomu basin was organized so as to extract as much revenue as possible, as fast as possible, and at the lowest possible cost. The pressure to maximize revenue led the Free State to establish a system of rule and exploitation that encouraged its local agents to extract a surplus by all means possible, including through trafficking. At the same time the M’Bomu region had to be ruled and exploited at the lowest possible cost. The very limited administration was unable to detect, understand or curb trafficking. Moreover, administering the M’Bomu basin at the lowest possible cost forced the Free State to outsource the rule and exploitation of the majority of the borderland to local rulers. These local rulers, however, had large stakes in cross-border trade and continued to smuggle on a wide scale despite their incorporation into the colonial administration. Because colonial rule was negotiated with the local elite, their smuggling had to be tolerated.

This paper has the aim of study the increasing need for credit money of the Crown of Castile in the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella and their grandson the Emperor Charles. The study points out the relationship between the growing public expenditure, the subsidies granted by the Parliament to the King (servicios) and the easy access to bank loans, in Spain and abroad, guaranteed for the amounts collected by this way. Some cases, mainly provided by sources from the Archivo General de Simancas, offer the evidence to understand this financial circuit during the XVI th Century.

Les recherches récentes sur la fiscalité antique s’intéressent de plus en plus et avec raison à l’étude du vocabulaire et des catégories anciennes. Cet article s’intéresse à la catégorie des droits portuaires nommée ellimenion dans les sources, une catégorie dont l’interprétation est encore débattue. Nous nous proposons de discuter l’hypothèse de V. Chankowski (2007) selon laquelle le terme ellimenion au singulier désignerait les seuls droits d’usage du port, excluant systématiquement les droits de douane. En effet, cette hypothèse nous apparaît trop rigide. L’article est l’occasion de détailler l’ensemble des témoignages concernant le terme ellimenion.

Working on vocabulary and ancient categories is a recent and a welcome tendency in the work of scholars dealing with ancient tax system. In this paper, I am examining the category of the harbour duties called the ellimenion and its meaning, which is still an object of debate. I am discussing especially the hypothesis of Veronique Chankowski (2007) arguing that the term ellimenion in the singular refers only to the user fees of the port, excluding the customs duties. This hypothesis appears too rigid to my mind. This paper provides a detailed analysis of all the testimonies referring to the ellimenion.

En la Castilla del siglo XVI están muy presentes las huellas de la recién concluída Reconquista, lo que explica la clara diversificación del espacio desde el originario norte hasta el recientemente incorporado sur. En este marco heredado, se inician en la segunda mitad del siglo una serie de cambios en el modelo territorial que sientan las bases para la evolución en los siglos posteriores.
En este trabajo realizaremos una descripción y clasificación de la variada estructura económica y espacial de la Corona a partir de distintos indicadores de la actividad económica de los principales núcleos de población y del análisis de la estrecha relación de los mismos con los distintos ámbitos y aspectos del poder.
Estos centros, dependientes todos ellos en mayor o menor medida de la concentración de rentas agrarias laicas y eclesiásticas, forman una jerarquía imperfecta, estable en sus relaciones, aunque no en la ordenación de sus componentes, encabezada al finalizar el siglo tanto en población como en actividad comercial por Sevilla.

La présente recherche sera circonscrite aux thématiques suivantes :
* L’étude de l’impôt vu sous l’angle de ses principales
caractéristiques
* L’étude de l’évolution spatio-temporelle de la notion de l’impôt
et des différents régimes d’impositions.
* La présentation des grandes fonctions et des grandes missions
que les politiques d’impositions sont censées accomplir, ou
qu’elles accomplissent ; Autrement dit, il s’agira d’exposer les
grandes lignes relatives aux principales fonctions de l’impôt
* L’étude de l’infraction de fraude fiscale d’une manière générale
et objective puis sur la nature de cette infraction au Royaume
du Maroc.
* La présentation du regard du législateur marocain sur ladite
infraction et les retombées ou impacts qu’a cette dernière sur la
machine économique du Maroc.
* In fine de l’analyse, il s’agira tout simplement d’exposer la
nature des réponses de l’appareil d’Etat marocain contre la
fraude fiscale et enfin d’évaluer ses réponses afin de porter un
jugement critique sur leur efficacité ou non.

Cet article envisage le lien profond qui unit la monarchie malgache et la société à travers un fait social total, le fandroana ou rite du bain. Le fandroana est plus qu’un rituel de nouvel an. C’est un moment d’échanges symboliques et matériels ainsi que de transactions politiques mettant en scène le lien renouvelé entre les collectivités et le souverain. À travers de nouvelles sources, issues notamment des archives de la comptabilité publique du Royaume de Madagascar, il s’agira de jeter un nouveau regard, à la fois qualitatif et quantitatif, sur les représentations émiques du pouvoir et l’organisation interne de ce royaume qui fut un des plus bureaucratique du xixe siècle africain.

The book attempts to present –for the first time in the international bibliography– a detailed description of the historical life of Abydos (Άβυδος) of Hellespont (Ελλήσποντος, Δαρδανέλλια); the latter was an important ancient and medieval Greek city, situated on the Asiatic shore of Dardanelles, at the once narrowest part of the local Straits (usually named "Stenon of Abydos") and in the surrounding area of the promontory of Nara (an Ottoman and modern Turkish naval base, where free access is prohibited). The monograph also detects the  relations between Abydos and other known settlements in the wider region of northwestern Asia Minor (Troad, Hellespont, Mysia, Hellespontine Phrygia).

Αbydos was founded predominantly as a colony of Miletus (ca. 680-650 BC) and had a continuous historical life that lasted about 2.000 years (mid. 7th c. BC - early 14th c. AD). The prosperous ancient city minted various coins between 6th c. BC - 3rd c. AD. Its lively port was used for centuries as a key point for the passage from Europe to Asia and the cruise from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea (and vice versa) as well as a major customs station ("telonion Abydou" during the Roman imperial years, "demosion teloneion" or "kommerkion" or "dekateuterion Abydou" during the medieval period of the city). Byzantine Abydos was also an important administrative center, a military and naval base and an ecclesiastical seat (bishopric and later metropolis).

However, the long and turbulent history of Abydos and its region is virtually unknown in modern years, despite the fact that the city's reputation was particularly widespread during ancient and medieval times in the Mediterranean world. Moreover, for many reasons noted in the book, the settlement does not exist archaeologically in the last two centuries. In short, Abydos constitutes a very interesting case of a virtually lost city during the modern times.

For various reasons, also described in the book, the importance of Abydos had declined during the 13th c. AD and the city was finally abandoned by its population in the early 14th c. AD., mainly because of the Turkish threat in the area. From mid. 15th c. AD the new city of Çanakkale was established gradually (initially named as Kale-i Sultaniye) 5-6 km to the south of Abydos. The ruins of the abandoned urban area of ​​the latter have been systematically pillaged -mainly for construction and other purposes- between the 14th - early 19th c. AD.

For the reconstruction of  the long historical life of Abydos (mid. 7th c. BC - early 14th c. AD) and an in-depth analysis of its numerous and largely unknown institutions, the study relies though on the information providing by the written (ancient and medieval) texts but also on the scarce and dispersed epigraphic and the much richer numismatic (the city minted coins between 6th c. BC - 3rd c. AD) and sigillographic data and other archaeological findings regarding (or deriving from) the city. It also takes into account all the contemporary related publications.

[VANIAS publications,  Thessaloniki 2017,  752 pages,  ISBN: 978-960-288-342-6,  text in Greek language with an English summary]

RURAL DEVELOPMENT DYNAMISM FROM THE 8 TH TO THE 16 TH CENTURY
IN PASSAGE AND TRANSITION AREAS Exemple of the Rouanne basin (Oise)
The global study of medieval rural lands via the relationships established between man and his immediate environment has developed vigorously in the past few years thanks to an evermore frequent use of efficient pluridisciplinary methods. This precise kind of archeological study is the one used here to understand and give us a precise picture of how the Rouanne area (Oise) was peopled and developed in the Middle Ages. This study was fruitful, despite the paucity of written sources, thanks to the precise knowledge of the territory obtained by cross-checking different prospective methods such as geographical study, archeological survey, map and photo interpretation, architectural study, study of plot-size development and toponymy. Thanks to this method, an extraordinary precision has been reached which enables us to understand and describe the evolution of this very special area’s peopling as well as to develop three different yet indissociable themes :
· The implementation of human settings in the early Middle Ages was the direct consequence of some local particularities such as an exceptional peopling density in the previous periods and the structuring role played by the antique Flanders Way, of the Royal Praedium and of the historical border of the Rouanne area.These elements made this area into a passage and border zone. The Rouanne area met a vigorous economical and human development in the mid-Middle Ages, thanks to the combined efforts of the civil Lords (those in charge of Royal beverages or ordinary noblemen), the monks and the kings. This development, which was furthered by the exchanges on the Flanders Way, is shown by extensive building on previously peopled areas and more particularly by the conquest of new lands on the Royal forest border· The end of the Middle Ages showed a late but severe regression of human activity along the Flanders Way, whose role became negative, followed by a patient but incomplete recovery of lost lands.

La problématique de cette recherche consiste à étudier les processus de regroupement des hommes, la formation et la morphologie des villages, la naissance de l’ethnopaysage dans le terroir du Rouanne (Oise) et à les comparer avec les zones rurales de la France septentrionale. Cette recherche a cherché à savoir pourquoi, contrairement à ce qui se rencontre le plus souvent dans la France du Nord, la zone étudiée a échappé aux phénomènes d’encellulement et de concentration, privilégiant au contraire un paysage de type ouvert (donc sans bocage) mais à l’habitat polynucléaire.

Afin d’étudier la (ou les) naissance(s) des villages, il a fallu démontrer et comprendre la grande mobilité de la population rurale au Moyen Âge, en décrivant, en datant et en expliquant le plus précisément possible la succession de phases de dilatation et de contraction de l’espace peuplé et valorisé par les hommes.
Il a également fallu analyser la dispersion de l’habitat rural, au travers de l’action des différents acteurs de l’aménagement du sol, rois, seigneurs laïques, clergé régulier et séculier, paysans, etc.
Il a enfin été nécessaire d’analyser cette répartition originale de l’habitat à la lumière des facteurs de dispersion : milieu physiogéographique très varié, dispersion des ressources, existence d’une ligne-frontière, d’une marge-frontière, d’une voie commerciale, d’un fisc royal. …

Le village et son évolution ont donc été placés au centre de la réflexion. Village de l’archéologue, étudié grâce aux vestiges de la culture matérielle (mobilier, bâti…) mais aussi village de l’historien, étudié au travers des liens qui ont été tissés par les différentes communautés rurales (paroisses, seigneuries, villages neufs…). Le village, s’il n’a pas ici pris la forme d’un village groupé, a tout de même une réalité, il représente  parfaitement ce que Daniel Pichot a nommé le « village éclaté ».

This study, my professorial thesis, or Habilitationsschrift, focuses on administrative confusion and social disruptions in the Habsburg monarchy from the Thirty Years' War to Charles VI (r. 1711-40). I will demonstrate that these two aspects were the by-product of state formation in early modern composite monarchies. Whereas the advent of the 'fiscal-military state' (Brewer 1989) transformed our understanding of central bureaucracies over the past three decades, these days most studies of early modern state formation apply top-down perspectives.
By contrast, my study approaches the Habsburg monarchy's re-emergence after 1648 based on two distinctively different premises: First, individual actions and structural developments entail differing consequences for central institutions and the geographically more remote areas; and, second, by analysing these developments from outside the courtly and urban settings, I am arguing that state integration in the centre was accompanied by increasing state disintegration and loss of cohesion on the lower administrative levels. As the central government tried to cope with war-induced stress, its actions started to tear apart the administrative and social fabric that held traditional society together. By emphasising the crucial role of local actors, regional interlinkages, and the disintegrating consequences that warfare had on state formation, my book offers a counter-narrative to traditional interpretations in the fields of History, IR, and Historical Sociology.

This article analyses the annual budgets of the Congo Free State to examine whether the broader fiscal patterns observed for British, French and Portuguese Africa can be found in Leopold’s colony; often considered a fiscal exception. The fiscal history of the Free State was unique. A history of the income composition of the state however reveals that Leopold’s revenue-raising strategies showed a lot of similarity with colonial taxation in British, French and Portuguese Africa. Leopold’s administration faced the fiscal challenge of ruling a vast, thinly populated, inaccessible colony that produced little taxable surplus, with little metropolitan support and limited access to international lending. To deal with this challenge, the Free State developed a minimalistic fiscal system that was based on the taxation of international trade and the African subject. Only during a commodity boom did this system generate sufficient income to cover colonial expenditure. The study of the not so exceptional case of the Free State hence supports the claim that the colonial scope to tax African colonies was fundamentally determined by local economic conditions and power relations, global demand for commodities and Metropolitan pressure to be financially self-sufficient.

随着白银财政的展开，明末东南地区田赋征收中出现了以白银为标准的新科则，但清初又变回实物与白银并列的科则形式。这是否意味着白银在田赋征收中重要性的退却? 通过剖析田赋管理运作中户部坐派、州县会计、编派、征收、解运、入仓交纳等6 个环节，可以发现无论明末还是清初，都有部分田赋项目的坐派形态，也就是入仓形态规定是本色，但实际上州县官府都采取向百姓征银，交付里长或差役买本色送仓上纳的做法，田赋运作方式并未因王朝鼎革而改变。但由于记载田赋科则的文献———赋役全书的性质发生改变，即从明末地方官府的自我财政管理工具变成清初户部实现财政集权的手段，其记载重点从州县实征转向入仓入库，新科则从用于实征的税率变为册籍上的派征率，故有前述形式变化。这提示我们要正确理解明清财政文献中的名词和数字含义，要仔细辨析这些文献的生产机制及其在制度运作中的作用。
The land tax rate with silver standard appeared in the southeast China late Ming as the development of silver finance，but the land tax rate with rice standard returned in Early Qing. Does it mean that the importance of silver retreated in the collection of land tax? By analyze the process from the ministry of revenue's allocation，through county's accounting，apportionment，collection，transportation and finally warehousing，we could find that there were items of rice according to ministry of revenue's allocation ( ie. the form for warehousing) both in late Ming and early Qing. However，the county government levied silver on the people rather than rice. Then the government gave these silvers to village chief and made them purchase rice to put in storage，which lasted from the late Ming to the early Qing without any hanges. The change of form of land tax rate lied in the change of the nature of Fuyiquanshu ( Complete Book of Land Tax and Labor Service ) which recorded it. Fuyiquanshu developed from the self-managing tool of local government to the method of centralization conducted by the ministry of revenue. So the emphasis of its record turned from collection of county government to warehousing controlled by the ministry of revenue. And the land tax rate appeared in late Ming changed from tax rate used in real collection to nominal tax rate in accounting of apportionment accordingly. This case study shows that we should analyze the producing process and function of fiscal literatures in order to understand the nouns and numbers recorded in these materials.

El enorme volumen de recursos fiscales percibidos por los monarcas castellanos a finales de la Edad Media en la Andalucía Atlántica permite considerar este espacio, en el que la ciudad de Sevilla ocupaba un lugar de centralidad, como uno de los más rentables en términos tributarios de toda la Corona de Castilla, en consonancia con su elevado nivel demográfico y la importancia de las actividades productivas y de intercambio allí desarrolladas. El presente libro no solo trata de ofrecer una descripción sintética de las principales fuentes de renta ordinaria recaudadas por el fisco regio en este territorio, de su cuantía y evolución en el siglo XV y comienzos del XVI, y de la articulación del espacio fiscal a efectos de organización de la colecta. También presenta un modelo analítico que permite avanzar en la comprensión integral del “negocio” ligado a la gestión de la fiscalidad regia, de los intereses que se ocultaban detrás de las iniciativas empresariales puestas en marcha por los recaudadores de rentas y sus avalistas, de sus estrategias cooperativas, y de las posibilidades que el negocio fiscal brindaba a los operadores a la hora de integrarse en redes socio-económicas que, partiendo del espacio local y regional, se extendían por toda la Corona de Castilla.

Vivere ‘‘a modo di citta`’’. I centri minori italiani nel Basso Medioevo: autonomie, privilegio, fiscalita`. The ‘minor’ urbanization in Central and Northern Italy will be analysed examining the status, in terms of autonomy and privilege, of settlements which had not a see (but whose size and functions anywhere else in Europe wouldcertainly have been considered as urban) in comparison with the cities proper, i.e.episcopal centres, holders of wide powers on a large part of their diocese. This will
be done through an outline of fiscal systems of those states in which these ‘minor’towns and the major cities were absorbed during the 14th and 15th centuries; and also by reconsidering the previous stages (12th-13th cent.), during which the institutional and social distinction between cities and smaller towns (i.e. the powers and privileges
of the former, and the exclusion of the latter from them) was traced out and became a long lasting character.

The studies of the public works in Golden Age Spain were
focused on its technical and artistic aspects, but not on its economic consequences.
But the urban infrastructure maintenance and the building of
bridges, what required frequently the contribution of thousand of places,
were expensive. Its financing, what needed the authorization of Council
of Castile, increased the oppressive taxation of the 17th century, and its
management had its same nature of privatization, lack of control and fraud.