Las Cortes valencianas y el cambio de las estructuras fiscales en el tránsito del siglo XIV al XV

Abstract

We study here the role of the Spanish Parliament in the so complicated fiscal organisation of the Middle Ages. It is not only a precise analysis of the characteristics of each of the taxes; it is, moreover, a treaty that tries to establish the causes that motivated them, the sources that generated them, their utility during the XIVth century and till their consolidation in the XVth century, all this through examining the extraordinary allowan­ces that have been granted. We will first situate these revenues in the fiscal and historical context that made them possible, in a short general survey of the Spanish Parliament evolution and their contributions to the crown. Then, we will propose ourselves a triple objetive centred on the analysis of the administrative structure of the Generalitat, on its financial organisa­tion and on the role of the organism in the dynamic policy of the reign. The bad state of royal finances, the limits that the King imposed and that are related to the implementation of new taxes, the need of cash money and the continual resort to the reign, will allow and make possible his political and fiscal intervention. The Parliament takes part in the concession of a series of laws or privileges and in their maintain, achieving, at the same time, the control of the gifts. This control will bring, by itself, the consolidation of the council that was to administer it: the Generalitat.