Fiscalitat local i deute públic al País Valencià. L'administració de la vila de Borriana a mitjan segle XV

Abstract

We have taken, as a base of our study, the case of Borriana to analyze the fiscal difficulties that suffered, during the XVth century, the main royal towns of Valencian counties. Even if they had important fiscal receipts, that were much higher than the ordinary receipts that the crown collected in the mentioned cities, the local economy was mainly overburdened with debts that were highly favourable to tax collectors from the reign main cities. By the middle of the XVth century, the municipal insolvency motivated the intervention of the crown who financed an ambitious project of economic rehabilita­tion. In return for this aid, the councils were obliged to give up pare of their autonomy and to submit their financial management to the control of a centralised royal bureaucracy. In fact, even if the rehabilitation was partially successful on a macroeconomic level, the fiscal efforts contributed to impoverish the population and ro worsen the demographic decline of the cities.