Fiscalidad y circulación monetaria en el reino de Navarra. La dote de la infanta Juana, duquesa de Bretaña (1385-1387)

Abstract

During the forty years of his reign, Carlos II d'Evreux (1350-1387) asked for and obtained numerous and important economic aid. This extraordinary tax system was progressively transformed, in many cases, in fixed and guaranteed incomes for the royal finances of Navarra. One of the most obvious cases of this occasional tax system, but not therefore the less expansive, is, maybe, to have asked for 120 thousand golden francs to pay the dowry of the Infanta Juana, the future spouse of the Duke of Bretagne, Jean IV, Earl of Montfort and Richemont. Such an important amount fell on a population already very much overburde­ned with taxes. It is the reason why, the express requirement that this payment was to be satisfied in golden francs, which made this amount in even more oppressive. Nevertheless, in a first attempt, the amount of 112.118 livres, 19 solidi and 2 denarii was reached, but only 16,48 % of the wole was payed in golden or silver coins as it had been convened at the beginning. The following instalments, offered an every time more reduced percentage of gold or silver. Due to the arousing difficulties and to honour the demand of the Duke, the royal family of Navarra started selling jewellery and crockery for an amount of 714 silver marks, the equivalent of the weight of the marks of Pamplona. The summing up this quantity of silver, the deliveries in coins and the gold, provides a good basis to establish and estimate the monetary flow between the two little states, even if we consider it occasional. The different contributions exposed in the different tables, will certainly contri­bute to learn more about the monetary history of the West during the Middle Ages.