Las oligarquías urbanas de Pamplona y Tudela en 1366. Dos comportamientos diversoJ ante el fisco real navarro

Abstract

The Libro de fuegos de 1366 (The Book on Habits and Customs of 1366) is the only text that allows us to study, in details, the way in which the inhabitants of the two main cities of the realm, Pamplona and Tudela, used to contribute in the tax system. Among a very reduced series of fiscal censuses in Navarra during the Middle Ages, this book is quite unique because it registers both the name of the heads of family and the quota asigned to each one. The meticulous revision of the original manuscript, which transcription by J. Carrasco in 1973 helped us to study it in detail -as well as complementary information obtained through other sources allows us to find surprising conclu­sions. One of them is that the 33 families of the high bourgeoisie in Pamplona paid, on an average, scarcely 3 florins while the average of the 68 most famous lineages in Tudela contributed with 8 florins. We do not know the reasons for this important difference, Tudela's families exceed largely the average of 2,5 florins per family, foreseen for the realm as a whole. We also ignore the reasons why, in Tudela, the four levels of quota (1, 2, 3 and 4 florins) established far that peculiar year by royal norms are not respected.