Fiscal policy in early modern europe: Portugal in comparative context

Abstract

This book examines the gradual assembly and consolidation of Portuguese fiscal policy in the second half of the fi fteenth century, providing a comparative analysis of the Portuguese State’s fi nances and fi scal dynamics with other Western European monarchies. This volume scrutinizes relevant aspects of the Portuguese Royal finances, particularly the different instruments employed to provide income, both ordinary and extraordinary, and the rubrics involving all types of expenditure, permanent or temporary, between the reigns of Afonso V and Manuel I at the dawn of the Modern Ages. The analysis of Portugal’s case will also serve as a main conducting wire to a broader fi scal examination of other Latin-rooted Mediterranean and North Atlantic kingdoms. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of economic history, fiscal history, economic theory and history of economic thought, as well as students of medieval history, the history of the Western Europe and the Iberian Peninsula.