Sons of Something: Taxes, Lawsuits, and Local Political Control in Sixteenth-Century Castile

The widespread ennoblement of the Spanish bourgeoisie in the Early Modern period has been traditionally considered one of the main causes of the “crisis of the seventeenth century.” Using a new time series of nobility cases I provide the first quantitative assessment of Castilian ennoblement. Contra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of economic history Vol. 67; no. 3; pp. 608 - 642
Main Author Drelichman, Mauricio
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.09.2007
Subjects
16th century
Archives
Bourgeoisie
Chancery courts
Direct taxes
Early modern history
Economic growth
Economic history
Economic impact
Fiscal law
Human capital
Jurisdiction
Lawsuits
Litigation
Middle class
Municipal taxes
Nobility
Political history
Regional history
Spain
Studies
Tax collection
Tax exemptions
Taxes
Taxpaying
Towns
Treason
Castile Spain
Spain
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Summary:The widespread ennoblement of the Spanish bourgeoisie in the Early Modern period has been traditionally considered one of the main causes of the “crisis of the seventeenth century.” Using a new time series of nobility cases I provide the first quantitative assessment of Castilian ennoblement. Contrary to established scholarship, I find that the tax exemptions cannot alone explain the flight to privilege. My data show that the central motivation behind ennoblement was to gain control of local governments. Although ennoblement reflected a high level of redistributive activity, there is no evidence linking it to economic stagnation in Spain.
Bibliography:PII:S0022050707000253
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ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0022-0507
1471-6372
DOI:10.1017/S0022050707000253