Bancaria Editrice - Journal of European Economic History

Prezzo Copertina	€ 50,00
IVA assolta dall'editore

ARTICLES

Deficit Finance during the Early Majority of Henry VI of England, 1436-1444. The “Crisis” of the Medieval English “Tax State”

Alex Brayson

This article takes a radically new approach to the fiscal collapse of the Lancastrian state prior to the Wars of the Roses. Whereas previous studies have sought to locate the origins of the infamous £372,000 royal debt declared before parliament in 1449-50 in the short-term fiscal political context of Henry VI’s troubled kingship during the late 1440s, the present article documents the development of a longer-term structural crisis in the public finances. During the conciliar rule of Henry VI’s early majority in the late 1430s and early 1440s, parliamentary-controlled income declined markedly as a result of historically low indirect tax yields and MPs’ unwillingness, at a time of growing socio-economic problems, to respond to the king’s personal fiscal overtures and grant the required level of compensatory lay taxation to fund heavy expenditures. Consequently, a mounting deficit characterised all areas of the royal budget, whilst the total deficit doubled. As affairs of state gravitated towards Henry VI’s court around 1444, total debt was already well in excess of £300,000. Viewed in the context of R.J. Bonney and W.M. Ormrod’s “new” fiscal historiography, these developments signify that the political and economic limits of the medieval English “tax state” had been reached, thus paving the way for a structural fiscal regression to a low-yield “domain” state from the 1450s.

Gaining Power. Rural Elites in Northern Italy during the Early Modern Period

Matteo Di Tullio, Giulio Ongaro

This article analyses the increasing socio-economic segmentation of rural society in Northern Italy in the early modern era. With a synthesis of the historiography on the Italian countryside plus original archival research, we reconstruct the political role and the socioeconomic basis of rural elites in the State of Milan and in the Republic of Venice. We argue that, in general, the growing importance and the establishment of the rural elites were the result of more and more exclusive management of the commons, the concentration of landed property, and a near monopoly in local manufacturing and the local credit market.

Maximizing Profits or Pursuing the Public Good? The Bank of Spain as a Central Bank

Pablo Martín-Aceña, Pilar Nogues-Marco, Elena Martínez-Ruiz

This study examines whether the transition from a system of multiple issuing banks to a monopoly on currency issuance was a step in the Bank of Spain’s becoming a central bank in the true sense of the word (a non-profit-maximizing institution); or on the contrary, whether the Bank used its privilege as the only private issuing institution to obtain extra profits while neglecting its duties as a central bank. We find that thanks to the monopoly, the Spanish issuer did make extraordinary profits (above average for the banking industry). Further, the Bank’s “private interest” prevailed over the “public interest” (convertibility into gold), while the monopoly was not decisive to its becoming a genuine central bank. The Bank of Spain was a highly profitable financial institution for its shareholders, and little concerned with the public interest. History shows that its transformation into an institution responsible for monetary and financial policy did not come until well into the twentieth century.

NOTES

Financing Culture and Theatre. Remigio Paone between Economics and Politics (1899-1977)

Daniela Manetti

IN MEMORIAM

Hans Pohl (1935-2019)

Carsten Burhop

HISTORY AND SOCIETY

Immigration to Europe between Emergency and Integration. The Case of the “Land of Fires”

Francesco Dandolo, Michele Mosca

The territories between Casal di Principe and the Domitian Coast have been at the center of the migratory dynamics that have involved Italy for several decades. The massive use of immigrants for agricultural labor and the murder of Jerry Essan Masslo are elements of a crucial chapter of the history of Italian immigration. Another is the pastoral work of Father Peppe Diana, realizing full fraternity in the encounter with immigrants and inspiring significant and extraordinarily interesting experiences of hospitality and integration in a difficult context. Models of social inclusion were developed that promoted new forms of active citizenship, transcending the logic of emergency which immigrants often face in one of the parts of Italy where organized crime is most deeply rooted. The result is an innovative approach to human relationships, rich in opportunities, which points the way to civil coexistence in an increasingly plural society; an original paradigm of civic ethics that injects much needed calm and objectivity into the debate on these issues.

BOOK REVIEWS

Carlo Tapia
A Treatise on Abundance (1638) and Early Modern Views of Poverty and Famine
Paolo Tedesco

Cristoforo Sergio Bertuglia, Franco Vaio
Il fenomeno urbano e la complessità
Pietro Terna

Enos Costantini
Storia della vite e del vino in Friuli e a Trieste
Giovanni Farese

M. Fornasari, O. Mazzotti
Anima civitatis. Capitale umano e sviluppo economico in Romagna dall’Ottocento al Duemila
Francesco Dandolo

Costas Lapavitsas, Pinar Cakiroglu
Capitalism in the Ottoman Balkans: Industrialisation and Modernity in Macedonia
Giampaolo Conte

Telmo Pievani
Homo sapiens e altre catastrofi: per un’archeologia della globalizzazione
Gioacchino Orsenigo

Sergio Zoppi
Questioni meridionali. Napoli (1934-1943)
Francesco Dandolo

Journal of European Economic History - 2020 issue 1