Voor vorst voor vrijheid en voor recht. Een comparatieve analyse van het stedelijke fiscale en financiële beleid in de zeventiende eeuw

Abstract

Een comparatieve analyse van het stedelijke fiscale en financiële beleid in de zeventiende eeuw * Abstract From the middle ages onwards, cities were encapsulated in the financing of the (nascent) state. In order to meet the royal need for cash, cities resorted to selling rents. These practices are well studied within historiography. However, how the financing of the state and the corresponding mounting debt levels transformed the urban fiscal system remained much less studied. In this article, we set out to disentangle the relationship between the state, the town and the urban fiscal structure. The financial fortunes of Antwerp, Amsterdam and Madrid during the seventeenth century were used as case studies. We show that whereas Amsterdam's debt levels were kept under control, debt-income ratios in both Antwerp and Madrid grew excessively. The spiralling out of control of urban finances compelled both the city magistrates and the state to intervene and restructure the urban fiscal system. The ensuing political struggle between the city and the state resulted in different outcomes for Antwerp and Madrid. Whereas the magistrates of the former managed to strengthen their economic power over the city, the revenues of the latter became increasingly intertwined with that of the Habsburg monarchy. We conclude that long after the economic growth of the sixteenth century the rise of the unified fiscal state was still severely hampered in the Southern Low Countries due to a sovereign in constant need for cash in combination with strong regional tendencies towards particularism. * De auteur dankt M. Limberger, T. De Moor en de anonieme referenten van het tijdschrift voor het becommentariëren van eerdere versies.