The Cortes of Castile and Philip II's fiscal policy

Summary

This article analyses the evolution of the fiscal policy of the Crown of Castile in the reign of Philip II in relation to the salient characteristics of the tax system and of the political and constitutional structure of the kingdom. The character of the Kingdoms of Castile as an aggregate of autonomous communities coordinated by the superior authority of the monarch was reflected in a fiscal system based upon the delegation to local authorities of the management of the most important royal taxes (alcabalas and servicios) and thus upon principles of autonomy and decentralization which made negotiation with the Kingdom in the Cortes, both with regard to the total sum and to the conditions of its collection, unavoidable. The financial needs of Philip II led him to try to overcome the rigidities of this system by extending the fiscal powers of the Crown by means of the creation of new taxes or the increase of those already in existence, as well as by redefining the constitutional processes of negotiation with the Cortes and the cities. Nevertheless, Philip II neither succeeded in getting acceptance for all his demands nor did the pressure to which he subjected the Kingdom generate any significant change in the nature of the Castilian fiscal system nor in the politico‐constitutional bases which sustained it.     

Valencian parliamentary assemblies and the voting of servicios to rescue slaves. Duties and tax incomes in the eighteenth century

The Nueva Planta decrees (1707–16) caused an important change on the institutional and legislative map, not only in the Crown of Aragon but also in the Crown of Castile. The call for only one parliament within a ‘new institution’ – the General Courts of the Monarchy – was one of the consequences of this process of abolition undertaken by the representative institutions of each kingdom. This process deserves special attention because of the significant changes in its functions. The functions and duties of this ‘new parliament’ mainly revolved around the interests of the absolute monarchy, and the calls made during the eighteenth century – in 1713 and in 1789 – were thus intended for the oath of the heir to the throne. Among the various functions given to the parliament, the voting of servicios (a subsidy or petition) – usually a donation request – certainly stood out from time immemorial. The funds from petitions were used for different purposes, but they usually served to cover the expenses of the king and his kingdom.     

Computer analysis of house of commons’ division lists, 1861–1936: A report on current research

SUMMARY

No parliamentary assemblies (Cortes) were held between 1665 and 1700 in the Crown of Castile. In view of this institutional pause, not yet sufficiently well explained historiographically, the questions assailing us are: who held the representation of the kingdom during this time, and how was the exaction of taxes-the millones (tax on basic products), donations, and so on-carried out in political practice, as their levying had to be agreed on in the Cortes.

The answer to the first question is that it was the cabildos (local assemblies or oligarchical municipal assemblies) of the cities with a vote in the Cortes, which legitimately represented the kingdom. It should be remembered that before 1665, during the time when the Parliament was summoned, the cabildos retained the decisive vote, whereas the members of the Cortes meeting in them could only exercise an advisory vote. The reply to the second question obliges us to study the institutional relationship of both a Diputacón de las Cortes (a Deputation of the Cortes) and the Commission of Millones with the cabildos concerning the collection of the levies of the millones and donations.

As well as defining political representation in the early modern era, the thesis of this article is to demonstrate that the cabildos of the Castilian cities with votes in the Cortes, regardless of whether the Cortes were held or not, were the real representatives of the kingdom and the administrators of the treasury in the second half of the seventeenth century. Thus, in Castile too, the government of society was implemented by both the king and the kingdom in accordance with the juridical-institutional criterion, widespread in Western Europe, of the dominium politicum et regale (as described by John Fortescue, Helmut Koenigsberger et al.).     

Pouvoir royal et représentation provençale du XVIIème au XVIIIème siècle

SUMMARY

This paper examines assemblies of the clergy in early modern Castile and France. It provides a short overview of the representative nature of these assemblies, their functions, and their power over the ecclesiastical purse strings. In the process it argues that, in addition to secular representative institutions, historians need to take a closer look at ecclesiastical assemblies in order to understand politics, finance and representation in Catholic polities.     

The financial autonomy of the municipalities and the Valencian Parliament

SUMMARY

In the first half of the fourteenth century and on countless occasions, the Crown granted the leaders of the City of Valencia authorization to collect indirect taxes as a means of collecting the subsidies allocated to its military needs. The ratification of fiscal autonomy can be related to the Crown's interest in gaining control of municipal resources as a way of demanding donations in order to accomplish its policies.

The main reason for the royal privilege to raise taxes in favour of the cities was the extensive expenses caused by the conquest of Corsica and Sardinia during the reign of James II. The Kingdom and the city of Valencia came to the aid of the monarch because they were interested in trading with Sicily and these two islands were impeding trade routes. To make things easier, Alfonso IV granted them a privilege to levy taxes on the grain and meat trades and on merchant shipping within the municipal territory of the city of Valencia. The municipal tax on meat and grain was used as a model for the tax approved in the Cortes of 1329, extending it to exports everywhere in the Kingdom of Valencia. The tax approved by these Cortes, agreed in order to collect the subsidy offered to the monarch, was the first general tax validated in the Cortes following the model of the exisiting municipal tax. To mark the occasion of the war against Castile, Peter IV took a decisive step in 1363 and extended the capacity to levy taxes to all royal towns and cities. The municipalities turned indirect taxation into one of the basic pillars of their economy.     

Commission Newsletter: 1997

SUMMARY

In this article Sandro Guerrieri discusses the parliamentary proceedings in France of 9–10 July 1940, which set up the Vichy State under the leadership of Marshal Pétain. He was then head of the government of the Third Republic and the motion of 10 July authorized him to consider and promulgate a revised constitution for the French state. In August 1944, these proceedings were formally declared to have been a coup d'état, and therefore legally null and void. It is shown that some of the politicians who voted in the National Assembly against the resolution of 10 July had already asserted this interpretation of the process by which the Vichy State was established. The article reviews the arguments that have developed around this subject, and suggests that while the actual motion, voted by the two Chambers acting as a National Assembly, could be seen as in accordance with the Constitution of the Third Republic, the manner in which it was used by Pétain and his advisers, particularly Pierre Laval, is open to legal challenge, and can be regarded as a usurpation of the powers granted by the National Assembly. Hence while it could be argued that what happened was not a coup d'état, in that the element of intimidatory violence over the legislature, usually seen as one defining characteristic of a coup, was absent, the proceedings can be characterized as at least a coup de force.     

Le Parlement et le pouvoir religieux dans le Portugal du Moyen Âge

SUMMARY

The medieval Portuguese clergy and nobility, particularly those of higher status, were the political and ideological support of the sovereign. As vassals of the king they had been members of the curia regia from its beginnings. They naturally became part of the parliament when it was created in the thirteenth century. In these early assemblies the monarch consulted them about political issues of general interest, but the clergy and nobility were free to bring forward their own concerns. Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho examines how the clergy complained to the kings D. Afonso IV (1325–57), D. Pedro (1357–67) and D. Fernando (1367–83). They insisted on defending their privileges, ecclesiastical rights and temporal power, presenting long lists of accusations mostly against the nobles and royal officials. But to give a wider perspective the author also studies the dissatisfaction that the people expressed in these assemblies about the clergy, charging them with oppression while both collecting taxes and rents and applying justice. The parliamentary discussions demonstrated clearly the social tensions of the times and allowed the king to judge and to rule in a more balanced way between the estates in order to exert his sovereign power in a pacified kingdom.     

From the Hague Congress to the Council of Europe: hopes,achievements and disappointments in the parliamentary way to European integration (1948–51)

SUMMARY

This article examines the commitment of many parliamentarians from Western countries after the Second World War in favour of European integration and the role played by the first European representative assembly, the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, from its foundation in 1949 to the resignation of its first president, Paul-Henri Spaak, in 1951. The Hague Congress of May 1948 proposed the creation of an assembly elected by national parliaments which was to be the core of an integration process. The Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, established by the Treaty of London of 5 May 1949, was far from satisfying the promoters of a parliament-led Europe, as the Committee of Ministers was the main decision-making body of the new international organization. The members of the Consultative Assembly (many of whom were leading political figures such as Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, Guy Mollet, Georges Bidault, Eamon de Valera, Ugo La Malfa and Ferruccio Parri) made an important contribution, however, to creating a supranational forum of discussion, and the Assembly's proposals led to the Convention on Human Rights, signed in November 1950, and to other European conventions. However, the Assembly was unable to share a common vision about the institutional perspectives of European integration. This article examines how the debate about the political structure of Europe was influenced by national traditions.     

Les députés du Territoire d'Otrante au parlement napolitain de 1820–1821

SUMMARY

In this article, Éric Anceau examines the coup d'État of 2 December 1851, which was carried out by the President of the French Republic at the time, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, against the Legislative Assembly. By viewing the coup from the parliamentary side and by using the method of prosopography, the author reevaluates an apparently well-known period, while refraining from partisan judgements and hasty generalizations. In the first part, the author analyses the immediate and contrasted reactions of the 741 parliamentarians to the coup. He then describes their negotiations and alignments. He finally shows the consequences for the parliamentarians of their different attitudes towards the coup: active support, acceptance, total abstention (a stance chosen by approximately a fifth of them) or outright resistance. In fact, Éric Anceau shows the great variety of their responses. Nevertheless he underlines the undecided, wait-and-see and pragmatic attitude chosen by most of the representatives. He concludes by mentioning the long-lasting consequences of the coup on the relationship between the new regime and the former Assembly representatives.     

Crown and Cortes in Castile, 1590–1665

Summary

Preparations for the Estates General of 1789 constituted one of the last acts of the anclen régime in France. The accompanying elections have received relatively little attention, yet they bequeathed much more to the electoral practices and political mentalités of the Revolution than most historians have realised. Though separate orders were preserved at the final meeting of the Estates General, with disastrous consequences for the monarchy, custom was breached by the uniform fashion and broad franchise with which deputies were elected. When the National Assembly was created the orders were dissolved, but much of this semi‐traditional electoral system survived. Assemblies of voters, an indirect, two‐tier process of election and exhaustive balloting were all retained from the past. A pronounced aversion to declared candidatures and electoral canvassing remained equally entrenched. Moreover, radicals drew upon the old‐régime heritage, rather than upon Rousseau, in their use of mandates, oral voting and the pursuit of unanimity at the polls. The revolutionary experiment with elections ultimately faltered in face of apathy and cynicism among voters. This article concludes by suggesting how the electoral legacy of the anden regime inhibited the emergence of a ‘modern political culture’, which is currently hailed as the major achievement of the French Revolution.     

Le parlement belge de fonctionnaires 1830–1848

ABSTRACT

The recent publication of two volumes of the acts of the Sardinian Parliament, edited by Laura Galoppini, offers an opportunity to pay attention to this extraordinary rich documentation now covering a continuous period of 175 years. In 1355 King Pedro IV of Aragon convened a first assembly, modelled on the Aragonese corts. The second meeting, in 1421, aimed at the completion of the island’s conquest and the financing of that conquest. It was only since the 1480s that regular meetings took place, albeit it that their convening was determined by the royal need for subsidies. The remarkably long negotiations on the estates’ petitions and complaints reveal new insights into the island’s social tensions and economic problems, and its role in the struggle for domination in the Western Mediterranean.     

Les élections à la chambre introuvable en aoÛt 1815

Summary

A number of historians have recently advanced the thesis that the millones of 1601 transformed the structure of Castilian politics by shifting the constitutional balance of power toward the Cortes and cities at the expense of the crown. The thesis rests on three principal arguments: that the millones established a contractual relationship between crown and parliament, that they created a public system of tax revenue controlled by the Cortes and cities, and that they helped to unify Castile fiscally. This article reviews these conclusions through an examination of the actual administration of the millones from 1601–1621. The analysis suggests that the conclusions drawn by revisionist historians, largely from the texts of successive millones agreements, have been overstated. In reality the millones did not transform Castilian politics and many of the gains ascribed to the Cortes and cities were either never achieved, or achieved only in partial or provisional ways. Nevertheless the millones of 1601 did alter the context of Castilian politics and set the stage for a prolonged period of constitutional debate that took well over three decades to resolve.     

Studies presented to the international commission for the history of representative and parliamentary institutions 1937–1980

Summary

This article examines the problems faced by the Portuguese Cortes between 1821 and 1823 in attempting to create a constitution. This involved the central issue of whether or not sovereignty resided in the nation or in the person of the king. It led to a polarisation between traditionalists and liberals, although the latter believed that co‐operation between king and Cortes was a precondition for political and social stability. There were also disagreements about whether a royal veto over legislation should be conceded and whether or not a second chamber should be created. A compromise was found over the former, with the Crown receiving a suspensive veto, while a second chamber was rejected. Nevertheless, Portuguese liberals remained divided over the exact role of the Crown within the new constitutional order and that division, combined with the continued strength of traditional forces and external pressures, opened the way for a counterrevolution. Faced with intransigence on the part of the king and the traditionalists, the liberals could only protest by suspending the Cortes. João VI's reply was the declaration of Vila Franca (1823) which proclaimed royal sovereignty and replaced the Constitution of 1822 with one which was only a ‘gift’ from the Crown.     

The development of the role of the European Parliament

SUMMARY

In this article, Sandro Guerrieri argues the case for studying the emergence of the European Parliament from the historical perspective, now made more feasible by the growing availability of the European Union's own archives at Florence. He suggests that, so far, most analysis of the development of the Parliament has been undertaken by lawyers and political scientists. A historical approach is particularly important, because the European Union does not exactly fit the normal institutional classifications, it is not an interstate association, nor a developed federal state, but combines elements of both. It follows that the European Parliament has developed in ways which partly replicate the development of parliaments in national sovereign or federal states, but is also adapted to the unique political structures of the European Union. The article then traces the path of development from the original Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, made up of members nominated by the national parliaments to act as a monitor of the work of the High Authority. From its inception, this Assembly began to press for the organization and authority of a parliament. From then on the Assembly and its successor institutions, which in 1962 finally secured the official title of the European Parliament, has steadily enlarged its powers. The article suggests that while the Parliament can be expected to develop many features that have characterized Europe's national parliaments, it will diverge from them because historically it is a pioneering experiment in supranational parliamentarianism.     

Saudi Arabia plans for its economic future: Vision 2030, the National Transformation Plan and Saudi fiscal reform

ABSTRACT

In response to a rapid decline in world oil prices, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman introduced a new economic blueprint called Saudi Vision 2030 and the accompanying National Transformation Plan that would enable the Kingdom to diversify its heavily oil-dependent revenue base, reduce its growing budget deficits, balance its budgets, and promote long-term economic growth. This article analyses the goals of the Vision and the policies offered to achieve them, which entail significant reforms to the Kingdom’s fiscal and budgetary procedures and policies. This study considers the political and institutional challenges that confront the Saudi Vision and its likelihood of success.     

From the rebellion of the Prussian league to the autonomy of Royal Prussia: The estates of Prussia and Poland in the years 1454–1526

Summary

This article examines the successive stages in the conflict between Prussian particularism and royal centralism after the separation of the Prussian League from the Teutonic Order and incorporation into the Polish Crown in 1454. The Incorporation Privilege, though interpreted on the one side as a purely personal union and on the other as a real incorporation, remained a point of reference regulating the public and legal relationship between Royal Prussia and Crown Poland for three centuries. It is argued that the years up to 1526 can be considered as a period of consolidation of Prussian particularism and autonomy, although from the 1510s a new policy of participation was beginning to emerge in the Estates, reflecting the interests of the Prussian nobility and their increasing expression in the political arena.     

Structuring parliamentary politics: Party organization in eighteenth‐century Sweden

SUMMARY

The English universities were enfranchised as parliamentary constituencies in letters patent issued by James I in 1604. The various approaches made to the Tudor regime by some of the senior members of Oxford and Cambridge to have ‘burgesses in parliament’ to protect and promote the rights of the respective universities and their colleges were largely responses to the problems caused by the persistent contentions and conflict of interests between ‘town and gown’ in both places. These abortive attempts to add new constituencies to the expanding parliamentary system in the sixteenth century are seen against the background of medieval precedents for the summoning by the Crown of university lawyers to parliament. On three separate occasions after the Reformation, the petitions for the privilege of representation addressed to the monarch and privy councillors were associated with requests that the lower clergy in the Church of England be represented in the House of Commons as well as in the Convocations of the Church. Parliament itself does not seem to have played a part in initiating these overtures or in sanctioning the final grant of representation, which, like the enfranchisement of incorporated boroughs, was an exercise of the royal prerogative. Both universities responded positively to the advice tendered in 1604 by the attorney-general, Sir Edward Coke, that they return as their representatives civil lawyers rather than clerical members of their governing bodies. The possible constitutional significance of this recommendation and its implementation is considered in the context of some contemporary ideas of representation and the failure at this time of the ‘inferior clergy’ generally to gain a presence in the House of Commons to complement that of the spiritual lords in the upper chamber. In the later modern period the separate university franchise was extended in turn to all modern academic institutions on attaining full university status, but was abolished by the post-war Labour Government in 1948.     

Capturing Brazilian society in movement: from cordiality to circulation and “spaces between” in Maria Augusta Ramos’s Futuro junho (2015)

ABSTRACT

This article analyses Maria Augusta Ramos’s 2015 observational documentary Futuro junho (Future June), filmed in the Brazilian city of São Paulo in the lead-up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Taking as its starting point a connection, established by one of the film’s four main “characters,” or subjects, between Brazilian historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s influential work on cordiality and the idea of circulation between public and private spheres, the article explores how circulation (economic, urban, media, and cultural) is portrayed in the documentary, as well as how it foregrounds both spatial and temporal movements. This is complemented by a discussion of the film’s own circulation through attention to critical reviews which have debated the film’s success in documenting, in a timely way, a national conjuncture characterised by crisis and conflict as well as unpredictability and rapid change. The article argues that by imbricating and intertwining multiple cultures of circulation, and by drawing attention to the varied economic and urban experiences of its characters and the spaces between them, Futuro junho captures a Brazil in flux.     

Exhibiting the Enlightenment: Joseph Banks’s Florilegium and Colonial Knowledge Production

ABSTRACT

The returned Australia-Japan Foundation Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo (2014–15), Anna Johnston, reflects on a 2014 exhibition held in Tokyo: The Bunkamura Museum of Art’s “Captain Cook’s Voyage and Banks’ Florilegium.” The Florilegium continues to have resonance as part of Australia’s complex colonial inheritance from the Enlightenment past. Its display and interpretation both overseas and within Australia provides an opportunity to better understand its origin in a pivotal historical period, globally, and its contribution to knowledge in arts and sciences. The Florilegium also reveals how Indigenous knowledge was central to European exploration and knowledge production. This article outlines contextual issues and seeks to provide a complex biography of this scientific and artistic artefact of Empire, in order to propose new ways of reading the Florilegium that pay attention to that enriched biography.     

Diccionario biográfico de los Parlamentarios de Vasconia (1876–1939)

SUMMARY

A few years after the return of the Bourbons to the Neapolitan throne, following the final defeat of Napoleon, profound dissatisfaction grew in a section of southern public opinion, above all the provincial bourgeoisie, at certain plans of the restored government. They faced the continued blocking of their own aspirations to a greater share in the management of the res publica, which was a result of the rigid political and administrative centralization of Napoleonic origin which remained in place in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Because of this deeply rooted discontent, the secret sect of the Carboneria began to spread throughout the kingdom. Its primary political aim was to build the foundations of a constitutional and representative regime. It was the Carboneria which instigated a popular uprising in 1820, forcing Ferdinand I to concede to his subjects what the leaders of the revolt had loudly demanded, the Constitution of Cadiz.

Therefore, for the first time in the history of the kingdom, all male citizens aged 21 (except those in domestic service) were entitled to elect the national Parliament endowed with legislative powers. Apart from the property-owning and professional middle classes, it was soldiers and clergy, both groups active in the ranks of the carbonari, who were conspicuously represented in the new assembly. It was therefore composed in large part of individuals whose careers displayed a prominent involvement in the most dangerous phase of the political and institutional crisis which had confronted the kingdom during the previous years. About 70 per cent of those elected had joined in support of the Napoleonic Republic in 1799, had taken part variously in the institutional order established by Napoleon's adherents in the ten years of French rule from 1806, and had in many cases then been affiliated to the Carboneria. Because of their advanced democratic ideals, these people were severely persecuted by the Bourbon authority after the end of the brief constitutional regime.