Financiación - History Lab

Payment of the guards in Castile (1523-1524)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:03 +0000

From the end of the medieval period, the power accumulated by the monarch allowed him to create a series of armies that were far removed from institutional channels but always loyal to his orders. These troops were loyal to the monarch, but they also required an extra cost to sustain themselves, which in practice materialised in an increase in the tax burden on the population, in an attempt to balance the always complex balance between monetary income and expenditure.
For the Castilian Hispanic Monarchy, this particular army was the guards of Castile, paid for thanks to the role of international banking and the extraordinary rents obtained by the crown. From the end of the 15th century, the army was essentially paid through obligados, people who advanced a large sum of money in exchange for a continuous salary, until the amount was paid off. This financial tool was of great use to the crown, but at the same time it meant that credit had to be kept in constant movement. Thanks to the resource, we can see the monthly fluctuation in the king’s liquidity, and therefore, of credit in Castile. The figures are more or less stable, but suffer large ups and downs in the central summer months and from September to November.

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Holders of bonds and the percentage of the bonds in Murcia (1544-1680)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:56 +0000

One of the forms of financing that the Hispanic monarchy had were the juros. The juros, or debt securities, consisted of private economic disbursements to the monarchy in order to obtain, in the medium and long term, returns from the royal institution. A predecessor of the current system of issuing public debt, it was the system used in Castile. The resource deals with the typology of holders of juros and their percentage amount as a group with respect to the total. We look at Murcia between 1544 and 1680, a period in which the number of juros rose from 20 to 133 (from 3,266,459 to 14,011,285 maravedíes). The growth of the Empire was accompanied by an increase in the issue of juros. Who were the holders? In all these years, merchants and businessmen were the main purchasers. Without belonging to the privileged classes, these wealthy men owned more than 80% of the land in 1544; the rest belonged to the nobility. As the century and the turn of the century progressed, more bonds were issued, with other institutions, such as the church, acquiring part of them. Thus, from 1560 onwards, the ecclesiastical organisation began to own juros in Murcia, although its share did not exceed 10% until the end of the 16th century, falling at the beginning of the 17th century and reaching its highest percentage of the total in 1680.

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French fundraising to pay for the Nine Years’ War

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:56 +0000

The strategies chosen by the French monarchy to try to pay for the Nine Years’ War can be studied through the figure of the French financiers and assistants. In contrast to the regularity of these financiers and assistants, with the contracts they signed to offer certain goods or services to the monarchy, there were the French traitants. These intermediaries, who, although they managed to collect a large amount of goods and capital for the monarchy, were exceptionally expensive due to their extraordinary nature, and had an appalling impact on the coffers in future accounts if their services were used too much.
The revenue collected during this conflict came from the rents obtained from the crown, the taxes levied by the French Treasury, the change in the value of coins and the so-called traités. The graph shows the great importance given by Pontchartrain, the French Finance Minister, to extraordinary financing, which accounted for almost half of the money allocated to pay for the war and 70% of the resources collected in 1691.

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Payment of loans by Charles V in the mid-16th century

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:56 +0000

Carlos V’s monetary management was characterised to a large extent by regular recourse to loans from Genoese, German, Castilian and Flemish bankers. Some of these loans were repaid on a regular basis, some were repaid with ecclesiastical revenues, and a third led to delays and non-payments by the Spanish Royal Treasury.
Contributions from ecclesiastical institutions were a very important figure in legitimising a relatively secure guarantee of repayment between them and the king vis-à-vis the bankers. In contrast to the secondary role played by Castilian lenders, ecclesiastical contributions – mainly through the Crusade – did stand out as a key tool for the crown.
It can be seen how in the period between 1547 and 1550 the figures for loan payments fall, largely because they were not so necessary at this peaceful time, rising again between 1551 and 1554, showing the preeminence of Genoese bankers when it came to financing the Spanish monarchy. It should be borne in mind, however, that despite being very clear and definitive data, these may suffer some variation in the royal sphere because some entries showed that the monarch used the bankers as intermediaries to transfer money between his kingdoms, thus increasing the share of these entities.

The post Payment of loans by Charles V in the mid-16th century first appeared on History Lab.

Evolution of the garrison of Cartagena de Indias, 1700-1746

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:48 +0000

The evolution of the garrison at Cartagena de Indias, unlike that of Havana, showed a stable trend until the outbreak of British hostilities in the War of the Seat (1739-1748). The garrison numbered around 150-200 men, a tiny figure in relation to the importance and size of the territory to be defended, reflecting the old system of semi-private recruitment. Despite this, the English crown’s maritime superiority was only countered by the effective tactical and defensive work of the Spanish overseas provinces. From 1736 onwards, the garrison’s military expenditure increased, a build-up that lasted until 1740-1741, when Cartagena, the main port of the viceroyalty of New Granada, was attacked and besieged. The Spanish resistance, led by Blas de Lezo, resulted in a defensive victory for the port and the region. A year later, in 1742, Cartagena was able to receive new financial remittances in the form of silver from Santa Fe and Quito, thus ensuring defensive continuity against another possible English attack.

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Grammar Schools in Extremadura: establishment and financing (18th century)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:48 +0000

During the Modern Age, the teaching of the middle arts did not follow an organised plan; rather, it was a conglomerate of teaching between the learning of the first letters and the university. This intermediate level included humanities colleges (the forerunners of today’s secondary schools), schools founded by economic societies, teaching in ecclesiastical or noble seminaries, and grammar studies, which could be public or private, conventual or secular. Each centre had autonomy in the design of its curriculum. Of all the medium studies, the most widespread were those of grammar, the aim of which was to learn the classical Latin language. In the province of Extremadura, at the end of the 18th century, there were 66 centres of this type. The centres were established with varying intensity in the districts of Extremadura: Llerena had 17, followed by the districts of Trujillo (14), Alcántara (13), and Badajoz (11). The rest, as a whole, had 5 schools. The author notes that Mérida had approximately 6 centres, a figure which may change in the light of further research. How were the grammar schools financed? Most of them were not endowed from private sources: donations, pious works, testamentary mandates, etc. In the district of Plasencia, which had a smaller proportion of schools, all of them were financed from private sources; the same tendency was found in Trujillo and Badajoz, where endowed schools outnumbered those which were financed only by student fees. In contrast, Alcántara, Llerena, Coria, Cáceres and La Serena had more schools without endowment.

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Evolution of the Havana garrison (Cuba, 1701-1746)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:48 +0000

During the War of the Spanish Succession, numerous human resources were mobilised in the Indies in favour of the French pretender. But Philip V was aware of the logistical impossibility of transporting large contingents of troops from the Americas to the mainland and maintaining them adequately during the journey. Nevertheless, the military mobilisation in the Indies was large enough to rid the continent of foreign interference during this period. The resource shows the evolution of the Havana garrison, as measured by salaries, between 1701 and 1746. From a first stage of maintenance in numbers, with spending oscillating in a constant range, a new regulation was implemented in 1719 that sought to improve the isolation and permanence of the soldiers in Havana. For 20 years the average number of men was 800, a figure that increased exponentially with the Anglo-Spanish war that began in 1739 in the Caribbean. Known as the War of the Seat, the conflict forced more troops to be garrisoned and, except for the occasional episode of bankruptcy in 1742, the bonds enjoyed good health both because of the aid they received from New Spain (situated) and because of the administration of their own internal coffers. The withdrawal of the English fleet from the Caribbean eased Havana’s financial burden, showing a slight decrease at the end of 1746.

The post Evolution of the Havana garrison (Cuba, 1701-1746) first appeared on History Lab.

Ordinary revenues of the Peninsula and the Indies for the Spanish Monarchy, 1763-1811

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:41 +0000

During the Modern Age the Hispanic Monarchy was financed by its subjects settled in the Iberian Peninsula and in the imperial provinces overseas. From 1763 to 1811, the territories that contributed most to the General Treasury of Spain showed an inversion: while the peninsular crowns were the main sources of financing in ordinary revenues, the French invasion that triggered the War of Independence caused the contribution of these territories to fall sharply; for their part, revenues from the Americas were maintained and only surpassed the peninsular contribution because of this situation. However, as the author points out, ordinary revenue to the General Treasury from the Americas did not include revenue in kind. Thus, if we add ordinary income to extraordinary income, the aforementioned reversal of contributions occurred in the 1790s, when the transfer of silver from New Spain accounted for 80% of total American remittances.

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Financing of the Napoleonic armies in Navarre between 1808 and 1813 (expressed in Navarrese reales de vellón)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:57 +0000

After the French invasion, the financial structure of the Ancien Régime was unable to cover the volume of expenditure demanded by the occupying authorities and by the guerrillas who were quick to oppose it. The war machine needed sufficient capital to feed and pay the troops and guarantee their movements in a strategic frontier territory. On the basis of the capital obtained from the Navarrese people by the French administration – through cash taxes – the 45 million reales de vellón were clearly insufficient to cover the supplies consumed between February 1808 and July 1813. If we add a part of the contributions levied in money to pay soldiers and maintain the government’s administration, the real estimate would be less than 42% of the expenditure on supplies.

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