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1. General remarks In the 16th century, few states contracted long-term debts (Credit). The earliest notable exceptions were certain city states and Spain; Venice already had a permanent public debt by the late 12th century. By the end of the 17th century, this was true almost everywhere [4. 22–37]. Even the public debt of Venice, which had been carefully managed up to 1600, rocketed in the 17th century (1641: 8 million ducats; 1714: over 50 million). In the “domain states,” only short-term loans had been employed to bridge current finan…

The excise was a tax levied on consumer goods (Consumption). Liability for payment did not fall directly on an individual or household, since the amount was only payable upon purchase of a specific product. As such, it can be considered a form of indirect taxation (Tax) charged for services (the so-called stamp duty) or on trade in goods (public scale tax, tollbooths, customs duties). Conversely, direct taxation was levied on individuals (e.g. poll tax), their incomes (e.g. income tax, salary tax), or their wealth or property (e.g. land tax, hearth tax, house tax).In the early mod…

1. General remarks State finances were a relatively late phenomenon in early modern Europe. In the Middle Ages, a prince was expected to use the income from his own crown lands to pay his necessary expenses (English to live off his own, French  vivre du sien, Spanish  conformare con lo suyo). Only in exceptional circumstances such as war was he allowed to levy taxes. For a long time, the distinction between the finances of the ruler and those of the nascent state was blurred. The boundaries between the private sphere and the public sphere, t…

1. Definition and beginnings in Amsterdam A state bank or central bank can perform a variety of tasks (Bank). Today it usually regulates the monetary policy of a country, creates its currency, acts as a “lender of last resort” for other banks, and exercises supervisory power over the financial sector. In the early modern period, none of the public banks performed all these functions at the same time, and certainly not at the present-day level. But the establishment of certain fin…

1. Causes and consequences A sovereign default in early modern history implied that a state could no longer pay its obligations. Although all early modern states regularly experienced difficulties in payments, the term “sovereign default” is usually reserved for those situations in which the state can no longer pay the interest (Interest [banking]) on most of its outstanding loans (Credit; Public credit). Such a default does not necessarily bring the disso…

1. Europe 1.1. DescriptionTax farming is a semi-private arrangement for collecting taxes (Tax). In return for a lump sum paid to the authorities, the tax farmer is allowed to collect taxes on his own behalf. As a rule, tax farmers employed their own personnel, but forms of organization in which the government provided the office and civil servants for the collection were also possible. Tax farmers either negotiated their own contracts or obtained them in a public auction [1].Tax farming was a widespead practice in the first centuries of the early modern period, as a s…

1. Definition In the late Middle Ages, urban communities (Town) usually had better developed fiscal systems than the states (Public finances). A few Italian city states developed an advanced and sophisticated tax system relatively early on. The commune of Siena introduced a kind of wealth tax, the  alliramento, between 1168 and 1175. In the 15th and 16th centuries, however, more and more territorial states followed the urban example and started to levy taxes themselves.Taxes are sometimes divided into direct and indirect taxes. The meaning of these terms can vary …