La fiscalidad como espacio privilegiado de construcción político identitaria urbana: Burgos en la Baja Edad Media

Abstract

In this paper I analyse urban fiscality as a specific stage where models of urban political identity emerge and are built. I will consider these operations in three senses: in the first place, I will consider urban fiscality as a key element in the process of construction of a participated urban identity. This is demonstrated by the outstanding role played by fiscality in the origins, development and consolidation of urban power systems; being co-responsible for building inclusion and exclusion categories of citizenship; and being a catalyst of identity cohesion in the face of other powers and especially of the crown. In the later case urban cohesion operates a double process of defence and acquisition of privileges and tax exemptions, of defence of the kingdom’s and king’s honour and commonwealth, or as a main lever for achieving a high degree of cohesion and political definition inside the town and its municipal jurisdiction. In the second place, I will consider urban fiscality as the keystone for defining and signifying each urban social segment’s group identity and their positioning in the face of power, that is understanding fiscality as an expression of conflic; those segments include: the patriciate, commons, vassals and other social categories. And in the third place, I will consider urban fiscality as key element for a discourse that legitimates power, for the image of good and bad government, and for the justification of the politics of expenditure and debt. Although I will refer my analysis to the whole urban Castilian sphere, I will take the city of Burgos as a specific case study.