«Car les talles són difícils de fer e pijors de exigir». A propósito del discurso fiscal en las ciudades catalanas durante la época bajomedieval

Abstract

Thanks to the studies carried out in recent decades, we now have fairly good knowledge of the fiscal and financial strategies adopted by the Catalan municipalities during the later Middle Ages. Nonetheless, beyond certain considerations carried out by legal historians, we still know little about the rhetoric which, contemporaneously, accom- panied (and reinforced) municipal politics in this area. To help bridge this gap, the present study will consider, in the first instance, the fiscal discourse documented in the Catalan cities and towns between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. More specifically, it will analyse the arguments brought forward both by the local authorities and by their opponents within the framework of a series of conflicts which, albeit expressed in different terms, appear to have been present throughout the history of fiscality: the legitimacy of taxes, the exemption of specific social groups, the equity of the contribution and the economic repercussions of the different types of municipal fiscality.