Fiscal crises, liberty, and representative government, 1450-1789

Philip T. Hoffman, Kathryn Norberg

Only recently have historians of early modern Europe begun to link the seemingly arcane details of state finance with the development of political ideas and institutions. These essays contribute to this new fiscal history by focusing on the growth of representative institutions and the mechanics of European state finance from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. This was a period in which European states were engaged in nearly continuous warfare, which in turn produced periodic fiscal crises as the costs of warfare outran the income available to rulers from royal lands and taxation. In order to raise additional revenues to meet their needs, rulers were forced to enter into new fiscal arrangements with their subjects - in return for which their subjects demanded, and often received, a greater share of political power. In some instances, the eventual result was truly...

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