Note on Governments.
Posted: 2003-08-20 04:10am
Constitutions do not, for the most part, exist in this time period. The idea is vaguely there--but a written constitution would be a real and startling innovation and would overthrow the entire order of the period. States, such as they were, operated on "tradition" and the law was generally not even codified.
Taxation was a mess--for instance, in France there was the capitation, a general tax based on wealth which also applied to the nobility (but not to the Church), the taille, which was based on income and did not apply to the nobility, the gabelle, the salt monopoly--all salt in the Kingdom was owned by the government, a vital necessity for the people, who needed it to preserve food and as the only seasoning the poor could afford, and even then the government, of course, holding the monopoly, massively overcharged on it and thus gained a huge profit from it. There were also grants--The King could "request" a donation of money from the Church so as to maintain their traditional tax-free status, and similiar donations from the cities and the nobility, basically extortion.
Other methods included the summary devaluation or increase in the value of currency--which timed with the government's production of money, or buying it in, could bring in tens in millions of revenue at critical moments, even if it sent the economy into bloody chaos. There were also special taxes: Wine taxes, taxes on trade goods, taxes on cloth, etc; and of course tolls for the use of canals and roads.
Besides all of that, a favourite method of raising money was the Selling of Offices. The government of a country--or even the Pope, in Catholic Europe--would create a bunch of ludicrous government offices, things like "State Measurer of Grain" or something, which had a salary and the like and were in theory real government posts--and then sell them to bourgeoisie eager to improve their status in society. The idea was that this could raise tens of millions in a single year at a critical point, though of course if the crisis was extended the money might be lost by the cost of the salaries of the offices over that extended period--a bit of a gamble, but one that usually paid off if the situation could be brought under control in time.
There was of course the selling of bonds, something that seems more conventional to us, but dangerous--as the government had to pay them back. They were safer than outright loans, of course, and governments always had to resort to those, it seems, to pay for War. By the death of King Louis XIV, France was, according to one estimate, up to two billion Louis' in debt--an enourmous sum for the time in excess of several years of revenue. In the century before that, the Spain of Philip II, fighting France, the Netherlands, and England at various times, had ended up bankrupt three different times during his reign. Somehow they had squeezed and kept on going--but despite the silver and gold of the New World, warfare was vastly expense in this age of sieges, and it shows.
There were additional methods--titles of nobility could be outright sold, like offices, to wealthy merchants--and one innovative Chancellor then proceeded to have them revoked and sell them again to the same faux-nobles!, and when a conflict was over, there would always be efforts through the courts to find corrupt tax-farmers or money-lenders and squeeze the government's money back out of them, or avoid payment entirely; these had varying degrees of success.
Essentially, government in this era is a morass of new ideas built onto old traditions, and of harsh and intelligent new men--the merchants--utilizing the old system of feudal custom to exploit everything they can from the land, the people, and even their fellows, to fund the ambitions of their princes and themselves.
Taxation was a mess--for instance, in France there was the capitation, a general tax based on wealth which also applied to the nobility (but not to the Church), the taille, which was based on income and did not apply to the nobility, the gabelle, the salt monopoly--all salt in the Kingdom was owned by the government, a vital necessity for the people, who needed it to preserve food and as the only seasoning the poor could afford, and even then the government, of course, holding the monopoly, massively overcharged on it and thus gained a huge profit from it. There were also grants--The King could "request" a donation of money from the Church so as to maintain their traditional tax-free status, and similiar donations from the cities and the nobility, basically extortion.
Other methods included the summary devaluation or increase in the value of currency--which timed with the government's production of money, or buying it in, could bring in tens in millions of revenue at critical moments, even if it sent the economy into bloody chaos. There were also special taxes: Wine taxes, taxes on trade goods, taxes on cloth, etc; and of course tolls for the use of canals and roads.
Besides all of that, a favourite method of raising money was the Selling of Offices. The government of a country--or even the Pope, in Catholic Europe--would create a bunch of ludicrous government offices, things like "State Measurer of Grain" or something, which had a salary and the like and were in theory real government posts--and then sell them to bourgeoisie eager to improve their status in society. The idea was that this could raise tens of millions in a single year at a critical point, though of course if the crisis was extended the money might be lost by the cost of the salaries of the offices over that extended period--a bit of a gamble, but one that usually paid off if the situation could be brought under control in time.
There was of course the selling of bonds, something that seems more conventional to us, but dangerous--as the government had to pay them back. They were safer than outright loans, of course, and governments always had to resort to those, it seems, to pay for War. By the death of King Louis XIV, France was, according to one estimate, up to two billion Louis' in debt--an enourmous sum for the time in excess of several years of revenue. In the century before that, the Spain of Philip II, fighting France, the Netherlands, and England at various times, had ended up bankrupt three different times during his reign. Somehow they had squeezed and kept on going--but despite the silver and gold of the New World, warfare was vastly expense in this age of sieges, and it shows.
There were additional methods--titles of nobility could be outright sold, like offices, to wealthy merchants--and one innovative Chancellor then proceeded to have them revoked and sell them again to the same faux-nobles!, and when a conflict was over, there would always be efforts through the courts to find corrupt tax-farmers or money-lenders and squeeze the government's money back out of them, or avoid payment entirely; these had varying degrees of success.
Essentially, government in this era is a morass of new ideas built onto old traditions, and of harsh and intelligent new men--the merchants--utilizing the old system of feudal custom to exploit everything they can from the land, the people, and even their fellows, to fund the ambitions of their princes and themselves.
I'll go and edit it