Aux origines de l'endettement public : gouverner la dette dans l'Europe méditerranéenne (XIIe-XVIe s.)/ In the origins of Public Indebtment: governing the debt in Mediterranean Europe (s XII-XVI) (DETPUBMED)

Resumen del proyecto y actividades:

The objective of the project is to study the processes of invention, management and adaptation of medieval societies to the idea of public indebtment. These societies were largely living upon credit before the XIIth onwards, and the political powers obviously used as well the loan to face increasing necessities. But during the XIIe- XVIe s. we pass from punctual and short-term borrowing to a large-scale indebtment, which in certain cases was consolidated, becoming then one of the reasons of govern. Indebtment is then conditioning fiscal policy, banking and accounting techniques, development of the economy as well as social behaviour. Taking as ground of investigation various models of power closely connected, we want to study here, by an attentive reading of the numerous preserved sources in the South of France, Iberian and Italian spaces, the developments, justifications and sociocultural consequences of this phenomenon.