Recent events and, especially, the Yellow Vest movement in France have put back on the historiographical agenda the study of the refusal to pay taxes or the opposition to certain tax measures as the flashpoint for revolts since the late Middle Ages. Despite a long – and recently renewed – scholarly tradition on social conflicts in many Western European regions, it has usually not focused on the specific role of taxation. Consequently, this colloquium will conduct a comparative analysis of different revolts registered in Europe throughout the 14th and 16th centuries, in which the taxes were especially relevant. Contributions will focus on various regions outside the Crown of Aragon (from Flanders to Italy, and from the Kingdom of Granada to German cities) and on the available documentary sources, the fiscal measures that caused controversy, the speeches about them or the coincidence of other phenomena in the outbreak and development of each episode.

 

Wednesday 15 January 

9.00 h. Presentation Orgnanisers

Xavier Torres (U. Girona): “A reminder: Eva Serra and the study of the revolt in early modern Catalonia”

Modera: Víctor Farías Zurita (U. Pompeu Fabra)

10:00 h. Samuel Cohn (U. Glasgow): “The non-economics of fiscal protest and tax revolt in early modern Italy”

10:30 h. Luciano Pezzolo (U. Ca’Foscari, Venècia): “Revolts and tax policies in Italy between the late Middle Ages and early modern period”

11:00-11:30 h. Coffee break

11:30 h. Laurence Buchholzer (U. Strasbourg): “Anti-tax revolts in urban centres (German territories, 14th to the beginning of the 16th centuries)”

12:00 h. Antoni Mas Forners (U. Illes Balears): “Anti-tax revolts in Majorca (14th -15th centuries): A comparative analysis”

12:30-13:00 h. Discussion

13:00-15:00 h. Lunch

15:00-16:00 h. Visit to the Jewish Quarter and the Museum of Jewish History

Modera: Rosa Lluch Bramon (U. Barcelona)

16:00 h. Ángel Galán (U. Málaga): “Between pact and revolt: Resistance to the treasury in the Kingdom of Granada”

16:30 h. Vincent Challet (U. Paul Valéry – Montpellier III): “Tax refusal or protests about its distribution? Some reflections based on the ‘tax revolts’ in the towns of Languedoc”

17:00-17:30 h. Coffee break

17:30 h. Pere Orti Gost (U. Girona): “The political and fiscal background of the Rebellion of the

Remences”

18:00 h. Hipólito Rafael Oliva Herrer (U. Sevilla): “From taxation to politics: Taxation and revolts in Castile from the end of the Middle Ages to the War of the Communities”

 

Thursday 16 January

Modera: Gabriel Jover Avellà (U. Girona)

9:30 h. Claire Judde de Larivière (U. Toulouse – Jean Jaurès): “Back to Murano: From the tumult to the Revolt of Snowballs (Venetian Lagoon, 15th-16th centuries”)

10:00 h. Pau Viciano (U. València): “Perspectives on the tax conflict: Documentary sources and legitimizing discourses on tax resistance in towns of Valencia (14th-15th centuries)”

10:30-11:00 h. Coffee break

Modera: Josep M. Salrach Marés (Institut d’Estudis Catalans)

11:00 h. Pere Benito Monclús i Joan Maltas Montoro (U. Lleida): “Food riots and revolts in times of famine: Catalonia, 13th-16th centuries”

11:30 h. Minne de Boodt (KU Leuven): “‘Henceforth they shall make legal accounts’: The interchange of elitist and rebellious ideas on taxation in the fourteenth and fifteenth-century Low Countries”

12:00-12:30 h. Discussion

12:30 h. Marc Leroy (U. Reims): “Sociology of tax revolts: The case of the Yellow Vests”

Modera: Rosa Congost Colomer (U. Girona)

13:00-14:00 h. Final discussion

14:00 h. Lunch

15:00 h. Visit to the cathedral

 

Place: Chapel of the Rosary in the Church of Sant Domènec of the University of Girona (UdG).

Organising committee: Albert Reixach Sala (UdG), Pere Orti Gost (UdG), Pere Verdés Pijuan (IMF – CSIC) i Lluís To Figueras (UdG).

Scientific committee: Rosa Congost Colomer (UdG), Víctor Farías Zurita (UPF), Biel Jover Avellà (UdG), Rosa Lluch Bramon (UB), Denis Menjot (CIHAM – U. Lumière Lyon 2), Josep M. Salrach Marés (IEC) i Manuel Sánchez Martínez (IMF – CSIC).

 

Funded by the Programme for Promoting Knowledge Transfer 2016-2018/UdG/Transfer2016/26 received by the Rural History Research Centre of the Institute of Historical Research of the University of Girona, by the “Feudal income and taxation in Catalonia in the late Middle Ages (2017 SFG 1068)” consolidated research group and RDI unit associated with the CSIC, and by two coordinated research projects, “Economic equality in the rural world and small cities in Old Catalonia in the late Middle Ages through notarial sources (PGC-2018-100979-B-C21)” and “Economic inequality in Catalan and Majorcan cities during the late Middle Ages through wealth tax sources (PGC-2018-100979-B-C22)”.