Taming Leviathan. Constitution, Representation and Taxation in fifteenth-century Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Henriques,António
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2184-52632019000100069
• topic: Fiscal History; Constitutional History; parliaments; taxation; tax burden

Abstract This article shows that theCortesof Coimbra/1385, in which João I was acclaimed king, stand for a major break in Portuguese Constitutional History. While twentieth-century historiography considered that the vision of a limited monarchy formulated by the representatives in 1385 essentially failed, fiscal history shows that theseCortesdid indeed leave a clear and lasting break with the reign of Fernando I: extraordinary taxes could not be justified by the claim of the ‘necessity’ of the king and had to be consented by the representatives of the taxpayers. This achievement stands for a marked contrast with the wilful rule of Fernando I, who imposed taxes and debased coinages with little regard for parliament or constitutional limits.