Los Tendones de la monarquía hispánicaasientos, adelantos, deuda y pensamiento en torno a la financiación, pago y aprovisionamiento del ejército de Flandes (1575-1598)

Abstract

Between 1575 and 1596 there were two bankruptcies in the Spanish Monarchy. Philip II had been forced to renegotiate the debt acquired with his financiers due to the suffocation generated by the growing floating debt, which he had to acquire in order to develop a imperial dominance policy, based on the defence of the Catholic faith, in the Mediterranean and Central Europe. The army of Flanders was one of the instruments that enabled to exercise the hispanci hegemony in Europe, while, at the same time, it represented one of the greatest expenses of the empire. In fact, exercising a policy of hegemonic dominance in Europe demanded an unprecedented investment from the Spanish monarch, which grew enormously as a result of the Military Revolution. However, this thesis does not attempt to explain the Philip II's spending ceilings, which has been widely studied, but rather it pretend to define and analyse how the agents of the Hispanic monarch in Low Countries were able to exceed the spending ceilings imposed by the Castilian Royal Treasury. In particular, the main objective of this research has been to determine the credit mechanisms and instruments used by the governors and captains general of the army of Flanders. Credit has not only been viewed from an economic dimension, but also from a political one, both of which resulted in an increase in the liquidity of the military treasury, over and above the logic of the royal provides, which unintentionally imposed moments of monetary drought on the military treasury. Three questions have emerged from all this throughout the thesis: What financial and mercantile instruments did the different Governors use to increase their credit and the liquidity of the military treasury? What were the limits and insurmountable barriers to this credit? What did this credit growth mean to the Royal Treasury? In order to answer these questions, this research has clearly positioned itself in the historiography of polycentric monarchies. Thus, we understand the government of the Netherlands and the captaincy general of the army of Flanders as an active political subject, capable to generated expectations for itself, and to interacted with the other political subjects in its environment. In addition, there is a very extensive documentary base, mainly located in the Archivo General de Simancas, which is kept in the section of Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas. These are the accounts of Pagadores Generales of army of Flanders. In these accounting records, drawn up by the various pagadores generales between 1576 and 1600, we find each and every one of the revenues received by the pagadores for the military treasury. These documents make it possible to reproduce, taking into account the documentary flaws, how the army of Flanders was financed, provisioned and paid in the reign of Philip II. The conclusions we have reached have been very satisfactory. Of the three questions we set as objectives, we have managed to answer all of them comprehensively. We have identified the main resources used by the Dutch Governors to increase their lending capacity, and also certain secondary tools they relied on for the same purpose. We have also come to clarify where the limits of this credit "freedom" were to be found, which was very much anchored in the royal provisions and in the Castilian Treasury. And, finally, we have come to establish the consequences of this increase in credit for the military treasury, mainly the progressive escalation of a floating debt attached to the military treasury, which, by its very nature, could never be determined by the Treasury Council, but which, in the light of the results achieved, did exist and by the end of the century was consuming a large part of the provisions that the Catholic monarch managed to place in Flanders.