Taxation, Community and State

This book by Kenneth R. Stow from University of Haifa/Israel is a study of fiscal policy in the sixteenth century Papal State. It is also a study of papal Jewish relations, and, so too, of intracommunal Jewish relations. These three became interlinked by the need of the papacy to erect a system of direct taxation in the Papal State and by the surprising role played in that system by the taxes of the State´s Jewish residents. The sixteenth century was too critical a time for the papacy in general and for papal Jewish relations in particular, however, to imagine that fiscal matters could have been weighed in isolation from the religious needs of the Church. Indeed, the issue of Jewish taxation will show how thoroughly and inextricably the matters of the state and the soul were intertwined. In this specific case, moreover, Jewish and general history are fully independent.This study based on hundreds of hitherto unknown documents concerning the imposition and collection of taxes from the Jews of the Papal State. For reasons of clarity, the specifics of these texts have not been included in the essay section of the book. Rather, the study has been divided into three parts: essay, representative texts, and a register of all the texts employed.Contents: Chapter I: The Vigesima and Papal Fiscal Policy: The question of Jewish taxation; The early Vigesima; the Triennial Subsidy and fiscal stability; The Vigesima and Triennial Subsidy origins; Upward evaluations 1550s; Jewish Communal Bank ruptcy.-Chapter II: The Effects of Taxation on Jewish Communal Structure: Taxation procedures and the Jewish bankers; Jewish Fideiussores; Communal abuses, struggles and gains. – Chapter III: Taxation and Conversion: Formulaic and programmatic innovations; Taxation and theology; Sixteenth century applications. – Appendix I: Representative Texts. Selected Papal and Cameral Letters Concerning Taxation (1483-1566). – Appendix II: Register of Texts. – List of Abbreviations. – Bibliography. – Index.