A Mediaeval Income Tax: The Tithe in the Thirteenth-Century Kingdom of Valencia

Abstract

The mediaeval tithe was not, as it is today, a narrowly ecclesiastical institution. In some regions it was the most important civil tax available to king and feudal lord, and a device for wringing further contributions from the city dweller. A war of national expansion could languish for lack of it. Burgeoning cities of the Mediterranean littoral could be thrown into turmoil by some inequity perceived in its collection. Local financiers grew fat from its mechanisms of collection. And settlement projects were advanced with its profits. In the evolution of feudal suzerains into national kings, the tithe had an importance which, if obscure in its details, was nonetheless real. All this can be observed in the early history of the kingdom of Valencia, a Moslem entity conquered by James I of Aragon in a series of crusading campaigns from 1232 to 1245. © 1966, The Medieval Academy of America. All rights reserved.