Ties and exchanges between small and medium-sized-states. The Nordic connections of Portuguese military and naval logistics in the seventeenth century Vínculos e intercambios entre estados pequeños y medianos. Las conexiones nórdicas de la logística militar y naval portuguesa en el siglo XVII

Abstract

Dating back to the fifteenth-century voyages of exploration, the viability of the Portuguese Empire —the earliest and longest-standing of Europe’s overseas empires— rested on the mobilisation of naval and military resources from foreign jurisdictions and markets, including Scandinavia and the Baltic. Much-needed timber and other naval supplies, grain, metals, and weaponry were imported from these regions. This paper sheds light on the institutional arrangements surrounding military and naval contracting in seventeenth-century Portugal, with particular attention to the sourcing of raw materials, production components, and equipment from the Nordic world. It is argued that, while the provision of goods and services to the empire’s armed forces may not always have offered the “best value for money”, or advanced goals of autarky, it nevertheless intensified connections with international fiscal-military hubs in the North and Baltic Seas, and facilitated the diffusion of technologies toward western Iberia.