La primera articulación del estado feudal en Cataluña a través de un impuesto: el bovaje (SS. XII-XIII)

Abstract

The present article is an attempt to study the first general tax levied in Catalonia —the bovatge or bovaticum— from a political and institutional perspective. The bovatge was the first tax imposed on a general basis for the entire territory, a prelude to medieval Catalonia's new fiscal administration. It was a tax, which the entire population was obliged to pay according to the wealth of its inhabitants, which required the consent the Church and the nobility and which was justified and utilised to finance wars. Following the process of consolidation of a tax of this type helps understand and exemplify how the highly fragmented Catalonian counties developed into a feudal state during the second half of the twelfth century.