The Swedish State Revenues and Finances 1350–1600
Room 7 Session 3: Historical national accounts organized by Svante Prado and Kerstin Enflo
Abstract
The purpose of this project is to reconstruct the annual fixed and variable revenues of the Swedish state through taxes, fines, customs duties and other fees during the period 1350–1600. How large resources did the state have access to, how was it spent, and who benefitted from them? Departing from primary sources, some of which have recently been discovered, and with new methods a tax index is constructed as well as an index of the variable revenues of the state. The capacity of the Swedish state in the 17th and 18th centuries to mobilize financial strength to organize a competitive military power in a European context is well-known. But the origins of this system must be traced to the immediately preceding periods. Central questions are whether, when and how the Swedish state differed from other European powers. Given the character of the 15th and 16th centuries as periods of social and economic crises, the aim of this project is to shed light on these processes by uncovering and exploring the redistribution of resources through taxes and other state revenues. Thereby this project is an important starting point for future studies of the Middle Ages and later periods in general, as well as the economic history of the state in a longer time perspective, both nationally and internationally.
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