ABSTRACT
This chapter consists of an interpretative synthesis of the origins and evolution of the taxation system that developed between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries in the peninsular territories of the Crown of Aragon. It takes into consideration three different fields of taxation. First, that based on royal and manorial estates, including rents and taxes levied by the monarchy and the different seigneurial powers. It also observes how the Crown extended fiscal pressure beyond its strict jurisdictional domains. Secondly, it focuses on general taxation, also known as State taxation, that means the tax system which, from the end of the thirteenth century, developed from the estates that met in the parliaments of the core territories of the Crown. In the mid-fourteenth century, this system came under the direction of commissions of deputies which were independent of royal power. Finally, the attention will be shifted to the municipal sphere, specifically, the way local governments, during the central decades of the fourteenth century, consolidated the capacity to levy and manage specific taxes. Indeed, this process sheds light on the scope of the transformations taxation experienced in the territories of the Crown of Aragon, as well as the effects on their societies.
