About Rulers and Debt. A Decade of Historiographical Production on Habsburg Castile

Abstract

The economic, political, financial and social crisis that broke out in 2008 has brought fateful consequences for the so-called welfare states. At the light of the social and ideological impact of this “crisis”, social scientists have inquired themselves about how rulers financed their states in past times, what kind of solutions they created, or how did they deal with private capital markets. This article examines how historians have approached the “financial crises” that took place in Castile during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries during the last decade. By focusing on the methodological tools that historians have mobilized and the analytical perspectives they have employed, four different topics are examined in the following pages: bankruptcies, debt, taxation and finance.