Prassi documentarie e gestione delle finanze nei comuni del principato di Savoia-Acaia (Moncalieri, Pinerolo, Torino, fine secolo XIII-prima metà secolo XIV)

Abstract

This essay deals with the birth of a practical documentation relating to the current managing of direct taxation in several communes of the principality of Savoy-Achaea, in Piedmont (particularly Moncalieri, Pinerolo and Turin), between the end of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century. The increase in the tax burden of the prince on communities stimulated the development of the structure and contents of municipal accounting records. On the one hand there was a gradual tendency for writing the majority of the collection and audit operations carried out by municipal officers. On the other hand, the accounting records were organized as a coherent system of thematic registers, tied to one another by functional links and intertextuality. After 1330 a municipal finance crisis caused an increase of political functions attributed to accounting records, as an instrument of control over the fiscal behaviour of citizens; an effect of this situation was the production of registers dedicated to lists of tax evaders.