Las sisas en la Gobernación de Orihuela durante la Baja Edad Media

Abstract

In this article, we study the origins and characteristics of indirect taxes in the government of Orihuela, during the early Middle Ages, analyzing the most impor­tant municipal taxes of the Valencian Middle Ages. The municipal tax system aroused very little interest in Valencian historio­graphy, which leads us to present, without leaving the period during which it came out, a first detailed study of the main tax that supplied the Orihuela government municipal coffers during the XIVth and XVth centuries, in the context of the conquest of Sardinia and the financial aid that James II received from Valencian city councils. The monarch gave them the opportunity to impose a tax to retail consume products, and the latter was in fact to reach an important development during the following century. These revenues formed the most important pare of council receipts in the Orihuela jurisdiction.