A Treatise on Abundance (1638) and Early Modern Views of Poverty and Famine by Carlo Tapia;Tommaso Astarita;Gaetano Sabatini;

Author:Carlo Tapia;Tommaso Astarita;Gaetano Sabatini;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book Network Int'l Limited trading as NBN International (NBNi)

SUMMARY

1.It is necessary to know how much grain is in the kingdom.

2.How to acquire this information.

3.One must have information on the quantity of victuals sowed in every community of the kingdom.

4.And also of what is sowed by ecclesiastic landowners.

5.The kingdom’s territories also feed from things other than grain.

6.The cares that must be taken to provide for a future famine can serve also for other purposes, for instance for war.

OF THE SHORTAGE OF VICTUALS, THAT PROCEEDS FROM A SUPERNATURAL CAUSE

SIXTH REMEDY

The sixth remedy is for the ruling prince to maintain information about the victuals that are in his domains, so that at times of need he will be able to distribute them with prudence, and so as to provide for the need of each community; therefore, it is ordered in various laws32 of this kingdom that each year an account of victuals be taken, and indeed the Royal Chancery sends orders to create such an account, most recently by an edict issued by the Most Excellent Lord Count of Monterey [viceroy 1631–37] on July 14, 1631. The same is done in Sicily, so that it be possible to export grains, while leaving the kingdom provided.

In order to have certain knowledge of the grain eaten in the kingdom one could order that each community should report the grain present in it, and at the same time also report on the income drawn from the tax on flour at the time when grain is milled. All this must be known to the ruling prince, because, knowing the needs of the kingdom, and knowing what is present in it overall, as well as individually in each province, he will easily be able to support the neediest areas, by ordering that provisions should be given first to the neediest provinces, so that each have the necessary victuals, without conflicts between them; thus all provinces will gather provisions without inconvenience, and without any extraordinary expense for their people. This remedy I am proposing, namely to ascertain how much grain is eaten in each community, is not something I uncovered myself, but I learned it from the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, who added to what the city of Alexandria customarily consumed every day an additional quantity, to make sure the city would enjoy more abundance; the words of the text are these33: We determined that every day one hundred and ten measures of victuals be added to the city of Alexandria, so that nobody be deprived of what he now receives from the city. The same ordered the emperors Honorius, Arcadius, and Theodosius, in another text34: We grant that one hundred and twenty-five measures of wheat beyond what is customary every day from now on, from the first day of January in the sixth indiction, be given from the public storehouses of this noble city, out of our piety and liberality.

It will be most beneficial, to avoid the usual fraud that occurs around the account of victuals, to know how much is sowed in each community, which

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