Abstract
Financing the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) created new pressures on the traditional forms of war finance for governments throughout Europe, including the monetary reform of 1622 in Naples. Most European governments responded with innovations in public finance, some of which foreshadowed elements of modern financial systems. Nowhere, however, did they coalesce into a fully articulated and effective modern financial system at the time, although both Naples and Milan came close. Failures were especially clear in Austria, Spain and France, but even apparent successes in England and Holland led to three Anglo-Dutch Wars afterwards that stymied further progress by either government. Their failures demonstrate the difficulty of coordinating and maintaining the many components that comprise a modern financial system.
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Notes
- 1.
The Dutch historian Clé Lesger (2006) makes a convincing argument that the prime motivation for establishing the Bank of Amsterdam in 1609 was to ensure that the massive flight capital from Antwerp after the closure of the Scheldt would remain under the political control of the local Amsterdam elite. The same argument can be made for the timing of the Bank of England in 1694, this time to maintain local control over capital imports from Amsterdam!
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- 3.
Fritschy (2017) emphasizes that customs revenues were kept low throughout the Dutch Republic, which maintained Amsterdam’s role as an international entrepôt.
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Neal, L. (2018). The Variety of Financial Innovations in European War Finance during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). In: Costabile, L., Neal, L. (eds) Financial Innovation and Resilience. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90248-7_6
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