SUBSIDIA CARITATIVN: FROM VOLUNTARY DONATIONS TO TAX

The article is dedicated to the history of such form of papal taxation as subsidies (subsidia caritativa, subsidia gratuita). From the very beginning of active investigation of the papal administrative and financial system (1881) this particular item of papal income has attracted the attention of historians, but never became object of any particular study. Based on a number of sources, the author shows the way this exaction originally representing a voluntary donation of papal vassals in favor of the Holy See, for the period from the XIIth to end of the XIVth century gradually evolved into a kind of tax (proper) similar to the income taxes upon the clergy developing at the same time. Special role in this evolution of subsidies was played by political ambitions of the papacy which pretended to participate actively not only in religious but also in the political life of Catholic Europe throughout the epoque of the High Middle Ages. Refs 30.