Between taxation and taxation and rent. Fiscal problems from late antiquity to early middle ages...

Taxation usually occupies an essential place in the discussions about the end of the Roman world and the construction of Early Medieval Western Europe. The transformations that can be noticed in tax raising, especially in the case of the indirect taxes, would reflect changes to both political structure and social organization, as the relationships with state power were modified. The approach of this book to the matter is centred in the analysis of those changes, starting from the analysis of specific spaces and times from very different perspectives. The vision adopted is a long term one, including studies from Vth to Xth centuries. Different studies bring us closer to the taxation problems in Late Antiquity and Early Medieval periods, but they do it highlighting both the social aspects and the dynamism of the process, thus avoiding points of view too attached to the institutional analysis. The result is a rich and complex outlook out of which, despite regional diversity and the bigger or smaller emphasis on the abruptness of the change, it stands out the disappearance of taxation and the consideration or post-Roman kingdoms as post-fiscal political structures.