The Troubled Inheritance of Duke Charles II 87
invariably high-ranking noblemen.154 In general, Lino Marini believes, Charles
could count on his higher officials, whether nobles of ecclesiastics (in the latter case
by appointing blood relatives to the see of Geneva); his problems arose rather from his
dealings with the third Estate, which was being constantly asked to grant subsidies
in a land increasingly impoverished by the passage of foreign troops.155
The issue of Savoy’s finances at the turn of the fifteenth century is one which
urgently required investigation. Bergier has described Savoy’s finances after 1450
as being in a helpless state, and there are few who would disagree.156 Yet by con-
temporary standards Savoy possessed one of the most organized treasuries in late
medieval Europe, far in advance of what any Swiss city-state had achieved. It con-
tained complete sets of accounts and cadastres for all its territories up to 1536.157
Efficiency, of course, does not guarantee wealth. The most recent analysis by
Alessandro Barbero gives Charles’s revenues up to 1512 as fluctuating between
109,000 fl and 189,000 fl per annum, though he stresses that these figures did not
constitute the total revenue of the state (which included feudal dues, confirmations
of privileges, and the like). The expenses of court and household consumed at least
a quarter of that income.158 These figures are somewhat higher than those calcu-
lated in ducats forty years ago by Helmut Koenigsberger.159 The picture is compli-
cated by the payment of a French pension to Charles, amounting to 20,000 livres
annually. Though it was suspended in 1507 it was restored in 1527, albeit that
payments fell into arrears.160
Nevertheless, the duke could not ‘live off his own’, for he made repeated requests
to the Estates for subsidies. Here a remarkable picture emerges. Between 1492 and
1536 the Piedmont Estates voted fifteen grants totalling an astonishing 2,686,200
florins. In most cases these grants were payable over three years, so than annual
receipts, though unevenly distributed, averaged around 60,000 fl per annum.161
Some of the subsidies, it is true, were earmarked for specific purposes, usually
defence, as in 1511 and 1530;162 nevertheless these were substantial additions to
general revenue.
154 Barbero, Ducato, 147. 155 Marini, Savoiardi e Piemontesi, passim.
156 Bergier, Genève, 372. 157 Ammann, ‘Zur Geschichte der Westschweiz’, 2.
158 Barbero, Ducato, 254.
159 Helmut G. Koenigsberger, ‘The Italian Parliaments from Their Origins to the End of the 18th
Century’, in Politicians and Virtuosi: Essays in Early Modern History (London/Ronceverte, WV, 1986),
27–61, here at 58. Koenigsberger gives the income as fluctuating between 70,000 and 90,000 ducats,
which at an exchange rate of 1 ducat = 1.75 fl would give totals of 122,500 and 157,500 fl, respec-
tively, figures not at complete variance with Barbero’s. The exchange rate half a century later appears
not to have shifted: the Bernese diploma of 1530 gives 1 Rhenish fl at 16½ Batzen, and 1 écu at 22½
Batzen; i.e., the florin is quoted at around 0.8 of the écu (Sonnenkrone). Colin Martin, La réglementation
bernoise des monnaies au Pays de Vaud, 1536–1623 (Bibliothèque Historique Vaudoise, 1) (Lausanne,
1940), 137, 213.
160 Freymond, ‘Politique’, 27, 31, 34, 88, 96.
161 Helmut G. Koenigsberger, ‘The Parliament of Piedmont during the Renaissance, 1460-1560’,
in Estates and Revolutions: Essays in Early Modern European History (Ithaca, NY/London, 1971),
19–79, here at 64–5, Table B. The grant to Philibert II in 1499 was set at 180,000 fl, but in fact a total
of 222,134 fl was handed over. Marini, Savoiardi e Piemontesi, 313.
162 Merlin, ‘Gli Stati’, 509; Marini, Savoiardi e Piemontesi, 379.