THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAJ'\ Kll'\GDOMS 1200-1500for the city's artisans and shopkeepers. Busca leaders sought
to make Barcelona 'the head of the liberty of Spain'. But this
was not just the florid empty jargon of politicians. The Busca
had a radical programme of economic reform, or redrer,
aimed at problems such as the money supply (there were
serious shortages of gold bullion as a result of unrealistic
official exchange rates for gold and silver in Barcelona) .l'
The city banks had been in crisis since the 1380s, and even
the creation of a public credit institution in 1401, the Taula
de Canvi (pronounced 'Cambi'; meaning 'Table of Ex-
change'), had not restored faith in public finances, though
it was given control over the city budget.:^1 ~ Indeed, there was
a trend away from direct investment in trade towards the
purchase of bonds and insurance contracts, which some have
seen as harmful to the economic infrastructure. The gover-
nor Galcenin de Requesens was sympathetic to the Busr:a,
bringing with him the support of the crown in the 1450s.
But Busra policies proved unworkable, at least in the amount
of time they were allowed to operate, and the more moder-
ate elements became deeply concerned at the radicalisation
of the movement by an extreme wing. The moderates joined
forces with their former foes, and by 1460 the Biga was once
again dominant, resentful at the failure of the monarchy
to lend support to the Barcelona establishment. In the
mid-fifteenth century social conflicts also affected another
major centre of Aragonese economic power, the City of
Majorca.Y^1 There the despoliation of the Jews had generated
economic difficulties. During the early 1450s, there was
violent conflict on the island between the rural peasantry
and the citizens of Majorca City; this rebellion was handled
badly by Alfonso, who took too long to crush it, at vast
economic cost to the island. Of the major cities of the
Spanish lands of Alfonso, only Valencia continued to experi-
ence the economic boom that had started in the 1380s, if
not earlier.
The traditional picture is a rather gloomy one of the once
great Catalan trading network now in steep decline. Yet it is
- C. Batlle Gallart, La crisis social y a6nomica de Barcelona a mediados del
siglo Xl~ 2 vols (Barcelona, 1973). - A.P. Usher, The mrly history of df'j)()sit banking in l'vledilrrranmn fc"urofJe
(Cambridge, MA, 1943), pp. 269-77. - Hillgarth, Sjmnish Kingdoms, vol. 2, p. 80.