16 - The costs of defence and war

Summary

Rising defence costs at home and overseas – a larger permanent army in garrison and the modernization of fortifications – and the costs of precautionary mobilizations or of war itself were the only significant challenges to a central government expenditure normally restricted to housekeeping. An apparently steadily rising revenue could deal with gradual increases in the peacetime expense of army, defences and fleet, but it could contribute little if anything to the ‘extraordinary’ costs of war – a point to bear in mind when considering the relationship between army wages, revenue and ‘total’ expenditure hazarded in Figure 6. And as in the capital, so in the regional centres; toll and tax income was perceived on a tickover basis, give or take a modest surplus due to central government. Thus any escalation in costs relating to defence or war produced a psychological unease and a methodological (accounting, administration) shock.

Even the steady succession of campaigns up to 1530 did not lead to an orderly way of raising or accounting for the year's expenditure or anticipating the next. It was not until 1584, as we shall see, that Venice established a war-chest. A specific threat to counter, a specific treaty obligation to honour; these were met, in anger and distress, through expedience financing. Perhaps there is a reflection here of private financial dealings, based on the short-term contract, the temporary partnership, minimum insurance against contingencies.