fU CHAPTER 8 The Low Countries in the Middle Ages

1 he endeavour of rulers to create a uniform, more centralized, State was as marked in the Low Countries in the later Middle Ages as lt was in the neighbouring monarchies. This policy met with only partial success. The admin-istration of taxation in the Valois (and, later, Habsburg) territones in the Low Countries was partially unified from 1470 onwards, but after the 1520s the prov-mces reverted once again to their distinctive fiscal Systems. The attempts of the central government to control the regional and local receivers were largely unsuccessful. Repeated proposals to introduce general Systems of taxation, espe-cially proportional taxes on trade and on capital, were aborted as a result of the Opposition of representative institutions dominatedby the large cities. Local and regional particularism, combined with a very low level of centralization, contin-ued to charactenze the two separate political and fiscal Systems which emerged after the revolt of the Netherlands in the 1570s. The arm of this chapter is to pay especial attention to regional differences within the Low Countries during the Middle Ages, with a view both to detectmg the reasons for the long-ter