Accounting and the ‘Art of Government’: Margaret of Austria in Abruzzo (1539–86)

Abstract

This paper analyses the accounting, accountability and disciplinary practices triggered by the Ordinances of 1571 in the feudal State of Abruzzo, whose sovereign was Margaret of Austria, daughter of Emperor Charles V. In a scenario stimulated by the ascent of mercantilist discourse and police schemes, new ‘technologies of government’ were forged to optimize the State's collection of receipts and to minimize fraud, rendering public officers accountable and their activities visible and controllable ‘at a distance’. Using the ‘governmentality’ framework, this paper analyses the Ordinances that disciplined the activities of the primary finance/accounting and police officers in Abruzzo. The paper complements and extends the previous literature by illustrating the wide array of accounting- and non-accounting-based disciplinary techniques enforced by the sovereign in order to shape, align and even seduce the behaviour of officers/functionaries working in the State apparatus, and the general population. The analysis goes beyond the existing literature by unveiling the implementation of the hitherto undisclosed disciplinary double system of gratification–punishment advocated by Foucault, that also involved the population in the ‘State control of the mechanisms of discipline’. In a related vein, the accounting system applied displays representational, translational and distributive properties, along with novel incentive schemes.

Acknowledgements

The author is largely indebted to the constructive criticism provided by the two anonymous reviewers. Many thanks are due to Professors Salvador Carmona, Garry Carnegie and Stephen Walker for their relevant comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Feedback from participants at the 30th Congress of European Accounting Association, Lisbon, 2007, and the 5th Accounting History International Conference, Banff, 2007, was also most helpful. The paper has also benefited from comments of participants at the University of Warwick seminars 2008. The assistance provided by the officers of Naples, Parma and Penne historical archives is much appreciated. Financial support from the ‘Nazareno Fonticoli’ Foundation is acknowledged with appreciation.

Notes

Primary sources are henceforth noted in the same manner: the abbreviation of the name of the archive, the abbreviation of the title of the section and the bundle number. The NSA is a huge state public archive located in Naples (Italy), whose Archivio Farnesiano (AF – Farnese Archive) section contains documents related to the Farnese family government, administrative and justice systems and officers from the 15th to the 18th century. These include the State of Abruzzo and the communes and lands there enlisted, the life of Margaret of Austria, her lands and income, her correspondence with and from other aristocrats, governors, religious and leading personalities and citizens. The PSA is a state public archive located in Parma (Italy), where the pre-unification corpus contains different sections relating to the government of Parma and Piacenza, ranging from the 15th to the 19th century. Those related to the financial aggregate data of the Dukedom are enshrined within Computisteria Farnesiana di Parma e Piacenza (CFPP – Farnese Bookkeeping on Parma and Piacenza), whereas Carteggio Farnesiano Estero (CFE – Foreign Farnese Correspondence) provides insights concerning the key actor under investigation and her instructions and correspondence with the ducal officers to and from the Abruzzi lands. Feudi e Comunità (FC – Feuds and Community) permits the gathering of precise information on some of the feudal communes belonging to the State of Abruzzo and Margaret's will. The PCHA is a small state public archive located in Penne (Italy), whose main section contains documents related to the government of Penne, its administration and justice systems and officers from the 14th to the 19th century. The original copy of the ‘Ordini di Margherita d'Austria’ (OMA – Ordinances of Margaret of Austria) for her State of the Abruzzo 1571 is available there. Considering the absence of specific section labels, here (in this archive) the abbreviation of the title of the sources will directly follow the abbreviation of the archive's name. Moreover, when analysing the Ordinances of Margaret of Austria, we must also necessarily refer to the folio number, and to the recto/verso face of the folio. The NLNH is a large national public library devoted to national historical studies, and is located in Naples. A comprehensive list of ‘Prammaticae’ (laws) of the many viceroys who were in charge of Naples during Margaret's concurrent government of the State of Abruzzo is available there. The series labelled De Administratione Universitatum (DAU – About the Administration of Communes), edited by Giustiniani (1803), has been relevant for this study. The aforementioned bundles and prammaticae are well preserved and the archives provide free access to interested researchers.

Margaret's life witnesses a continuous connection with the Popes and other religious personalities of her time starting in her youth. Her ascendance towards the cult of religion and charity had also been sustained by the Society of Jesus in different ways since 1540 (Brunelli, 2003). Indeed, her first confessor was Father Jean Codure, who was soon replaced by Diego Lainez. In 1542, Ignazio of Loyola himself became her confessor, attending Margaret's palace in Rome on a weekly basis in order to educate and manage the noblewomen in her service (Tacchi Venturi, 1951; Rahner, 1968).

At the beginning of the 16th century, Penne and Campli already belonged to the Alessandro dé Medici family, having the status of imperial privilege (NSA, AF, b. 1333).

At that time two categories of communes, labelled as ‘State’ or ‘feudal’, were identifiable within the Vice-Kingdom of Naples (Palumbo, 1999). ‘State’ communes were directly governed by the viceroys, whereas ‘feudal’ communes were ruled through ordinances and laws issued by both feudatories and viceroys, as well as by their related offices and officers (Coniglio, 1951). As a consequence of these intertwining connections, the feudal communes belonging to Margaret of Austria and Ottavio Farnese, which made up what was later called The Farnese State of Abruzzo, were embedded in the regulations and fiscal system of both the Dukedom of Parma and the Vice-Kingdom of Naples.

Perhaps it is interesting to note that, according to the imperial wedding articles, only after the birth of a son would these communes and lands be perpetually inserted within the Farnese family possessions (NSA, AF, b. 1332). In 1545, Margaret gave birth to twin sons in Rome, Charles and Alexander (Lefevre, 1986).

More precisely, these were the Dukedom of Penne (with the addition of Roccafinadamo, Montebello and Farindola), Campli (with the addition of Nocella and Castelvecchio), Cittaducale (with the addition of Cantalice, Borghetto, Castel Sant'Angelo, Lugnano, Lisciano, Rocca di Fondi and Villa Troiana), Montereale (with the addition of Capitignano) and Leonessa (NSA, AF, b. 1333; b. 292).

Notwithstanding the value that the OMA ordinances had in bettering the accounting and accountability regulation of the Abruzzo State, those prescriptions were not Margaret's last formal administrative act related to the management of populations. Indeed, besides what she did in Flanders during the period 1581–83, and with exclusive regard to the administration of her State of Abruzzo, the issue of the ‘Capitoli et Ordini per il Popolo del Castello di Borghetto’ (Articles and Ordinances for the Population of the Castle of Borghetto) in 1579 (Di Nicola, 1985) and the ‘Riforme degli Statuti Municipali di Campli’ (Reform of the Municipal Statutes of Campli) in 1585 (Ricci, 1982) are also worthy of interest for the ‘management of population’. Furthermore, continuous epistolary correspondence with Philippe II (Gachard, 1867–1881), her Officers, Communes and Lands inside Abruzzo, witness her ongoing concern for the governing of populations.

Thus, Wiesner highlights the main ingredients of the education and training of female rulers in 16th-century Europe: ‘Fortunately for their subjects many of these women had not been limited to “accomplishments” in their education, but had been given training in Latin and modern languages, which allowed them to communicate effectively with diplomats, courtiers and other monarchs, lessons in history and natural sciences, which aided them in military and economic decisions, and practical training in political skills which strengthened their diplomacy and choice of advisers’ (2000, pp. 165–166).

The Ordinances are not easily comparable with other studies addressed to 16th-century Spanish legal accounting (e.g. Mills, 1986, 1987, 1988).

Importantly, and also within Louis XIV's France, Colbert ‘… in 1665 spoke of a great project to bring the whole of His Majesty's kingdom within the same statutes and within the same system of weights and measures, an undertaking very worthy of our great king’ (Heckscher, 1934, I, pp. 110–111).

This point is also well explained in another OMA passage that reports: ‘We declare furthermore that all the penalties contained and expressed in all our orders, and all the others which will originate in any way from the offices of … Master Road Surveyors, Weights and Measures … are always considered and applied entirely to our Ducal Chamber, without involving any other person or Commune’ (PCHA, OMA, f. 19v).