Gestiune comunitară și solidaritate fiscală în Moldova premodernă
Communal Administration and Fiscal Solidarity in Premodern Moldavia

Summary/Abstract: The study investigates the correlation between the collective activities of rural Moldavian communities and the fiscal requisites imposed by the government. It particularly delves into the strategies employed by the premodern Moldavian state elites in leveraging the intra-community organisation of villages to facilitate access to both material and human resources. The notion of fiscal solidarity is considered here as a governmental policy aiming to institute collective accountability for fulfilling fiscal obligations. Before the 1550s, customary levies imposed by the Moldavian lordship, including tithes on grain, wine, beehives, or pigs, were determined in kind according to long-time established traditions, following predominantly a tithe-based system. This tax system did not entail a collective fiscal responsibility. Instead, individual households were taxed based on their respective levels of production capacity, whilst the local community played a role primarily in facilitating communication between tax collectors and taxpayers. During the medieval period, the sole customary fiscal duties fostering solidarity amongst villages encompassed local guard services, labour assignments at fortresses, military obligations, transportation assistance using oxen or horses, manual labour for public infrastructure or for princely courts and sites, such as mills, ponds, or vineyards. In such instances, the entire community bore collective responsibility, upheld through mechanisms of intra- community compensation, for appointing a specific number of individuals from within the community to fulfil the assigned obligations on behalf of the entire local community. It was only after the 1550s that the Moldavian lords started accentuating the collective nature of fiscal responsibility, expanding it to encompass the majority of taxes paid either in kind or in money. Prompted by Moldavia’s deepening political subordination to the Ottoman Empire, this notable expansion of fiscal solidarity was enabled by the implementation of centralised population tax assessments and by the periodic establishment of taxpayers’ fiscal domiciles subsequent to tax evaluations.

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