Royal fifth

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Hoard of ancient gold coins.

The royal fifth (

colonial empires
also instituted the tax, though to encourage exploration, some monarchs allowed colonists to keep some or all of the fifth.

In Muslim kingdoms

The 20%

Islamic states.[1] It was institutionalized from the start of the Islamic conquest
, with the rate set down in Qur'an 8:41:

Know that whatever spoils you take, one-fifth is for Allah and the Messenger, his close relatives, orphans, the poor, and ˹needy˺ travellers, if you ˹truly˺ believe in Allah and what We revealed to Our servant on that decisive day when the two armies met ˹at Badr˺. And Allah is Most Capable of everything.

— Surah Al-Anfal 8:41

In practice, the share of the fifth reserved to the Prophet's family lapsed after

Hanbalite) regarded them as subject only to the conventional rates, e.g. zakat.[1]

The medieval Taifa kingdoms of al-Andalus embraced the Hanafi argument and institutionalized the fifth on war spoils, treasure troves and mining.[2]

In Christian kingdoms

In Christian kingdoms, the royal fifth partly comes from the medieval legal conception of

property rights over all unclaimed, undiscovered and undeveloped natural resources (e.g. precious metals in the subsoil, salt in the rock, virgin forests, fish in the sea, etc.) within his jurisdiction. Consequently, private individuals who extracted these natural resources owed compensation to their original 'owner', the monarch. It was adopted by the Christian states of the Iberian Peninsula (Castile, Portugal, etc.) during the reconquista
and extended to their overseas colonies in the Americas, Africa and Asia. They became an important part of crown finance.

During the age of exploration, Spanish and Portuguese captains and

Henry the Navigator was granted the royal fifth on all enterprise in the Madeira islands and sub-saharan Africa; in 1492, Christopher Columbus was allowed to retain 10% of the royal fifth of the West Indies (although he famously argued he was promised more); the 1532 contracts of the captains-donatary of colonial Brazil
allowed them to retain 5% of the royal fifth.

Spain

"Quinto real" redirects here. Not to be confused with Quinto Real (place).

In Spain, the quinto real on mining of precious metals was codified by the edict of February 1504, and (with occasional exceptional grants) remained in force through all the Spanish empire until the 18th century. In 1723, it was reduced to a diezmo (10%) and in 1777 it was reduced further to 3%, with an additional duty of 2% if shipped to Spain.[3]

Rather than levy the tax on the basis of the amount of silver or gold produced, the Spanish government tracked the amount of mercury used. Mercury was essential for the refinement of silver and gold in the patio process (see also amalgamation). The Spanish government had a monopoly of mercury production, through its mines at Almadén in Spain and at Huancavelica in Peru. In 1648 the Viceroy of Peru declared that Potosí and Huancavelica were "the two pillars that support this kingdom and that of Spain." Moreover, the viceroy thought that Spain could, if necessary, dispense with the silver from Potosí, but it could not dispense with the mercury from Huancavelica.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Mannan, M.A. (1986) Islamic Economics: Theory and practice, Sevenoaks, Kent: Hodder and Stoughton, p.249-52
  2. ^ L. Weckmann (1992) The Medieval Heritage of Mexico, New York: Fordham University Press, Vol. 1, p.80
  3. ^ C.H. Haring (1947) The Spanish Empire in America, New York: Harcourt Brace, p.259-60
  4. ^ Arthur Preston Whitaker, The Huancavelica Mercury Mine: A Contribution to the History of the Bourbon Renaissance in the Spanish Empire, Harvard Historical Monographs 16 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941).
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