The Social Distribution of Public Debt in Portugal, 1529–1680

This article examines the social distribution of public debt in Portugal between 1529–57 and 1641–82 and explores the extent to which the Portuguese debt system relied on personal relationships. A newly compiled dataset on the socioeconomic characteristics of lenders reveals a shift over time: from an elite group consisting of nobles and royal officials to a broader social base in the mid-seventeenth century when institutions and merchants entered the market. The data show that the changing social distribution of Portuguese public debt is the result of interest rate reduction operations and a fund-raising campaign, the latter of which involved some degree of financial repression.