Abstract
The gabelle salt tax system was a cornerstone of the fiscal apparatus of the early modern French state. This article introduces a novel historical geographic information system (GIS) of this institution’s spatial organization as of the seventeenth century, drawing on an original 1665 manuscript map collection: Sanson’s Atlas des gabelles. Beyond presenting the dataset and documenting its construction methodology, we provide a detailed account of the functioning of the gabelle, situate the French case in comparative perspective, and illustrate how the availability of this fine-grained dataset expands the possibilities of empirical research in economic history, historical demography, and historical political economy of early modern France.
Keywords
Administrative boundary; Historical geographic information system; Gabelle; Taxation; Ancien Régime; France;
JEL codes
- N01: Development of the Discipline: Historiographical; Sources and Methods
- N43: Europe: Pre-1913
- H22: Incidence
- C82: Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data • Data Access
Reference
Eva Davoine, Joseph Enguehard, Victor Gay, and Igor Kolesnikov, “Mapping the Grandes Gabelles in Early Modern France”, Explorations in Economic History, vol. 102, n. 101785, October 2026.
See also
Published in
Explorations in Economic History, vol. 102, n. 101785, October 2026