500 years of Provincial Treasury
Provincial Council of Bizkaia
Eduardo J. Alonso Olea
Bizkaia occupies a small corner of the northern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where, for centuries, a special form of relationship has been maintained with the Crown, first, then with the State, in Spain. We are referring to its Jurisdictions, which for centuries were the fundamental norm of its social functioning, not only in the purely economic aspect, but also in the political aspect, and even in matters of criminal or civil law. Territorially, Bizkaia, since its medieval origins, did not have internal uniformity, but was divided into Encartaciones, Duranguesado, Tierra Llana and Villas and Ciudad. Also, for centuries, tensions between some areas and others, between small towns and large ones, between some nobles and others were constant. Tensions that would culminate in the well-known Bandos Wars, at the end of which in the 15th century the institutional division of Biscay would materialize and the Modern Age would be entered.