University of Puget Sound Sound Ideas Summer Research Student Research and Creative Works Summer 2020 Some Papal Bull: 16th Century Alum trade and English Royal Autonomy Kyra Zapf Follow this and additional works at: https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research Part of the Chemistry Commons, European History Commons, Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons, Natural Resource Economics Commons, and the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons Recommended Citation Zapf, Kyra, "Some Papal Bull: 16th Century Alum trade and English Royal Autonomy" (2020). Summer Research. 379. https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research/379 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research and Creative Works at Sound Ideas. It has been accepted for inclusion in Summer Research by an authorized administrator of Sound Ideas. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. 1 Some Papal Bull: 16th Century Alum trade and English Royal Autonomy Abstract The early 16th century saw the rise of a wealthy middle class fueled by the global textile industry. Many men made their fortunes off of this trade, so it is not surprising to consider that not all of these trades were legal. In this essay, I shall be looking at the popular alum trade in Italy, Spain, and England from the 14th to the 17th centuries and how the lucrative trade shaped their early modern economies, societies, and methods of ruling. Because of the importance of alum, many Christian rulers contested the Pope's regulation of the commodity, even going so far as to import it illegally. By the beginning of the 16th century, Henry VII had started an illegal alum racket, the pope had declared his monopoly "holy", and Spain profited from both while gradually exploiting the New World for its resources.