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Juan De Rena and the financing of the Tunis campaign 399

combined a huge fleet with a powerful, sophisticated land force and
this proved to be much more expensive. The military and naval forces
were levied not only from the emperor’s vast, scattered territories, but
also from allied lands, ranging from the sailors of Malaga to the
German and Swiss landsknechts. To achieve his aim of defeating
Barbarossa, Charles V seized the treasures that had come from the
conquest of Peru and not just what belonged to the crown. He also
confiscated the money and goods belonging to others, whether
merchants, religious institutions or private individuals. These funds
enabled Charles V to avoid calling the Cortes and demanding another
extraordinary subsidy from Castile to pay for the war. However, this
does not mean that Castile was spared financially. The campaign has
been generally considered as the beginning of a long-term and highly
damaging process that led to massive exports of specie and precious
metals from Castilian lands .
13
Be that as it may, the campaign was unquestionably one of the
most expensive foreign wars of the whole of the sixteenth century. Yet,
unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to calculate the economic impact
of this expedition because so much documentation has been lost, and
what remains is dispersed and fragmentary. The very extent and
complexity of the organisation required to put the campaign together
makes it impossible to agree even on the number of people who took
part in the conquest of La Goletta. The imperial forces had to be
moved from their diverse places of origin to a single meeting point;
something that could only be done piecemeal and over a considerable
period of time. New contingents continued to join the expedition as
late as the siege of La Goletta, as Charles V noted in a letter to the
viceroy of Navarre . From the west came contingents from the
14
Netherlands and Portugal, and the soldiers and artillery of Malaga.
The Iberian fleet was gradually assembled in the port of Barcelona. All
ships still in Iberian waters were ordered to sail to the Sardinian port
of Cagliari where they were joined by the Neapolitan and Sicilian
galleys and other vessels under the command of the marquis del Vasto
carrying soldiers from Lombardy, Naples, Sicily as well as German

13 «Una gran parte de gasto se cubriría fuera de España. Aquí quedaría el dinero que
costara lo que en casa se hiciera en las faenas de los astilleros, catalanes, murcianos y
andaluces, donde se aprestaban las naves, y en la requisa de las embarcaciones fletadas
con el mismo destino, y las obligaciones inherentes a la dotación de soldados y de
marineros y la provisión de equipos, vituallas, artillería y todos los imprescindibles
pertrechos». R. Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros, Crítica, Barcelona, 1977, vol. II, pp.
104-105.
14 Argn, Ap Rena, 76, n. 14, Charles V to the Viceroy of Navarre, count of Cañete, La
Goleta, 30 June 1535.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Agosto 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)