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A number of historians have recently advanced the thesis that the millones of 1601 transformed the structure of Castilian politics by shifting the constitutional balance of power toward the Cortes and cities at the expense of the crown. The thesis rests on three principal arguments: that the millones established a contractual relationship between crown and parliament, that they created a public system of tax revenue controlled by the Cortes and cities, and that they helped to unify Castile fiscally. This article reviews these conclusions through an examination of the actual administration of the millones from 1601–1621. The analysis suggests that the conclusions drawn by revisionist historians, largely from the texts of successive millones agreements, have been overstated. In reality the millones did not transform Castilian politics and many of the gains ascribed to the Cortes and cities were either never achieved, or achieved only in partial or provisional ways. Nevertheless the millones of 1601 did alter the context of Castilian politics and set the stage for a prolonged period of constitutional debate that took well over three decades to resolve.
