# Mapping the Grandes Gabelles in Early Modern France

Eva Davoine, Joseph Enguehard, Victor Gay, Igor Kolesnikov

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Eva Davoine, Joseph Enguehard, Victor Gay, Igor Kolesnikov. Mapping the Grandes Gabelles in Early Modern France. 2026. hal-05501504

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# Mapping the Grandes Gabelles in Early Modern France*

Eva Davoine†

Joseph Enguehard‡

Victor Gay§

Igor Kolesnikov¶

February 2026

## 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.

**JEL codes** N01, N43, H22, C82

**Keywords** Administrative Boundary, Historical Geographic Information System, Gabelle, Taxation, Ancien Régime, France

<footnote>*We thank Cédric Chambru for his insightful comments. Victor Gay gratefully acknowledges funding from the ANR under grants ANR-17-EURE-0010 (Investissements d'Avenir program) and ANR-20-CE38-0015 (ObARDI).</footnote>

<footnote>†Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Email: eva_davoine@berkeley.edu.</footnote>

<footnote>‡CERGIC, École normale supérieure de Lyon, Lyon, France and Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. Email: joseph.enguehard@ens-lyon.fr</footnote>

<footnote>§Toulouse School of Economics, Université Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse, France. Email: victor.gay@tse-fr.eu.</footnote>

<footnote>¶Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Email: igor_kolesnikov@berkeley.edu.</footnote>
# 1. Introduction

Applied economic history of early modern France is a dynamic and growing field, in part because the fragmented nature of Ancien Régime's institutions creates rich sources of quasi-experimental variation. This makes France an ideal setting for identifying the consequences of state-building across a wide range of outcomes, from national identity formation (Johnson, 2019) to contemporary living standards (Degrave, 2023), demographic dynamics (Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi, 2025), social conflict (Albertus and Gay, 2025; Davoine, Enguehard, and Kolesnikov, 2025; Giommoni, Loumeau, and Tabellini, 2026), and long-run development (Giommoni and Loumeau, 2026). Yet the unavailability of fine-grained spatial data on these institutions has largely constrained existing work to exploiting variation across relatively broad administrative entities—for instance between areas inside versus outside the *Cinq Grosses Fermes* or the *Grandes Gabelles*, or between *pays d'élection* and *pays d'état*. Such comparisons, however, warrant caution because these broad jurisdictions bundled multiple institutional differences. More broadly, the lack of fine-grained data has led the literature to overlook the substantial institutional heterogeneity *within* these areas, even though it was at the core of the state-building logic of the early modern French state.

We address these limitations by introducing a novel historical geographic information system (GIS) of the *gabelle du sel* (salt tax, henceforth gabelle) in early modern France. A cornerstone of the monarchy's finances from the mid-thirteenth century onward, the gabelle provides an insightful setting for understanding the expansion of fiscal capacity in a consolidating state (Touzery, 2024). Our focus is especially relevant because salt taxation accounted for a substantial share of government revenue in early modern France and served as a common fiscal instrument across Europe as well as major empires, including Qing China, Imperial Russia, Habsburg Austria, and the Ottoman Empire (Hocquet, 1985, 1987; Adshead, 1992). Importantly, a defining feature of the French system was its pronounced spatial heterogeneity—both across and within gabelle areas—reflecting the institutional complexity of the Ancien Régime. By relying on parish-level information, our GIS makes it possible to exploit the substantial institutional variation within the main gabelle area and uncover differences that are generally concealed at a broader scale.

We draw on a rich but hitherto seldom used administrative archival source: Sanson's (1665) *Atlas des gabelles*. This atlas contains maps that precisely delineate the boundaries of the 249 gabelle jurisdictions of the *Pays de Grandes Gabelles* (henceforth, Grandes Gabelles area) with parish-level precision, together with quantitative information on populations, salt prices, and salt sales—this area encompassed the northern half of France and generated
most gabelle revenues. Drawing on this unique archival source, we provide researchers
with a fine-grained spatial representation of the main area of the gabelle fiscal system
together with quantitative information on the salt tax.

**Contributions** Our first contribution is to construct and make available a historical GIS derived from an exceptionally early and detailed cartographic source. We build on a small but growing body of research that reconstructs historical administrative geographies using GIS techniques (e.g., Castro Redondo, 2019; Ostafin et al., 2020; Stapel, 2023; Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi, 2024a, 2024b; Oto-Peralías, 2025). Yet few historical GISs predate the eighteenth century—one exception for early modern Europe is Stapel’s (2023) GIS of the Low Countries. To our knowledge, our dataset is the first to provide internal administrative boundaries for such a large area of France’s territory at such an early date, let alone with parish-level precision.<fnref n="1" />

A second distinctive feature of our work is its focus on a *fiscal* institution. By reconstructing the geography of gabelle jurisdictions, we provide one of the earliest historical GISs on fiscal institutions for early modern Europe, enabling a deeper understanding of the gabelle tax system. While earlier scholars have drawn on Sanson’s (1665) atlas, they did so primarily to document demographic and salt consumption dynamics rather than to exploit the spatial granularity of its maps (Cabourdin, 1969; Le Roy Ladurie and Recurat, 1972; Dupâquier, 1979). By contrast, we disseminate shapefiles and datasets that provide jurisdiction-level information and are readily usable for empirical research. Although this administrative layer is coarser than the parish level with 249 units, it offers unique and rich data on local taxation and populations (including by social groups) more than a century before the first population census conducted in 1793. Our data therefore make it possible to study the gabelle tax system in depth and to leverage spatial variation in local taxation, whether as an object of interest or as a control variable.

Our third contribution is to facilitate causal inference by addressing the identification
challenges posed by overlapping administrative boundaries. Existing research routinely
implements regression discontinuity designs leveraging boundaries of broad administra-
tive entities of early modern France, including the Grandes Gabelles area (e.g., Giommoni
and Loumeau, 2026). Yet these often overlapped with other institutional boundaries,
turning the discontinuity of interest into a bundled treatment—for instance, stretches of

<footnote n="1">¹Several historical atlases of France provide GISs for a range of early modern institutions. For instance, Zadora-Rio’s (2014) *Archaeological Atlas of Touraine* includes a GIS of gabelle jurisdictions (Gorry, 2014), but its scope is limited to the *département* of Indre-et-Loire. Likewise, other historical (print) atlases such as Vallez, Gouhier, and Vallez’s (1993) *Historical Atlas of Normandy* or Pélaquier’s (2009) *Historical Atlas of the Languedoc Province* are confined to a single province. By contrast, our dataset spans more than one third of the territory of France.</footnote>
the Grandes Gabelles boundary also marked the limits of several *bailliages* jurisdictions and *généralités*, as well as parts of the Parliament of Paris. As a result, discontinuities in outcomes observed at the Grandes Gabelles boundary may not always be credibly attributed to changes in the salt tax alone. By contrast, our GIS enables research designs to rely on discontinuities between more granular and single-purpose administrative units rather than on overlapping boundaries that may conflate multiple jurisdictions. Our work thereby expands the scope for empirical research in economic history, historical demography, and historical political economy of early modern France.

This article is organized as follows. Section 2 provides an overview of the gabelle tax system, with particular attention to its administration in the Grandes Gabelles area. Section 3 details the construction methodology of our historical GIS, and Section 4, the contents of the data files we distribute. Finally, Section 5 presents potential applications of our data and highlights empirical questions they can address.

## 2. The Gabelle Tax System

**Taxation in Ancien Régime France** The fiscal system of Ancien Régime France combined direct and indirect taxes (Touzery, 2024). Direct taxes included the *taille* (a levy borne primarily by commoners), the *capitation* (a head tax introduced in 1695), and the *vingtième* (an additional levy on income and property established in the early eighteenth century as the *dixième*). Indirect taxes included various *aides* (consumption taxes, mostly on alcoholic beverages), *traites* (internal customs duties), and the gabelle. In addition to these taxes, various duties had to be paid to the king, such as duties on tobacco, over which the state had a monopoly. The gabelle was among the state's most lucrative revenue sources as it accounted for as much as 25 percent of total tax revenue (Panel a of Appendix Figure A.1), making it the most substantial indirect tax in early modern France (Panel b).

**The gabelle** The term *gabelle* referred both to the fiscal system of salt taxation and to the broader state monopoly over salt distribution.<fnref n="2" />,<fnref n="3" /> In the High Middle Ages, it denoted a class of indirect taxes on various agricultural and industrial products—including wine,

<footnote n="2">²For a general account of the history and functioning of the gabelle tax system, see, e.g., Cochois (1902), Beaulieu (1903), Pasquier (1905), Sands and Higby (1949), and Touzery (2024, pp. 686–733).</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Salt played a vital role in everyday life as the indispensable preservative for curing meats and for salting and drying fish and other foods (Audouy, 1968). It also served as a key dietary supplement for livestock. In some places, salt formed part of in-kind wages—the French term *salaire* derives from the Latin *salarium*, itself a derivative of *sal* (“salt”). The original meaning likely referred either to payment in salt or to a monetary payment intended for its purchase.</footnote>
cloth, and wheat. From 1342 onward and Philippe VI's letters patent, together with Charles V's 1366 ordinance, the term became associated specifically with salt taxation, although the system was not comprehensively codified until Louis XIV's 1680 ordinance.<fnref n="4" /> A further series of edicts in 1726-27 consolidated the structure of the gabelle administration by reorganizing its jurisdictions, a structure that remained largely intact until the gabelle was abolished during the Revolution.<fnref n="5" />

Over the early modern period, the gabelle fiscal system was divided into six taxation regions, each governed by distinct regulations (Figure 1): the Grandes Gabelles, the Petites Gabelles, the Salterns areas (*pays de salines*), the Quarter-Boiling areas (*pays de quart-bouillon*), the redeemed areas, and the gabelle-exempt areas.<fnref n="6" /> In the Grandes Gabelles, the monarchy enforced a strict monopoly with compulsory purchase requirements; in the Petites Gabelles, a monopoly was also enforced but with lower prices and no compulsory purchases; the Salterns areas benefited from local salt production with regulated prices; in the Quarter-Boiling areas, reduced rates were also tied to nearby salt works; the redeemed areas had bought tax exemption through lump-sum payments; and the gabelle-exempt areas paid no gabelle at all. These institutional disparities translated into large and persistent differences in the price of salt across the kingdom. For instance, in the late eighteenth century, salt was sold for about 60 *livres tournois* per *minot* in the Grandes Gabelles area, but only for 2 *livres* in Brittany, a gabelle-exempt province.<fnref n="7" />,<fnref n="8" />

These price differentials created strong incentives for salt smuggling across gabelle

<footnote n="4">⁴Appendix Table A.1 provides a list of the edicts, letters patents, ordinances, and laws relative to the gabelle from 1342 to 1794.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵For an account of the debates and reform initiatives during the Revolution that ultimately led to the abolition of the gabelle, see Karmin (1912). Subsequent regimes reintroduced a salt tax in various forms—notably in 1806 under Napoléon I—until its final repeal under the Fourth Republic (Chazelas, 1968).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶This six-region system lasted from the mid-sixteenth century to the Revolution. It emerged in the wake of the union with Brittany in 1532 and the Southwest's exemption in 1549, following the Revolt of the Pitauds. Subsequent territorial gains—most notably Artois in the north with the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees and Franche-Comté in the east with the 1678 Treaties of Nijmegen—ultimately left the Grandes Gabelles area entirely embedded within the French territory.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷The minot was the standard unit for measuring salt, equivalent to about 50 liters, weighing 100 *livres* (about 49 kilograms) by the Paris measure—though the actual weight of a minot of salt varied according to the season and the type of salt (Legay, 2023b).</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸Appendix Table A.2 reports average salt prices across gabelle areas based on Necker's (1781) *Carte des gabelles*, also shown in Figure 1. Our comparative account relies on late eighteenth-century prices because no single source reports salt prices for all gabelle areas in the late seventeenth century. Crucially, the 1781 relative price structure within the Grandes Gabelles was broadly comparable to that in 1665: base salt prices were fixed soon thereafter by the 1680 ordinance and subsequent increases were driven primarily by surcharges applied uniformly across the Grandes Gabelles—a combination of *droits manuels* and *sols pour livres* (Touzery, 2024, p. 689). As a result, relative prices across gabelle areas remained largely stable over time, even as absolute price levels rose. The main exception is Burgundy, where prices increased more than elsewhere because the Estates of Burgundy levied an exceptionally large surcharge on salt to finance public works—the *crues locales*, amounting to 10 pound per minot by the late eighteenth century (Jalley, 1958, pp. 74–80).</footnote>
frontiers (Durand, 1974; Huvet-Martinet, 1978a, 1978b; Collas, 2000). In high-tax areas—especially in the Grandes Gabelles—households frequently purchased illicit salt supplied by salt smugglers (*faux-sauniers*) from lower-tax or exempt regions in order to circumvent the prohibitively high official prices. In response, the state sought to suppress this illicit trade by strengthening law enforcement and, from the mid-eighteenth century onward, by establishing specialized courts devoted to prosecuting salt smugglers (Huvet-Martinet, 1977; Kwass, 2013; Evrard, 2024).<fnref n="9" /> As a result, the Grandes Gabelles frontiers were zones of persistent contention, marked by recurrent confrontations between salt smugglers and *gabelous*, the tax-collection agents of the gabelle administration (Nicolas, 2002, pp. 56–67).<fnref n="10" /> More broadly, this tax system produced exceptionally high levels of popular hostility, as the gabelle was the tax most frequently cited in the 1789 *cahiers de doléances*, with grievances disproportionately concentrated in the Grandes Gabelles area (Shapiro and Markoff, 1998, pp. 270–74; Davoine, Enguehard, and Kolesnikov, 2025, Figure 6, p. 23).<fnref n="11" />

The Grandes Gabelles area was the largest and most heavily taxed region, providing the central state with the bulk of its salt-tax revenues.<fnref n="12" />,<fnref n="13" /> Within this region, the monarchy held an exclusive monopoly over salt as its consumption was legally mandatory and its distribution was restricted to designated outlets: salt granaries (*greniers à sel*).<fnref n="14" /> Each salt granary operated under the authority of a president and was administered by a *grenetier*, responsible for purchasing salt from producers, inspecting its quality, and retailing it to

<footnote n="9">⁹The 1680 ordinance prescribed nine years in the galleys and a 500-livre fine—equivalent to two years of wages—for armed salt smugglers operating in groups and imposed the death penalty for repeat offenders. In 1704, new provisions further hardened these sanctions, making armed smugglers liable to execution from the first offense (Nicolas, 2002, p. 41).</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰Indeed, Jean Nicolas’s (2002) survey of social conflicts in early modern France records 2,191 salt-smuggling related events between 1661 and 1789—26 percent of all entries in the database (Gay, 2025).</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹Instances of such grievances abound. Among others, inhabitants of the parish of Moulignon in the Enghien valley stated: "The gabelle, this utterly iniquitous tax, must be abolished [...]; it is appalling that Brittany and other provinces pay only 2 *liards* per pound of salt, while we are compelled to pay 14 *sous*, and often, through the retailer's greed, it is even filled with dirt and ashes" [La gabelle, cet impôt si inique, doit être proscrit [...]; il est affreux que la Bretagne et d'autres provinces payent le sel 2 liards la livre et que nous soyons obligés de le payer 14 sous, et souvent même par la cupidité des débitants se trouve-t-il rempli de terre et de cendres] (*Cahier des plaintes, doléances et remontrances des habitants de la paroisse de Moulignon*, art. 7, available at https://sul-philologic.stanford.edu/philologic/archparl/navigate/4/2/19/268/, accessed February 2026).</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹²The Grandes Gabelles comprised the following regions, depicted by the white central area in Figure 1: Île-de-France, Soissonnais, Picardy, Champagne, Orléanais, Touraine, Bourbonnais, Berry, Normandy, Burgundy, Nivernais, and Anjou.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³Necker’s (1784, pp. 6–13) estimates imply that the Grandes Gabelles generated 78.5 percent of total salt-tax receipts in the late eighteenth century.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴The term *grenier à sel* referred both to gabelle jurisdictions and to salt storage and distribution outlets. For clarity, we use the term *greniers à sel* to refer to gabelle jurisdictions and the term *salt granaries* to refer to salt storage and distribution outlets.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Map of Gabelle Areas in 1781</figcaption></figure>

*Notes.* This figure displays the spatial distribution of gabelle taxation areas based on Necker’s (1781) *Carte des gabelles* available at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k851249h/f131.

the public. He was supported by a staff of gabelle agents, including a comptroller, a clerk, a prosecutor, and a measurer (Legay, 2023a).15 Although salt consumption was compulsory throughout the Grandes Gabelles area, enforcement operated through two salt-taxation regimes: voluntary-sale granaries (*greniers de vente volontaire*) and compulsory-sale granaries (*greniers à sel d’impôt*).16 Under the voluntary-sale regime, *gabelants*—individuals liable to the salt tax—were required to annually purchase one minot of salt per fourteen individuals over eight years old. This mandated quantity (*devoir de gabelle*) was limited to immediate household consumption (*pour pot et salière*). These granaries were termed “voluntary” because *gabelants* could buy salt there at any time. In addition, voluntary-sale granaries in Burgundy—essentially, the généralité of Dijon—operated under a more flexible regime, termed free-sale granaries (*greniers de vente libre*).17 Therein, individuals could provision salt freely at any time and were not subject to mandatory consumption

<footnote>15Bonhoure, Musy, and Tallec’s (2024) database provides detailed information on the venality of administrative positions in the mid-seventeenth century, including those held by gabelle agents.</footnote>

<footnote>16Throughout the Grandes Gabelles area, several categories of individuals were exempt from the salt tax under the *privilège de franc-salé*, including members of sovereign courts, royal officers, holders of certain lordships, the indigent, and soldiers. Members of the nobility and the clergy were generally not exempt, unlike their treatment under most other taxes (Pasquier, 1905, pp. 52–55).</footnote>

<footnote>17This privilege had been in place at least since the March 4, 1663 royal declaration and was reaffirmed by the July 13, 1700 ruling of the Council of State (Jalley, 1958, pp. 67–73). It remained in place until the salt tax was abolished during the French Revolution.</footnote>
requirements (Pasquier, 1905, pp. 14–15; Jalley, 1958, pp. 67–73; Touzery, 2024, p. 709). By contrast, under the compulsory-sale regime, gabelants had to accept delivery from gabelous on a fixed date and to pay the required charge. In these granaries, the mandated quantity of salt (*sel d’impôt*) was set by apportionment and could thus be even larger, while also being enforced more strictly.<fnref n="18" /> Therein, the gabelle thus effectively functioned as a direct tax. This stricter system was designed to limit fraud and to deter smuggling from neighboring exempt or lower-tax regions, as this setting reduced both the incentives and opportunities to obtain salt illegally. In all granaries, additional salt—especially for preserving foodstuffs—could be purchased beyond the mandated quantity, with the gabelle similarly incorporated into the administered retail price of salt.

The right to distribute salt was itself delegated to private tax farmers under multi-year leases in exchange for substantial fees paid to the king (Bayard, 1987).<fnref n="19" /> The absence of competition enabled them to charge consumers high prices in order to maximize rent extraction, thereby generating substantial private profits while securing significant revenues for the state (White, 2004; Johnson and Koyama, 2014).

### 3. A Historical GIS of Seventeenth-Century Grandes Gabelles

**Sanson's (1665) *Atlas des gabelles*** Our historical GIS of the Grandes Gabelles area draws on Sanson's (1665) *Atlas des gabelles*.<fnref n="20" /> This atlas constitutes a synthesis of the answers to gabelle-related questions by local administrators collected through the inquiry ordered by the chief minister of France Jean-Baptiste Colbert in April-May 1664 (Dainville, 1968, pp. 27–28; Cabourdin, 1969, p. 294).<fnref n="21" /> It comprises 21 maps—each covering a généralité or gabelle département—that precisely delineate the boundaries of gabelle jurisdictions. These jurisdictions were characterized by the type of outlet through which salt was distributed: most commonly salt granaries (*greniers à sel*), but also salt chambers (*chambres à sel*)

<footnote n="18">¹⁸In compulsory-sale granaries, privileged groups—nobles, clergy, and certain privileged farmers and bourgeois—were exempt from apportionment and instead purchased salt at the voluntary-sale price.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹For instance, at the time of the publication of Sanson's (1665) atlas, the lease was sold for 13.8 million livres per year over a nine-year period running from 1663 to 1672 (Moreau de Beaumont, 1768, p. 45).</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰A digital copy of this manuscript atlas is available at the Bibliothèque nationale de France: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b525091213. We work from a higher-resolution TIFF version that we scanned at the University of Chicago Library.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹For further details on Colbert's 1664 inquiry (the *Enquête Colbert*), see Gille (1964, pp. 24–26). Nicolas Sanson, then royal geographer and himself from a long line of administrative cartographers (Pastoureau, 1982; Pelletier, 2007), was appointed by Colbert to draw maps based on the responses to this inquiry (Pelletier, 2007, p. 1497). The atlas itself, however, is signed “Sanson le fils,” which suggests that its actual author was one of Nicolas Sanson's sons (Adrien or Guillaume), both of whom also served as royal geographers (Cabourdin, 1969, pp. 293–94).</footnote>
and salt depots (*magasins à sel*), which operated in the same way as salt granaries.<fnref n="22" /> In addition, several jurisdictions on the southwestern periphery of the Grandes Gabelles—within 5 *lieues* (about 20 kilometers) of the frontier with redeemed areas—were designated as control zones (*contrôles*) by Louis XIV’s 1660 edict and placed under heightened surveillance to curb salt smuggling. The map of the généralité of Bourges is reproduced in Figure 2. Appendix Table A.3 lists all the maps and jurisdictions included in the atlas.<fnref n="23" />

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2. Gabelle jurisdictions of the Généralité of Bourges</figcaption></figure>

*Notes*. This figure reproduces the map of the généralité of Bourges from Sanson’s (1665) *Atlas des gabelles*.

Each map is followed by a statistical table that reports, for each jurisdiction, the number of parishes and fiscal fires (*feux fiscaux*, i.e., households liable to the salt tax), population counts (gabelants, laborers, nobles, and clergy members), and salt consumption, along with the administered price of salt under various modalities. The statistical table associated with the map of the généralité of Bourges is reproduced in Appendix Figure A.2.

<footnote n="22">²²Salt chambers and depots were established in cities and major towns within certain greniers à sel whose jurisdictions were especially extensive. While they formed distinct gabelle jurisdictions, they remained under the administrative authority of the parent grenier from which they had been created.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³Sanson’s (1665) atlas also includes a map of the entire Grandes Gabelles area. Although less detailed than regional maps, it locates brigades that policed the boundaries of the Grandes Gabelles against smuggling by salt smugglers. These brigades were typically stationed in control zones.</footnote>
**Mapping methodology** To construct a spatial representation of seventeenth-century gabelle jurisdictions, we develop a methodology that addresses the technical limitations of Sanson's (1665) atlas—its lack of a coordinate reference system (CRS) and the uncertainty associated with parish toponyms written on the maps.<fnref n="24" /> First, we manually assign each parish to a specific gabelle jurisdiction by visually matching each map to a point layer of early modern parishes. This point layer draws on Cristofoli et al.'s (2021) tabular dataset, which provides the spatial coordinates of the 44 thousand parishes that appear on Cassini's *Carte générale de la France* surveyed between 1756 and 1789 (Dainville, 1955; Pelletier, 1990).<fnref n="25" /> Specifically, we label each parish point with its toponym and assign it to a gabelle jurisdiction, using SANDRE's (2017) hydrographic-network shapefile to assist us in locating parishes on Sanson's (1665) maps (Appendix Figure A.3).<fnref n="26" /> This procedure yields a point-layer shapefile of 15,829 parishes tagged with a gabelle-jurisdiction attribute. In a second step, we construct the polygon-layer shapefile of the Grandes Gabelles area by spatially joining the 15,829 parish points to IGN's (2021) *commune* polygons, matching jurisdiction attributes to these polygons, and dissolving polygons by that attribute.<fnref n="27" />

The resulting shapefile of gabelle jurisdictions may exhibit (limited) inaccuracies because contemporaneous communes do not align with early modern parishes, as there were nearly 44 thousand parishes in 1789 but only 35 thousand communes in 2021.<fnref n="28" /> Although commune boundaries have been relatively stable over time, many were shaped by post-Revolutionary mergers of former parishes (Bideau and Verdier, 2024). As a result, some commune polygons may straddle multiple gabelle jurisdictions, creating local boundary inaccuracies in the dissolved polygon layer.<fnref n="29" /> To mitigate this issue, we also distribute

<footnote n="24">²⁴We follow Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi's (2024a) methodology for bailliage jurisdictions and refrain from vectorizing the boundaries of gabelle jurisdictions—a common practice when constructing GISs based on historical maps, e.g., Perret, Gribaudi, and Barthélemy (2015) for eighteenth-century French roads or Ostafin et al. (2020) for nineteenth-century Austrian Silesia. Given the absence of a proper CRS and the fragmented nature of these jurisdictions, such vectorization would introduce substantial inaccuracies. For a discussion on these issues, see Arnaud and Suarez (2023).</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵We provide additional details on the geolocalization of parishes that appear on Cassini's map in Appendix B.</footnote>

<footnote n="26">²⁶Each parish point is associated with multiple toponyms: the one that appears on Cassini's map (variable *nom_cassini*), in the 1793 census (*nom_an_3*), in the 1801 census (*nom_1801*), and in the 1999 census (*nom_1999*). We take the *nom_cassini* toponym as the default and supplement it with other names when it is missing (1,596 of 43,792 parishes).</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷We use IGN's (2021) commune polygon layer instead of its 2025 version so as to make our shapefile interoperable with Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi's (2024a) historical GIS of bailliage jurisdictions. In addition, we rely on contemporaneous commune polygons because early-modern parish shapefiles are not available for this area—Blanchard and Pélaquier's (1989) parish shapefile focuses on Languedoc, Gorry's (2008) on Touraine, Chadeyron and Langlois's (2022) on Auvergne, and Hautefeuille's (2022) on the South-West. In addition, the COMMUNE HIS-DBD project is not scheduled to release a shapefile of 1790 *municipalités* until September 2026.</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸On methodological issues with using contemporaneous units to build historical GISs, see Gay (2021, p. 192), Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi (2024a, p. 54), and Stapel (2023, pp. 8–9).</footnote>

<footnote n="29">²⁹Of the 12,460 commune polygons matched to the 15,829 parish points falling into the Grandes Gabelles</footnote>
the underlying parish point layer so users can project these points onto any commune- or parish-level polygon layer suited to their purpose and aggregate them into gabelle jurisdiction polygons.

# 4. Content of the Grandes Gabelles Historical GIS

Our historical GIS of the Grandes Gabelles comprises a shapefile (Section 4.1) and a tabular dataset (Section 4.2).<fnref n="30" /> We describe their content below in detail. They are distributed through the Harvard Dataverse at https://doi.org/10.57745/D039SH.<fnref n="31" />

## 4.1. *The Grandes Gabelles Shapefile*

The polygon-layer shapefile of our historical GIS is shown in Figure 3—the corresponding point layer is shown in Appendix Figure A.4. It represents 249 gabelle jurisdictions covering 34 percent of the territory of the Kingdom of France. These jurisdictions formed a relatively tight mesh of the Grandes Gabelles area, facilitating the territorial control of the gabelle administration—therein, each parish was on average 13 kilometers from the salt granary of its jurisdiction. For each jurisdiction, the underlying attribute table of this shapefile records its identifier, name, type, the identifier and title of its associated statistical table, its reference map in Sanson’s (1665) atlas, and the name of its GIS coder—Table 1 lists these variables.

**Gabelle jurisdiction identifiers** Each gabelle jurisdiction is assigned a unique five-digit identifier under the variable *grenier*.32 This identifier is constructed by concatenating three components: (1) a two-digit identifier for the statistical table associated with the map on which the jurisdiction appears, (2) a one-digit identifier for the jurisdiction type (see

<footnote>area, 642 (5 percent) straddle two gabelle jurisdictions, 54 (0.4 percent) straddle three jurisdictions, and 8 (0.06 percent) straddle four jurisdictions. In these cases, we assign the commune to the gabelle jurisdiction of the parish located closest to its *chef-lieu*.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰As noted above, the shapefile is provided in both polygon and point formats. The attribute table of the point layer reproduces that of the polygon layer and further includes parish-level information from Cristofoli et al. (2021): the Cassini parish identifier, its toponym as it appears on Cassini’s map and as recorded in the 1793, 1801, and 1999 censuses, and its spatial coordinates in RGF93 and WGS84 projections. It also includes two flag variables: one indicating the parishes that we could not find in Sanson’s (1665) atlas and for which we inferred gabelle jurisdictions from surrounding parishes, and another marking cases in which the attribution of a gabelle jurisdiction to a parish was uncertain due to inaccuracies on the manuscript map. Appendix Table A.4 lists these additional variables.</footnote>

<footnote n="31">³¹The repository will be made publicly available upon publication of this article. Until then, access to the repository is available upon request to the authors.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³²Variable names are given as they appear in the associated `.dta` and `.txt` files. The corresponding variable names in the shapefile’s attribute table can be found in Table 1. They differ slightly due to QGIS field-name constraints.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3. Grandes Gabelles Jurisdictions in 1665</figcaption></figure>

*Notes.* This figure displays gabelle jurisdictions based on Sanson's (1665) *Atlas des gabelles*. The underlying shapefile of the Kingdom of France in gray is from Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi (2023).

below), and (3) a two-digit identifier for the jurisdiction's position in its reference table. For instance, the gabelle jurisdiction of Dun-le-Roi in the généralité of Bourges (Appendix Figure A.3) has identifier 04103: it belongs to reference table 04, is of type 1 (salt granary), and is entry 03 in that reference table.

**Gabelle jurisdiction names** Gabelle jurisdiction names correspond to the town that hosted the jurisdiction's salt storage and distribution outlet. We provide these names in two forms: a short form that corresponds to the most representative name of the jurisdiction (grenier_name), typically the name of the city where its salt outlet was located (e.g., Dun-le-Roi), and a long form (grenier_name_long) that also includes the jurisdiction type (e.g., Grenier à sel de Dun-le-Roi).<fnref n="33" />

**Gabelle jurisdiction types** There were several types of gabelle jurisdictions (grenier_type) depending on the terminology of its salt storage and distribution outlet.

<footnote n="33">³³We normalize place names to their 1793 census toponymy, effectively the first nomenclature of place names in France. For instance, we use the name Grenier à sel de Buzançais rather than Grenier à sel de Buzançois—the spelling found in Sanson's (1665) atlas. It remains uncertain whether jurisdiction 14103 in the département of Troyes had its salt granary in Beaufort or in Rosnay. We therefore denominate it Grenier de Beaufort [Rosnay].</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 1. Variables in the Grandes Gabelles Shapefile</caption><thead><tr><th colspan="2">Variable</th><th rowspan="2">Description</th></tr><tr><th>dta / txt</th><th>dbf</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>grenier</td><td>GRENIER</td><td>Grenier à sel identifier</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_name</td><td>GRE_NS</td><td>Grenier à sel name (short, upper case)</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_nameProp</td><td>GRE_NS</td><td>Grenier à sel name (short, proper case)</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_name_long</td><td>GRE_NL</td><td>Grenier à sel name (long, upper case)</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_name_longProp</td><td>GRE_NL</td><td>Grenier à sel name (long, proper case)</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_type</td><td>GRE_TYP</td><td>Grenier à sel type</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_flag</td><td>GRE_FLG</td><td>Grenier à sel flag</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_regime</td><td>GRE_REG</td><td>Grenier à sel taxation regime</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_free</td><td>GRE_FR</td><td>Free-sale grenier indicator</td></tr><tr><td>table</td><td>TAB</td><td>Table identifier</td></tr><tr><td>table_type</td><td>TAB_TYP</td><td>Table constituency type</td></tr><tr><td>table_name</td><td>TAB_NS</td><td>Table constituency name (short, upper case)</td></tr><tr><td>table_nameProp</td><td>TAB_NS</td><td>Table constituency name (short, proper case)</td></tr><tr><td>table_name_long</td><td>TAB_NL</td><td>Table constituency name (long, upper case)</td></tr><tr><td>table_name_longProp</td><td>TAB_NL</td><td>Table constituency name (long, proper case)</td></tr><tr><td>map</td><td></td><td>Map file name</td></tr><tr><td>coder</td><td></td><td>GIS coder</td></tr></tbody></table>

Notes. This table lists the variables included in the dbf attribute table of the polygon-form Grandes Gabelles shapefile, as well as in the associated dta and txt tabular data files. See the main text for variable definitions and typologies.

let: most commonly salt granaries, but also salt chambers and salt depots—in addition to peripheral control zones.<fnref n="34" /> In some cases, a salt granary and a salt chamber appear together in the atlas (e.g., the salt granary of Mondoubleau and the salt chamber of Saint-Calais in the généralité of Orléans). We therefore classify jurisdictions into five categories, each identified by a one-digit code: salt granaries (1, 185 jurisdictions), salt chambers (2, 26 jurisdictions), combined salt granaries and chambers (3, 11 jurisdictions), salt depots (4, 3 jurisdictions), and control zones (5, 24 jurisdictions). We map the spatial distribution of these jurisdiction types in Appendix Figure A.5.

We also provide a variable (grenier_flag) that indicates the availability of jurisdiction-level statistics. While 221 of the 249 jurisdictions have statistical information available, the 3 salt depots and 24 control zones do not.<fnref n="35" /> In the cases where a salt granary and chamber are reported together, only a combined statistical entry is available.

**Gabelle taxation regimes** Mandatory salt purchases were enforced under two salt-taxation regimes: compulsory-sale granaries (1, 108 jurisdictions) and voluntary-sale granaries.

<footnote n="34">³⁴Salt chambers and depots operated in the same way as salt granaries, but were under the administrative authority of the parent grenier à sel from which they had been created (see Footnote 22).</footnote>

<footnote n="35">³⁵The salt chamber of Montfaucon (04210) in the généralité of Bourges does not appear in its reference table.</footnote>
naries (2, 114 jurisdictions).<fnref n="36" /> We also flag the 28 voluntary-sale granaries of the généralité of Dijon operating as free-sale granaries (grenier_free). Appendix Figure A.6 maps the spatial distribution of these regimes. Voluntary-sale granaries were concentrated in the interior of the Grandes Gabelles area, where the risks of salt smuggling were comparatively low. They also extended along the frontier with the Petites Gabelles in southern Bourbonnais, where the price differential was relatively small.<fnref n="37" /> This limited price gap substantially reduced the profitability of salt smuggling, making it possible to establish this regime even at the frontier. By contrast, compulsory-sale granaries were strategically concentrated along borders where price differentials were largest, notably those with Brittany and Artois.<fnref n="38" />

**Reference tables** To link each gabelle jurisdiction to its reference table, we include a two-digit identifier (table) from 01 to 15 following the tables' order of appearance in the atlas, the table's short and long titles as they appear in the atlas (table_name and table_name_long, e.g., Bourges and Généralité de Bourges), and the type of the administrative area of the table (table_type), coded as Généralité (1) or Département (2).

**Reference map** We also provide, for each jurisdiction, the atlas map on which it appears (map). The complete list of maps is provided in Appendix Table A.3.

**GIS coder** Finally, we provide the name of the coder who manually entered each parish's jurisdiction into the historical GIS (coder).

**Gabelle jurisdiction seats** We further provide an auxiliary tabular dataset and associated point-form shapefile that includes information on the seat (*chef-lieu*) of each gabelle jurisdiction, that is, the location of its salt storage and distribution outlet.<fnref n="39" /> For each seat,

<footnote n="36">³⁶We define taxation regimes using Sanson's (1665) statistical tables, based on whether a granary records distinct types of salt sales. Specifically, we classify a granary as a compulsory-sale granary when the tables report compulsory salt sales. Salt depots and control zones were not characterized by a salt-taxation regime.</footnote>

<footnote n="37">³⁷Along this border, the late eighteenth-century salt price was about 62 livres per minot in the Grandes Gabelles (Bourbonnais and Burgundy) versus about 51 livres in the Petites Gabelles (Lyonnais, Forez, Beaujolais, Mâconnais, Bresse, and Bugey). See Figure 1 and Appendix Table A.2.</footnote>

<footnote n="38">³⁸For instance, along the border with Brittany, late eighteenth-century salt prices were about 58 livres per minot in Anjou and Maine versus 2 livres across the frontier. See Figure 1 and Appendix Table A.2.</footnote>

<footnote n="39">³⁹Because the polygon shapefile is constructed from contemporaneous communes, two jurisdiction seats lie outside their corresponding jurisdiction polygons as a result of recent mergers of communes into larger units: those of the jurisdictions of Exmes (09108) and Saint-Rémy (06209). In addition, the parish of Montfaucon, seat of the jurisdiction of Montfaucon (04210), does not appear on Cassini's map. We therefore attribute this jurisdiction's seat to the nearby parish of Berry. We display the distribution of gabelle jurisdiction chef-lieux in Appendix Figure A.7.</footnote>
we report its Cassini (cl_noacass) and INSEE (cl_insee) identifiers, its name on Cassini's map (cl_name_cassini), its name in the 1793 (cl_name_1793), 1801 (cl_name_1801), 1999 (cl_name_1999), and 2021 (cl_name_2021) censuses, as well as its spatial coordinates in both RGF93 (cl_x and cl_y) and WGS84 (cl_x_wgs and cl_y_wgs) projections. Where a salt granary and a chamber are reported together, the tabular file associated with this shapefile also provides the seat of the corresponding salt chamber using variables prefixed with cl12. The presence of a second seat is flagged by the cl_flag variable. We report the list of variables available in this shapefile in Appendix Table A.5.

## 4.2. The Grandes Gabelles Dataset

The tabular dataset associated with the Grandes Gabelles shapefile draws on the statistical tables in Sanson's (1665) *Atlas des gabelles*. These tables report detailed demographic and fiscal information for each gabelle jurisdiction, organized by généralité (see, e.g., Appendix Figure A.2). In addition, a separate table provides the salt purchase costs faced by tax-farming agents in each jurisdiction. We report the list of variables available in this dataset in Table 2 and summary statistics for key variables in Appendix Table A.6.<fnref n="40" />

<table><caption>Table 2. Variables in the Grandes Gabelles Dataset</caption><thead><tr><td>Variable</td><td>Description</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>grenier</td><td>Grenier à sel identifier</td></tr><tr><td>grenier_flag</td><td>Grenier à sel flag</td></tr><tr><td>table</td><td>Table identifier</td></tr><tr><td>parishes</td><td>Number of parishes</td></tr><tr><td>fires</td><td>Number of fiscal fires (households)</td></tr><tr><td>gabelants</td><td>Number of gabelants (taxpayers)</td></tr><tr><td>farmers</td><td>Number of wealthy farmers</td></tr><tr><td>nobles</td><td>Number of nobles</td></tr><tr><td>clergy</td><td>Number of clergy members</td></tr><tr><td>salt_sales_comp</td><td>Volume of compulsory salt sales (decimal minots)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_sales_vol</td><td>Volume of voluntary salt sales (decimal minots)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_sales</td><td>Total volume of salt sales (decimal minots)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_price_comp_king</td><td>King's duty on compulsory salt sales (livres tournois per minot)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_price_comp_off</td><td>Officer's duty on compulsory salt sales (livres tournois per minot)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_price_comp</td><td>Salt price on compulsory salt sales (livres tournois per minot)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_price_vol_king</td><td>King's duty on voluntary salt sales (livres tournois per minot)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_price_vol_off</td><td>Officer's duty on voluntary salt sales (livres tournois per minot)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_price_vol</td><td>Salt price on voluntary salt sales (livres tournois per minot)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_price</td><td>Weighted average salt price (livres tournois per minot)</td></tr><tr><td>salt_cost</td><td>Salt cost for retailer (livres tournois per minot)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Notes. This table lists the variables included in the Grandes Gabelles dataset. See the main text for variable definitions and typologies.

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰This dataset further contains the variables listed in Table 1, which we do not all repeat in Table 2.</footnote>
**Units of observation** Each gabelle jurisdiction is assigned a unique identifier (grenier) that matches the one used in the Grandes Gabelles shapefile. In addition, the variable table links each record to its source table in Sanson (1665) atlas.

All salt granaries and chambers (but one) appear in Sanson's (1665) statistical tables.<fnref n="41" /> Moreover, although the salt granary of Chalon and the salt chamber of Louhans appear separately on the atlas's maps, they are combined in the statistical tables.<fnref n="42" /> Finally, the 3 salt depots and 24 control zones do not appear in the atlas's statistical tables. As a result, of the 249 gabelle jurisdictions in Sanson's (1665) atlas, the Grandes Gabelles dataset includes 221 observations with statistical information. This coverage is documented in the grenier_flag variable.

**Demographic variables** The atlas reports the following demographic information for nearly all salt granaries and chambers: their number of parishes (parishes), fiscal fires (fires), and gabelants (gabelants).<fnref n="43" />,<fnref n="44" /> For about half of salt granaries, it further reports counts for exempt social groups: wealthy peasants (farmers), nobles (nobles), and clergy members (clergy).

**Salt sales** The atlas reports two measures of salt sales, which we express in decimal minots.<fnref n="45" /> The first—compulsory salt sales (salt_sales_comp)—is positive in compulsory-sale granaries and equals zero in voluntary-sale granaries. The second—voluntary salt sales (salt_sales_vol)—is observed under both regimes: in compulsory-sale granaries, households could purchase salt for personal consumption beyond the mandatory quantity,

<footnote n="41">⁴¹The salt chamber of Montfaucon (04210) in the généralité of Bourges does not appear in its reference table.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">⁴²For simplicity, we combine these two jurisdictions in the Grandes Gabelles shapefile. Note that the four sets of jurisdictions that are grouped on the atlas's maps are reported with distinct statistical information. In these cases, we report them together in our dataset, summing their quantitative variables—their salt prices and costs are similar. This applies to the salt granaries and chambers of Rouen and La Bouille in the généralité of Rouen (10301), and of Autun and Montcenis (15305), Charolles and Perrecy (15312), and Semur and Marcigny (15325) in the généralité of Dijon.</footnote>

<footnote n="43">⁴³The number of parishes per gabelle jurisdiction reported in Sanson's (1665) statistical tables broadly matches the number of parishes on Cassini's map, confirming that the gabelle applied to all parishes within each jurisdiction (Appendix Figure A.8).</footnote>

<footnote n="44">⁴⁴In most cases, the reported number of taxpayers appears to be extrapolated from the number of fiscal fires by applying a multiplier of three or four, and should therefore be treated with caution. See Appendix Figure A.9 and Dupâquier (1979, pp. 140–41). Moreover, the count of gabelants likely includes children under eight years old (Beaulieu, 1903, pp. 33–34; Le Roy Ladurie and Recurat, 1969, p. 1006; Dupâquier, 1979, p. 140). Finally, note that large cities are generally not included in these statistics (Cabourdin, 1969, p. 295; Dupâquier, 1979, p. 142).</footnote>

<footnote n="45">⁴⁵In Sanson's (1665) statistical tables, salt sale volumes are expressed in units that combine *muids*, *setiers*, *minots* and *boisseaux*—a muid was equivalent to 12 setiers, a setier, to 4 minots, and a minot, to 4 boisseaux. We convert these quantities into decimal minots using the following conversion formula: $\text{minot}_{\text{decimal}} = 48 \times \text{muids} + 4 \times \text{setiers} + \text{minots} + 0.25 \times \text{boisseaux}$.</footnote>
whereas in voluntary-sale granaries, all purchases were voluntary.<fnref n="46" /> Accordingly, total salt consumption (*salt_sales*) is the sum of compulsory and voluntary sales in compulsory-sale granaries and simply voluntary sales in voluntary-sale granaries.

**Salt prices** The atlas reports salt prices separately for compulsory and voluntary sales, which we express in decimal livre tournois per minot (respectively, *salt_price_comp* and *salt_price_vol*).<fnref n="47" />,<fnref n="48" /> In addition, each price is split between two components: a royal duty and a fee retained by local gabelle agents as compensation for their collection services.<fnref n="49" /> We also compute an overall average salt price (*salt_price*) as a sales-weighted mean of compulsory and voluntary prices—by construction, its value coincides with the price of voluntary salt sales in voluntary-sale granaries. We map the spatial distribution of these prices in Figure 4. Consistent with the purpose of gabelle taxation regimes, salt prices were highest in compulsory-sale granaries, lower in voluntary-sale granaries, and lowest in free-sale granaries.<fnref n="50" />

**Salt costs** The atlas also reports the purchase cost of salt in each jurisdiction, reflecting the commodity cost borne by the gabelle administration.<fnref n="51" /> We express these costs in decimal livres tournois per minot and map their spatial distribution in Appendix Figure A.10. Although purchase costs were not tied to gabelle taxation regimes, we show below that they varied systematically with transportation costs from salt-producing sites.

**Consistency checks** To ensure the accuracy of the data reported in Sanson's (1665) atlas, we conducted a series of consistency checks using totals reported in the tables.<fnref n="52" /> In particular, we verified that, for each généralité, reported totals equal the sum of the corresponding granary-level entries. We also implemented granary-level consistency checks on salt sales and prices. These consistency checks are documented in Appendix C.

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶Voluntary salt sales in compulsory-sale granaries represented on average 23 percent of total salt consumption.</footnote>

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷In Sanson’s (1665) statistical tables, salt prices are expressed in units that combine *livres, sols* and *deniers*—a livre was equivalent to 12 sols, and a sol, to 20 deniers. We convert these prices into decimal livres using the following conversion formula: $livre_{decimal} = livre + sols/12 + deniers/240$.</footnote>

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸In compulsory-sale granaries, voluntary sales were priced slightly lower (41 livres tournois per minot on average) than compulsory salt sales (43 livres tournois per minot).</footnote>

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹The royal duty accounts for about 95 percent of the total salt price in both taxation regimes.</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰As Figure 1 and Appendix Table A.2 show, by 1781, salt prices were no longer lowest in the free-sale granaries of the généralité of Dijon. This was due to the exceptionally large surcharge on salt levied by the Estates of Burgundy to finance public works (Jalley, 1958, pp. 74–80). See also Footnote 8.</footnote>

<footnote n="51">⁵¹Salt costs represented about 10 percent of salt prices on average (Appendix Table A.6).</footnote>

<footnote n="52">⁵²For an assessment of the quality of the demographic data reported in Sanson’s (1665) *Atlas des gabelles*, see Dupâquier (1979, pp. 139–42).</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4. Spatial Distribution of Salt Prices in 1665</figcaption></figure>

*Notes.* This figure maps the spatial distribution of salt prices in decimal livre tournois per minot drawn from Sanson's (1665) *Atlas des gabelles*. The thick black line separates compulsory-sale and voluntary-sale granaries. In compulsory-sale areas, prices refer to those on compulsory salt sales. The underlying shapefile of the Kingdom of France in gray is from Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi (2023).

**5. Applications**

The historical GIS we propose lends itself to a wide range of applications. We illustrate its potential with several examples: the overlap with other institutional boundaries, the determinants of local salt prices, the fiscal burden the gabelle imposed on households, the potential for creating a panel of gabelle jurisdictions over time, and the causal effect of the gabelle on social conflict. More broadly, the availability of this fine-grained dataset expands the scope for quantitative research in economic history, historical demography, and historical political economy of early modern France.

**Overlap with other institutional boundaries**

In a first application, we examine how the boundaries of the Grandes Gabelles area related to other Ancien Régime institutions. We focus on bailliage jurisdictions, which we map in Appendix Figure A.11 (Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi, 2024a). Appendix Figure A.12 overlays gabelle and bailliage jurisdiction boundaries for the interior of the Grandes Gabelles area (Panel a) and for its outer boundary (Panel b). Only 6 percent of these boundaries coincide—though allowing a 500-meter buffer to account for local mapping inaccuracies raises the overlap to 46 percent for the interior
and 66 percent for the outer boundary.<fnref n="53" /> This institutional variation may prove useful for future empirical work aimed at disentangling the implications of heterogeneous fiscal and judicial institutions.

**Determinants of local salt prices** In a second application, we analyze the determinants of local salt prices across gabelle jurisdictions. Here, we focus on one in particular: salt transportation costs. We do so for two main reasons. First, Sanson's (1665) statistical tables report transportation costs separately from final salt retail prices—they typically accounted for 5–20 percent of those prices. Second, all salt consumed in the Grandes Gabelles area originated from a small number of salt production sites on the Atlantic coast (Touzery, 2024, Map 65, p. 694, shown in Appendix Figure A.13). Specifically, each salt granary was supplied by designated production site through state-controlled distribution networks. Because salt was produced using similar techniques across France and was essentially a homogeneous good, production costs were likely comparable across sites. As a result, spatial variation in final salt costs should have reflected differences in transport costs, which relied predominantly on waterways (e.g., Jalley, 1958, pp. 43–53). Proximity to navigable rivers thus made some locations substantially easier and cheaper to supply.

Appendix Figure A.14 suggests that this logic held. Overlaying major waterways on the map of salt costs across gabelle jurisdictions reveals a clear pattern: salt costs were systematically lower near navigable rivers and increased gradually with distance from them. This visual relationship is corroborated by the binned-scatter evidence reported in Appendix Figure A.15 and by the regression results reported in Appendix Table A.7. Taken together, these results imply that geography—operating through transportation costs—was an important determinant of salt prices.

**Fiscal burden of the gabelle** In a third application, we quantify the fiscal burden that the gabelle imposed on households. Appendix D describes our methodology and presents our results in detail. We estimate that, on average, mandatory salt purchases imposed a tax burden of 6.4 percent on annual wages—an order of magnitude comparable to the contemporary share of household expenditure devoted to gasoline in the United States. We also report tax burdens across taxation regimes and occupational categories, which are consistent with one of the few available benchmarks—Morineau's (1972, p. 232) estimate for Picard weavers—as well as with contemporary Normand ecclesiastical accounts (Chambru and Maneuvrier-Hervieu, 2023, Appendix, pp. 35–36).

<footnote n="53">⁵³This comparison should be interpreted with caution. Indeed, although both historical GISs rely on the same underlying commune polygons (IGN, 2021), Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi (2024a) report the geography of bailliages as of 1789, which may differ from those in 1665.</footnote>
**Local populations and salt sales over time** A fourth application would make it possible to study local population dynamics in early modern France at a broader scale than previous research (Bouloiseau, 1962; Cabourdin, 1969; Le Roy Ladurie and Recurat, 1972). Pre-revolutionary population estimates are relatively scarce, since the first nationwide census dates to 1793. By combining our 1665 population data with later sources—such as Dupâquier’s (1979) estimates for 1722 and the 1793 census provided by Cristofoli et al. (2021)—one can trace the evolution of population patterns across gabelle jurisdictions over more than a century.

Importantly, a consistent analysis of population dynamics requires accounting for changes in the boundaries of gabelle jurisdictions. Our cross-sectional GIS could be extended into a panel by first matching the 1665 structure to that provided in the 1725–26 gabelle returns, and then incorporating subsequent boundary changes specified in royal edicts—listed in Appendix Table A.1.<fnref n="54" /> Such a panel would also support the study of long-run changes in salt sales, for which comparable data are available for 1774 (Panckoucke and Agasse, 1782, pp. 413–24).<fnref n="55" />

**Causal inference** Finally, our historical GIS of the Grandes Gabelles provides sound foundations for causal empirical analyses as it offers a representation of the external frontier of the Grandes Gabelles area with parish-level precision, while also documenting internal administrative boundaries within this area.

First, the precise delineation of the outer frontier of the Grandes Gabelles will help improve the accuracy of analyses that conceptually exploit this sharp fiscal discontinuity but have been constrained to effectively approximate its location using coarser administrative units, such as bailliages (Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi, 2024a). This refined boundary has already proven valuable in recent work. For instance, Davoine, Enguehard, and Kolesnikov (2025) exploit our data to compare parishes on either side of the Grandes Gabelles frontier, showing that tax enforcement generated political backlash.<fnref n="56" /> Likewise, Giommoni, Loumeau, and Tabellini (2026) exploit a comparable boundary to assess how the salt tax—alongside other fiscal instruments—fueled revolutionary unrest in the late eighteenth century.<fnref n="57" />

<footnote n="54">⁵⁴The 1725–26 *États de dénombrement des ressorts des gabelles* is available at the Bibliothèque nationale de France under shelfmark Français 23917–23925 (https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc52830x).</footnote>

<footnote n="55">⁵⁵Comparable data also exist for 1625 (Le Roy Ladurie and Recurat, 1969), but, to our knowledge, changes in gabelle jurisdiction boundaries between 1625 and 1665 have not been documented.</footnote>

<footnote n="56">⁵⁶Indeed, based on Jean Nicolas’s (2002) survey (Gay, 2025), we show in Appendix Figure A.16 that gabelle-related rebellions in early modern France clustered along the frontiers of the Grandes Gabelles.</footnote>

<footnote n="57">⁵⁷More specifically, Giommoni, Loumeau, and Tabellini (2026) trace the boundary of the Grandes Gabelles using the 1781 map reproduced in Figure 1 while “refin[ing] the placement of local salt-tax borders using the geo-referenced maps of *Ancien Régime* institutions from Gay, Gobbi, and Goñi (2024a)” (pp. 14–15). “As a robustness check, [they] also [...] rely on the *Atlas des gabelles* from Sanson (1665)” (p. 14, Footnote 13).</footnote>
Second, our GIS opens new avenues for future research by enabling designs to move beyond the external frontier of the Grandes Gabelles and instead exploit its internal boundaries. For instance, scholars could study the implications of alternative gabelle taxation regimes by examining discontinuities at the boundary between compulsory-sale and voluntary-sale granaries shown in Appendix Figure A.6. Another possibility would be to exploit the substantial salt-price differentials across gabelle jurisdictions highlighted in Figure 4. Focusing on these internal boundaries offers a key identification advantage: they are much less likely to overlap with other institutional boundaries and would thus yield more credible estimates of the causal effects of alternative gabelle taxation regimes and salt-price differentials.

**6. Conclusion**

Salt taxation was a common fiscal instrument in early modern states—Appendix E provides a comparative overview of the use of salt taxation as a fiscal instrument. This article introduces a novel historical GIS and dataset of salt taxation in early modern France. Together, they provide a foundation for fine-grained analyses of the administration of one of the French monarchy's main revenue sources during a pivotal period in the construction of the modern French state.

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<footnote>Note that Giommoni, Loumeau, and Tabellini (2026) likely rely on Sanson's (1665) map of the entire Grandes Gabelles area than on regional maps (see pp. B5 and B9).</footnote>
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