198
THE MESTA
and judicial powers of the nobles, and even, in some instances, of
the crown itself. At Burgos they demanded restoration of the
montazgos which had recently been taken from them by Henry II
at the instigation of the Mesta.1 To this, John I replied with an
evasive allusion to the recognition of all such sheep taxes as were
legal under the king, his father. While this was not entirely satis-
factory to the towns, it showed the unwillingness of the crown to
support the Mesta as vigorously as Henry had in 1376 and after.
The towns immediately proceeded to take advantage of this
circumstance. In several places they won back from the crown
the sheep tolls levied by royal officers, on the ground that such
tolls were the local montazgos temporarily taken over by the king.
Tn 1380, for example, the bishop and chapter of Coria made ef-
fective use of this argument and reestablished their old rights,
which had been hampered by Câceres in 1317.2 This they ac-
complished by the simple measure of inducing the crown to hand
over, for a consideration, the royal sheep tolls or servicio y mon-
tazgo to the extent of 3000 maravedis, to be collected by Coria
each year from the passing flocks. The step thus taken ‘ restored
to Coria her ancient montazgos, which the king, Alfonso (XI),
had taken unto himself.’ We have, therefore, a temporary re-
version of royal sheep tolls to their original condition of local
assessments. This situation recalls the fiscal history of Navarre
and Valencia,3 where the decadence of royal power caused various
sheep taxes to slip through the weakened grasp of the central
authority and to revert to the towns. This precedent of Coria
was soon followed by other cities.4 Nobles also began to assert
their claims to long extinct montazgos, and to renew them, not as
pasturage taxes, but in their old form, as tolls on passing flocks.6
ɪ Cortes, Burgos, 1379, pet. 21.
2 Acad. Hist., Ms. 25-ι-C 8, fol. 202. Badajoz secured a similar confirmation
of its montazgo rights in 1386. Brit. Mus., 1321 к 6, no. 22. See above, p. 185.
3 See above, pp. 150-152.
4 Acad. Hist., Ms. 25-ι-C 14, fols. 98-101: a guarantee of a montazgo privi-
lege for Cordova in 1381, by which it was authorized to collect 6o∞ maravedis out
of the royal sheep tolls in its vicinity each year, for the maintenance of its walls and
fortifications. Arch. Cuenca, Becerro, fols. 128-130 (1386): a complaint of the
suburbs of that city against new sheep tolls collected by its officers.
6 Arch. Osuna, Mendoza, caj. 14, leg. ι, no. 8 (1382): a renewal of such a toll
by Gonzalez de Mendoza at Guadalajara.
TAXES DURING THE RISE OF THE MESTA
i99
In the meantime, however, the Mesta was far from idle. During
the confusion of the recent civil wars, its members from Cuenca
had been compelled by the military orders to pay several new
montazgos; but in 1379 the sheep owners made a vehement pro-
test to John through the entregadores, and the tax was ordered
discontinued on the ground that it had been levied “more by force
than by law.” 1 In the same year the Mesta, acting once more
through its entregadores and its friends among powerful nobles,
induced the king to restrict the activities of the royal customs
officers on the frontiers. The zeal and avarice of those dignitaries
had made them as much of a menace to the Mesta’s movements
as were the local tax collectors.2 The success of these measures
promptly brought other proposals. In 1380, at the earnest solici-
tation of the Mesta, the montazgos of the important winter pas-
turage district of Murcia were systematized and made uniform.3
The war with Portugal, which culminated in the disaster at
Aljubarrota in 1385 and the invasion of Castile by the Portuguese
and English, called from the Mesta a plea which often appeared
in later wars. The invading army, it was alleged, played havoc
with the migrants on their southward marches by driving the
sheep from their accustomed routes and pastures, thus bringing
them into contact with strange towns which promptly assessed
the visitors with portazgos and other local dues. Pressure was
l Arch. Cuenca, leg. 3, no. 14. Cuenca and the Mesta pointed out that these
taxes were begun during the disordered conditions of the times of Alfonso Xi’s
minority. They had fallen into disuse when that king came into power, only to be
revived during the wars between Peter and Henry II.
2 Arch. Mesta, Privs. Reales, leg. 3, no. ι. See below, p. 256.
3 Bib.Nac.Madrid,Ms. 13126, fol. no. Fivetoll points were named: Chin-
chilla, Almanza, Jorquera, Zarra1 and Yecla. For sheep the rate was 5 per 1000 for
ɪnontazgo, and ɪ per ɪooo for asadura, a local tax taking its name from the fact
that it was originally collected upon or in the form of the viscera (asadura) of
dressed carcasses. Cf. a fuero of Septilveda (late thirteenth century), Acad. Hist.,
Mss. Fueros1 Privs-, etc., i, 73 ff.) which fixed a “ tax of half a mencal on every
asadura of ox or cow.” The mencal, metcal, or mitical was a small silver coin in com-
mon circulation in Christian Spain during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It
was displaced by the maravedi, which is said, by some writers, to have been ori-
ginally the mencal, though Covarrubias (Tesoro Leng. Cast., Madrid, ι6n, J.t∣.
mitical) gives it the value of thirty maravedis. Cf. Vives, Moneda Caslellana
(Madrid, 1901)j pp. 15j 18, 24; Dozy and Engelmann, Glossaire des Mots . . . de
l'Arabe (Paris, 1869)j p. 315.