CHAPTER XI
LOCAL TAXES UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
(1474-1516)
Fiscal reforms. Tax inquisitors. Fiscal duties of the Corregidores. Standardiza-
tion of the local sheep tolls. Political aspects of the tax situation.
The death of Henry IV in December, 1474, and the succession of
Ferdinand and Isabella as joint sovereigns of Castile ɪ brought
about a sorely needed change in the disordered affairs of that
kingdom. In no phase of administration was reform more im-
peratively necessary than in fiscal matters, both national and
local. Royal profligacy and impotence had not only squandered
the income of the crown,2 but had fostered the most unbridled
abuses and maladministration of the financial affairs of towns,
nobles, and ecclesiastics. With the royal exchequer in such a
deplorable plight, and with the burdens of war against the Portu-
guese and preparations for the reconquest of Granada upon their
hands,3 the new sovereigns could lose no time in undertaking the
seemingly impossible task of rebuilding the dilapidated structure
of Castilian finance.
ɪ The Mesta was exclusively a Castilian institution, with no standing or juris-
diction in Aragon until late in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless its relations
with the crown were administered jointly, for the most part, by Isabella and her
consort. Exceptions to this rule occurred occasionally, when decrees regarding the
Mesta were issued independently by either sovereign in the absence of the other.
Arch. Mesta, H-ι, Hellin, 1489; Prov. i, 5 (1478); A-8, Haro, 1483; Brit. Mus.,
Ms. 1321-k-ι, no. i (1481). This seems to have been substantially in accord
with the distribution of the individual and joint powers of the royal pair as adjusted
by the arbitration of the archbishop of Toledo in τ475. See Prescott, Ferdinand
and Isabella, i, pt. ι, ch. 5, with references.
2 Figures showing the bankruptcy of the kingdom in τ474 and Isabella’s efforts
toward rehabilitation are given in Clemencfn, El6gio, ilust. v; see also Colmeiro,
i, p. 489; Haebler, Wirtschafil. Blule Span., pp. 108-n0.
3 Early in 1475 Alfonso V of Portugal invaded Castile in support of the cause
of his niece, Joanna, the supposedly illegitimate claimant to the Castilian crown.
Hostilities with the Moors were begun in December, 1481.
ao8
TAXES UNDER FERDINAND AND ISA RFELA
209
It was with local taxation that Ferdinand and Isabella were
primarily concerned in their earlier efforts to improve the fiscal
welfare of the Mesta. They were well aware of the rare possi-
bilities of that body as an instrument for the achievement of that
centralized autocratic administration which formed the basis of
their internal policy. It will be recalled that in the case of their
reconstruction of the Mesta judiciary, reform did not begin with
the sweeping destruction of all that was old and the abrupt crea-
tion of new officials. With their characteristically shrewd ap-
preciation of the respect of their subjects for ancient offices and
institutions, Ferdinand and Isabella began their work by assuring
the fullest powers to the long established office of the itinerant
entregador. With this as a nucleus, the judicial affairs of the
Mesta were gradually centralized, until finally the proprietary
chief of the entregadores was made a member of the Royal
Council.1 Similarly, in approaching the fiscal problem of the
pastoral industry, the statecraft of these astute sovereigns led
them first to reform the local sheep taxes and to eliminate the
grossly unjust and illegal exactions which were the heritage of
the previous years of royal impotence. With local sheep taxes
carefully restricted and organized, the foundations were laid for
the systematic exploitation of the industry as a source of revenue
to the crown.
The first task was, then, the reform of the fiscal relations be-
tween the Mesta and the various local landowners — towns,
clergy, nobility, and peasantry. During the thirty years of Isa-
bella’s reign (1474-1504), the Mesta was a party — usually the
plaintiff — in over eleven hundred litigations. Of these nearly
four hundred were suits regarding local tolls and taxes,2 a far
greater number than for any period of similar length either before
or after. This was ample evidence both of the aggressive spirit
of the sheep owners, newly encouraged by the crown, and of the
growth of municipal autonomy in fiscal affairs during the pre-
ceding regime of weakened royalty.
1 See above, p. 83.
2 The greater part of the remaining seven hundred cases involved pasturage
rights, with a few score on the jurisdiction of entregadores and the right of way of
the flocks over the canadas or sheep highways.