222
THE MESTA
pastures. It had, however, undergone a process of ‘ caking down
or fixation, similar to that which may be observed in the history
of such taxes in other countries. From being a primitive assess-
ment collected only from such flocks as trespassed upon the
town montes, it had gradually become fixed as a regular fee, col-
lected from all passing transhumantes, either as a toll1 or for
the use of any public pasturage in the town.
The most important reform of the Catholic Kings in this whole
field of local taxation was the promulgation of a national schedule
of montazgos which specified the towns where this tax might be
collected and the rate at which it was to be levied.2 This once
ubiquitous and much abused tax had long been a source of
profit to local officials and of corresponding hardship for the
shepherds. It was from the smaller owners that the town asses-
sors had gained their richest harvests. Now, however, as a re-
sult of the above reforms, a flock of a thousand sheep probably
paid in the course of a year’s migrations a total of only forty or
fifty sheep as montazgos to various towns along its marches, a
mere fraction of what had been exacted in the days of unrestricted
local extortion during the reign of Henry the Impotent.
Even more interesting to Ferdinand and Isabella than the
1 Arch. Mesta, B-ι, Baeza, 1491; A-5, Aldeanueva de la Sierra, 1493; A-4,
Alcântara, 1504: a decree of the Royal Council fixing the montazgo to be paid by
flocks using the famous bridge of Alcântara en route to winter pastures in Portugal.
The rate was four sheep per thousand for each flock.
2 By this matricula or table of montazgos (Arch. Simancas, Diversos Castilla,
117, ca. 1485-90) the tax was restricted to thirty-two cities and towns: five along
the canadas on the north slope of the Guadarrama range (Salas de Ios Infantes,
Segovia, Sepulveda, Ayllon, and Avila) ; ten on the southeastern canadas (Atienza,
Alcocér, Siguenza, Moya, Huete, Cuenca, Jorquera, Alarc6n, Chinchilla, and
Murcia) ; ten in Estremadura (Badajoz, Câceres, Trujillo, Plasencia, Coria, Medel-
lin, Alcântara, Galisteo, Ribera del Fresno, and Siruela); and seven in central New
Castile and Andalusia (Toledo, Talavera, Alcolea, El Cerro, Cordova, Manzanares,
and Vilches). The average rate for montazgos was fixed at three head per thousand,
but some of the larger southwestern pasturage towns insisted upon and were
able to secure higher rates (e.g., Câceres and Plasencia, each 8 per ɪooo; Vilches,
12 per ɪooo; El Cerro, 5 per ιo∞. In 1552 this list was Confirmedwithoutany
modifications (Nueva Recop., lib. 9, tit. 27, ley 12) by a schedule which is given with
regulations of the royal sheep tax or seπ>icio y montazgo, and is therefore sometimes
mistaken for a table of royal sheep tolls; cf. Laiglesia, Estudios Hisloricos (Madrid,
1908), p. 242.
TAXES UNDER FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
223
montazgo was the portazgo, the ancient tax levied by towns upon
goods and animals en route to market.1 From the earliest times,
Mesta charters had exempted the migratory flocks from this
form of taxation on the obvious ground that these animals were
on their way to pasturage and not to market. Furthermore, ac-
cording to the original charter of 1273, any sheep, up to sixty in
number, which a herdsman might wish to sell in a town market,
were exempt from portazgos.2 These older privileges were duly
endorsed by the Catholic Kings, with added emphasis, perhaps,
because the portazgo had long since ceased to be a source of
royal revenue,3 though the towns were warned that the consent of
the crown was still a prerequisite to portazgo privileges.4
The special interest of Ferdinand and Isabella in restricting
and regulating the portazgos on the flocks of the Mesta was due
to the greatly increased importance of this organization as an
instrument for the encouragement of internal commerce. The
nationalization of trade, the evolution from local and metropoli-
tan to national markets, was a stage of economic advance the pro-
found importance of which these enlightened sovereigns were
the first in the peninsula to appreciate.5 Their very significant
stimulation of greater freedom and fluidity of internal trade
stood as the economic counterpart of their political policy of
unification. No better means of promoting this development
could possibly be desired than the migrations of the Mesta —
the broad tide of the country’s greatest single resource ebbing
and flowing across the length and breadth of the peninsula.
It was, therefore, highly important that everything should be
done to encourage the commercial interests and activities of the
sheep owners and to facilitate their country-wide transactions in
wool and sheep. Older and more or less obsolete restrictions on
portazgo collections were revived and new ones created; sched-
ules of various routes were made uniform, and other arrange-
ɪ See above, pp. 164-166.
2 Quad. 1731, pt. i, p. 22.
3 In 1473 the Cortes lamented this loss, probably because it had to be made up
from other sources: Cortes, S. Maria de Nieva, 1473, pet. 5.
4 Nov. Recop., lib. 6, tit. 20, Ieyes 1-2, 9; Arch. Mesta, Prov. i, 12.
6 See above, pp. 40 fi.