232
THE MESTA
age, the promiscuous taxation of all who passed by their castle
gates or through the towns of their suzerainties. Obviously no
class had suffered more from this than had the sheep owners, who
were loud in their praises of the high court decisions against such
grandees as the Dukes of Albuquerque, of Arcos, of Soruela, and
of Maqueda. Even the exalted prerogatives of the Adelaniadot
the Almiraniet and the Condesiable of the realm, the highest posts
accessible to Castilian nobility, did not insure exemption from
the mandates of the Chancillerias.1 But the latter did not long
continue to be safe havens for the Mesta and its complaints
against local tax gatherers. Because of their jealous pride in that
decentralization of which they soon became the champions,2
these two high courts were inclined more and more, toward the
close of the reign of Charles V, to depart from the expressed
desires of the Royal Council and the Mesta, and to limit the
decrees of the latter’s agents and entregadores. The first indica-
tions of this attitude appeared in a decision of 1533, which was
followed by others of similar tenor in 1535, 1537, 1539, and
г540.3 In each of these cases the defendant towns were ac-
quitted of the herdsmen’s accusations that they were levying
extortionate and illegal sheep taxes. By 1556, when Philip II
took up the heavy burdens laid down by his melancholy and
broken-spirited father, the regularity with which the two chan-
Cillerias modified or reversed the decisions of the entregadores
brought home to the Mesta the sad fact that it could no longer
turn to the high courts with implicit confidence.
The last but by no means the least useful agent employed by
autocratic centralization, in this effort to limit the tax function
of the towns, was the special judge-inquisitor, the immediate
representative and sometimes a member of the Royal Council.4
ɪ Arch.Mesta,M-7,Mula,1537; R-2,Rueda, 1539; S~5,SocuélIamos,i537jM-ι,
Mansilla1 1543, V-4, Villalpando, 1548; R-2, Roa, 1549; M-ι, Marchena, 1597.
2 See above, pp. 114ff.
3 Arch. Osuna, Béjar, caj. 6, nos. 53, 59; Arch. Mesta, F-2, Fuerte Escusa,
1533; M-7, Murcia, 1540; F-ι, Fronterac, 1539; A-7, Altamiros, 1537; B-ι,
Badajoz, 1727 (case of 1540).
3 It should not, of course, be understood that these special judges, or juezes
Pesquisidores, were used exclusively for the purposes of the Mesta. The experience
of the latter with these officials simply affords an excellent illustration of their func-
TAXES UNDER THE HAPSBURGS AND BOURBONS 233
Here, again, the Hapsburgs were creating no new instrument of
absolutism; they were simply utilizing an official who had already
been well tried and found valuable by the Catholic Kings.1 It
was during the decade immediately following the suppression of
the rebel comuneros in 1521 that these royal investigators of local
fiscal privileges were particularly active against the nobles, the
larger cities, the military orders, and the church. Unlike the
Chancillerias, or even the Corregidores, these juezes pesquisidores
were under the direct control of the Royal Council. They were
appointed by it usually for a brief period and for the investiga-
tion of the tax privileges of but a single bishopric or small group
of bishoprics ;2 they were endowed with exceptional inquisitorial
powers, and reported their findings immediately to the Council.
Here was an official admirably equipped for the purposes of
autocracy.3 It is not surprising, then, to find the counsellors of
Hapsburg absolutism responding readily to the urgings of a* cer-
tain Juan Ruiz de Castejon, the most energetic court attorney
of the Mesta, who served its cause with unflagging zeal during
forty long years. With tireless persistence, that ardent advocate
of the sheep owners saw to it that constant use was made of these
Pesquisidores, especially during the years of stem repression after
the comuneros had been beaten and while autocracy was in full
command. Like the Chancillerias, these inquisitors had as one of
their special purposes the curbing of the fiscal activities of the
nobility. They were, nevertheless, forced to go about this work
most discreetly and tactfully, since the Royal Council, to which
they reported, was itself made up of great lords, secular and
ecclesiastical, whose relatives and friends had to be carefully
spared from disagreeable inquiry.
tions and importance. Other instances of their activity as agents of sixteenth-cen-
tury Hapsburg centralization are numerous. Cf. Ulloa, Privilegios de Cdceres
(1676 ?), pp. 338 ff.
1 See above, pp. 213 ff.
2 During this period the bishoprics of Cartagena and Cuenca were usually as-
signed as one jurisdiction, while Iargerbishoprics or archbishoprics, such as Toledo
or Le6n, were usually assigned singly.
3 The character of the office during this period is well shown in the commissions,
recommendations, and decisions in a case regarding sheep taxes collected by the
town of Albalâ. Arch. Mesta, A-3, Albalâ, 1525.