236 THE MESTA
drew to a close, the decisions of the itinerant judges were re-
versed by the high courts.1 Corregidores and pesquisidores
likewise disappointed the Mesta, and the sheep owners gradually
learned that in fiscal, as in judicial, matters they could no longer
count upon any effective support from the crown and its officials.
After the middle of the sixteenth century, the Mesta waged no
aggressive campaigns against local sheep taxes; thenceforth it
became distinctly defensive in its attitude, clinging to such
ancient tax exemptions and privileges as it was still permitted
to enjoy.
No better indication of this change of temper could be
found than the increasing number of asientos or concordias — toll
agreements drawn up between the sheep owners and the various
local interests. During the seventy odd years of firm and ag-
gressive absolutism from 1474 to about 1545, the Mesta archive
reveals but six or eight such agreements,2 and even these are
largely perfunctory confirmations of earlier ones. After that
period, however, the concordias reappear with increasing fre-
quency, and, what is even more important, with terms and
phraseology which clearly indicate the conciliatory and submis-
sive attitude of the Mesta. In the forty-two years of the reign
of Philip II (1556-98), there were some thirty important new
concordias, as well as many renewals and confirmations of older
ones.3 In drawing up the majority of these, the Mesta refrained
from its accustomed insistence upon confirmation by its royal
patron or his Council. In fact, in some cases, the Chancillerias,
1 A few examples are found in Arch. Mesta, A-ι, Abertura, 1588; A-7, Argui-
juela, 1589; A-6, Almansa, 1593; B-3, Baena, 1595; S-4, Segovia, 1583; P-2,
Penaflor, 1584; B-ι, Badajoz, 1727 (case of 1585); M-4, Montalbân, 1595; A-9,
Aza, 1595.
2 See above, p. 219.
3 These concordias, like those of the fifteenth century (see above, p. 205), were
made with cities, nobles, military orders, churches, and monasteries. Good ex-
amples are found in Arch. Osuna, Manzanares Mss., caj. 3, leg. 5, no. 16 (1591),
and leg. 2, no. 34 (1582); Arch. Mesta, B-3, Bilbiestre, 1586; M-4, Monaches,
1549; M-4, Montalbân, 1577; G-ι, Galisteo, 1583; A-3, Ayllon, 1593. In con-
trast with the earlier agreements, few of these exempt breeding rams, bell ewes,
and other more valuable animals from seizure in payment of taxes; nor did these
later concordias give the sheep owners any part in arranging such matters as the
feeding of flocks awaiting assessment, the payment of fees for receipts, etc.
TAXES UNDER THE HABSBURGS AND BOURBONS zγj
the Mesta’s now hated opponents, unceremoniously ignored the
ancient privileges of crown and Council by ordering the sheep
owners to submit their Concordias to the high appellate courts
for final confirmation.1
Neither in the concordias nor in the litigations of this period,
after the accession of Philip II, was there any special effort made
to discriminate between the various types of local sheep taxes.
Thirty-two towns were still recognized as legally entitled to col-
lect montazgos varying from two to eight sheep per thousand;2
but from the Mesta’s point of view, these and many similar local
dues, which had been so constantly disputed during previous
reigns, had by this time become merged into a general mass of
local tolls or derechos, the separate identity and significance of
which had been quite forgotten.3 The tenor of sheep owners’
complaints was not against this or that tax, but that whatever
was collected should be levied as a tax or toll and not as a penalty.
Should flocks stray from the canadas and do any damage, their
owners were to pay for such damages only and were not to be
subjected to any quintas or fines.4 Throughout the reign of
1 Arch. Mesta1 J-ι, Jerez de Badajoz1 1563.
2 This list was confirmed in 1552. Nueva Recop., lib. 91 tit. 27, ley 12. It was
the same as that of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.
3 The thirty-two authorized Hiontazgos had come to be so widely accepted by
Mesta members as matters of course that even the name of that tax almost entirely
disappeared in documents drawn up after 1520 or thereabouts. A notable excep-
tion was the historic suit brought against the Mesta in 1535 by the famous poet-
courtier, Garcilaso de la Yega1 regarding his inheritance of the montazgo privileges
of Badajoz. The sheep owners succeeded in defeating the poet’s efforts to increase
that tax. Arch. Mesta1 B-ι, Badajoz1 1727. See Garcilaso’s Egloga Primera,
vv. 189-193.
4 The term quintar (to penalize, theoretically by the seizure of a fifth of the of-
fending flock) occurs frequently in mediaeval town ordinances and fueros. Cf.
Arch. Osuna1 Béjar Mss.1 caj. 301 no. ɪ (fuero of Béjar, 12n); Yanguas1 Dice, de
Antiguedades de Navarra, ii, p. 624; Acad. Hist., Mss. Fueros1 Privilegios1 y Orden-
anzas Municipales, i1 fols. 32-98 (fuero of Sepfilveda1 tit. 6); Urena and Bonilla1 eds.1
Fuero de Usagre, pp. 128-129. Quad. 1731, pt. ι1 pp. 53-681 contains decrees of
Alfonso XI (1347 ff.) forbidding penalties of quinto or quarto and allowing only the
seizure of a sufficient number of sheep to pay for the actual damage done. The
term quintar then disappeared from Mesta terminology, and did not come into
use again until the sixteenth century, when it meant simply ‘ to fine,’ and was never
interpreted to indicate the seizure of a fifth or any other specific fraction of a flock,
ɑf. a similar change in the medio diezmo, which was paid by the shepherds to mili-