246
THE MESTA
power of the baronage and the ambitious clerics whenever these
threatened to take the place of the enfeebled sovereign in the
work of destroying the tax privileges of the towns. Occasion-
ally the defeated nobles turned to the Royal Council as a means of
circumventing the chancillerfas. The councillors, most of Whom
were themselves the heads of titled families, usually responded
eagerly to the suggestion of renewing hostilities against their old
enemies, the high courts at Valladolid and Granada.1 As a rule,
however, the old alignment continued throughout the seventeenth
century. On the one side stood the chancillerias, defenders of
local privileges, separatism, and decentralization; and on the
other, the Mesta, aided in its feeble efforts to retain its old ex-
emptions by that constant friend of autocracy and opponent of
local power, the Royal Council.
The reign of Philip III (1598-1621) formed a peaceful inter-
lude between the war-ridden periods which preceded and fol-
lowed. This brief respite was used by the monarchy to strengthen
its prestige by remodeling the old sixteenth-century system of
conciliar government. The series of administrative and advisory
councils with which Ferdinand and Isabella had surrounded
themselves appealed to the easy-going Philip’s love of association
with rival groups of flattering courtier favorites. As a result the
Royal Council was soon remodelled into a form not unlike the
Parlement of Paris, with a thoroughly centralized administra-
tive organization of chambers and ministries. Nothing could
suit the Mesta better, and it promptly made use of the friend-
ship of the Council by carrying as many cases as possible directly
to it and to its new ministries instead of risking the chance of
unfavorable decisions from the high courts at Valladolid and
Granada.2
ɪ Various instances of the opposition of the chancillerfas to the nobles and of
the assistance rendered to the latter by the Royal Council are found in Arch.
Osuna, Béjar Mss., caj. 8, no. 45; ibid., Infantazgo Mss., caj. 2, leg. 15, nos. 21-25;
Arch. Mesta, V-4, Villalpando, 1618; H-ι, Huelgas de Burgos, 1618 fi.
2 Instances of the increased eagerness of the Mesta attorneys to take advantage
of the supposedly increased power of the Council and to avoid the dangers of the
chancillerfas are found in Arch. Mesta, C-5, Casa Rubio, 1622; A-ι, Avanilla,
1639 (a successful attempt of the Council to check the tax exactions of a powerful
encomendero of the Order of Calatrava); B-ι, Baeza, 1639; B-4, Belorado, 1651;
TAXES UNDER THE HAPSBURGS AND BOURBONS 247
The Council proved loyal but sadly unequal to the task,
though its decisions in favor of the sheep owners and against the
local tax gatherers were frequent; too much so, in fact, for the
very frequency with which a given suit was renewed against
the same defendants was proof of the inefficacy of the litigation.
Cases were laid upon the tables of the Council for periods of
years, and even of decades, and the defendant tax collectors
were warned that ‘while the matter was under advisement, no
tolls or fees were to be levied upon the shepherds.’ Troops of
notaries were sent out ‘to gather evidence and sworn statements,’
and spent aimless, leisurely years about their lucrative tasks.1
The old statute books were searched for laws that might be
brought to bear against the local collectors; and even the long
forgotten laws of the Cortes of Toledo of 1480 were dragged out of
the honored past in the hope of ‘ stopping the levy of new taxes
and imposts upon the sheep.’2 New pragmaticas or decrees were
promulgated to endorse in sweeping terms the claims of the
Mesta. The most famous of these was issued in 1633, and
although it was primarily intended to regain some of the long
lost pasturage privileges of the Mesta, the latter’s attorneys
made frequent but hopeless attempts to apply its vague terms to
the restriction of local tax privileges. In this as in other respects,
however, the much discussed and widely misunderstood prag-
mâtica of 1633 was only so much paper.3 Had it been enforced,
the Mesta flocks would have trampled over Castile from border
to border in unhindered triumph, as indeed most writers — in-
cluding even Colmeiro, Weiss, Ansiaux, and Gounon-Loubens —
have assumed was the case.
But the day had long since passed when royal decrees, how-
ever drastic their terms might be, could bring much succor to the
Arch. Osuna, Manzanares Mss., caj. 3, leg. 3, no. 15. For a time in 1601-02 the
northern Chancilleria sat at Medina del Campo. Arch. Mesta, F-ι, Fuensaldana;
G-ι, Gomez Nabarro.
l Arch. Mesta, D-ι, Daganzo, 1660; C-9, Cordova, 1681; these cases were
pending twenty-five and forty-eight years, respectively.
2 Nueva Recop , lib. 9, tit. 27, ley 15: cited in Arch. Mesta, C-9, Cordova,
1681; A-ι, Avanilla, 1639.
’ See above, pp. 125-126.