258
THE MESTA
easily found, such as the security of the flocks in their annual
migrations, or the support of the Moorish war to secure more
pasturage.1 Although there is no direct evidence available upon
the matter, it is very probable that the royal recognition on
September 2,12 73, of the national sheep owners’ gild of the Mesta,
which had already been in existence before that date, came as a
direct result of this new contribution to the crown. No such
compensation is mentioned in the charter of 1273, but if none was
agreed to by the herdsmen it would be almost a unique instance
in the history of such documents.
This new servicio de ganados or royal sheep tax soon became a
regular credit item on the accounts of the royal treasury. By
1277 it was being farmed out to various Jewish bankers in bien-
nial leases at 24,000 maravedis a year, a precedent which was
usually, though not invariably, followed by later mediaeval
sovereigns.2 During the remaining years of Alfonso’s reign
the tax was assessed upon all sheep throughout the kingdom,
whether transhumantes or estantes (sedentary flocks). The
civil wars between the aged monarch and his son Sancho found the
latter in control of the northern mountains of Castile and Leon.
Thus when he came to the throne as Sancho IV in 1284, his com-
mand over the home country of the transhumantes and his desire
to win the support of the owners of the southern and western
estantes induced him to exempt the latter from the senicio de
ganados, which thereupon became what it ever after continued
to be, the royal tax on migratory flocks.® This exemption of
* The characteristics of this servicio are indicated in Arch. Hist. Nac., Ona Mss.,
no. 127 (1272); Bull. Ord. Milit. Alcant., p. 113 (1273); and Memorial Histirico,
i, pp. 309, 314 (1277). The theoretical right of the crown to levy such a tax was
discussed, with various precedents from the history of the Romans, Israelites, and
Goths, in the course of a suit brought against a collector of the royal sheep tax in
1747 (Arch. Mesta, Prov. iv, ɪɪ). Among the authorities cited are Joseph Salazar,
Origen de la Renta del servicio y montazgo∙, Otero, De Paseuis (copy in Paris Bib.
Nat.); and Pedro Salcedos, Comentarios sobre la Nueva Recopilaciin.
s Acad. Hist., Salazar Mss., est. 10, leg. 21; Cortes, Alcalâ de Henares, 1348,
pet. 43: Alfonso XI here indicates his inability to reform certain abuses of the
servicio collectors until the annual lease of the tax expired. Bib. Nac. Madrid,
Ms. 13126, fol. 139: a lease of the servicio to certain Jews by Sancho IV.
• Acad. Hist., Coria Mss., 25~r-C 8, pp. 93 fi.; ibid., Salazar Mss., !-41,
pp. 232-234; ibid., Plasencia Mss., 12-19-3/38, p. 50; Quad. 1731, pt. ɪ,pp. 17-18:
MEDIAEVAL ROYAL SHEEP TAXES 259
estantes from the servicio was jealously guarded by the Cortes
representatives from the south and west.1
By 1300 the collection of the tax had become systematized. On
each of the main canadas certain puertos or toll gates had been
established, at which the servicio was levied on the flocks as they
passed southward.2 Attempts by the shepherds to evade the col-
lectors by leaving the canadas promptly roused the ire both of the
crown treasurers and of the towns whose lands were being tres-
passed upon. In such instances the local justices dealt out severe
penalties to the herdsmen, who had wandered from their can ad as
and were, therefore, regarded as no longer under the jurisdiction
of their entregadores.3 Occasionally during the stronger kingship
of Alfonso XI (13 г 2-50) the royal tax gatherers felt secure in
taking matters into their own hands. They frequently left their
posts on the canadas and proceeded to levy the servicio upon
sheep wherever they were to be found — on the march, in town
markets, fairs, or pastures. These violations of the original pur-
poses of the tax brought emphatic denunciations from the Cortes,4
which were usually answered with promises that the assessments
would be confined strictly to migrants ‘ as soon as the present
lease of the Servicio expires.’ Such assurances were, however,
very gradually fulfilled, and it was only after several decades of
continued insistence by the Cortes in defence of the local non-
migratory estantes that the crown’s sheep tax was finally levied
decrees of 1285 ff.; Arch. Ayunt. Cuenca, Becerro Mss., pp. 20-21, contains a
privilege of 1293 from Sancho exempting from this servicio the estantes of Cuenca,
which was also a prominent Mesta centre, in view of “ Ios grandes servicios que
nos tomamos.”
ɪ Cories, Valladolid, 1293, pet. 8; Ulloa, Privilégias de Cdceres, p. 115; Acad.
Hist., Salazar Mss., I-41, pp. 235-237.
i Cortes, Zamora, 1301, pet. 33. Collection on the northward march was ob-
jected to by the sheep owners, because their payments of pasturage rentals in the
south left them without funds. Furthermore the sheep had lambs and heavier
wool after their southern sojourn, and the collection of this toll in kind on the
north-bound trip was therefore regarded as unfair to the sheep owners. The
establishment of these puertos for the royal servicio was probably suggested by a
similar device for the collection of certain local montazgos along the sheep walks.
3 See decree of 1304 in favor of the town of Buitrago, Appendix E, pp. 374-375.
4 Cories, Medina del Campo, 1318, pet. 16; Valladolid, 1322, pet. 64; Madrid,
1339, pet. 28; Alcalâ de Henares, 1348, pet. 43; Valladolid, 1351, pet. 57.