272 THE MESTA
1477, Cardenas was installed as master, a post which he held
until his death in July, 1493. The honor was then formally con-
ferred upon King Ferdinand, who had indeed been substantially
in control of the affairs of the Order ever since his determined
queen had made her historic , suggestion ’ before the assembled
knights at Ucles in the winter of 1476. Thenceforth the servicio
y montazgo was once more in fact a derecho real, a royal tax.
With characteristic efficiency, the new sovereigns promptly
ordered a report upon the size of the Mesta flocks, in order to
estimate the returns from this new income. It was found that
in 1477 the officers at the thirteen royal toll gates counted
2,694,032 migratory sheep,1 on which the servicio y montazgo
payments amounted to nearly 13,500 sheep or their money
equivalent. Instructions were immediately issued to cut down
the number of puertos, or toll houses, in order to save adminis-
trative costs,2 and to punish the fraudulent collectors of servicio
y montazgo ‘ whose deceptions caused great rises in the price
of wool and meat and brought no return to the royal treasury.’3
With the preliminary preparations well under way, the sovereigns
were able to go before the Cortes of Toledo in 1480 with a pro-
gramme for more drastic reform.
This historic assemblage, whose record in local fiscal affairs
has already been reviewed,4 was summoned primarily to set the
finances of the Castifian monarchy upon a sound basis. Grants
of funds in the form of juros which had been alienated from the
royal treasury were ordered restored to the crown, which thus
port and export taxes, and the total amounted to 105,∞o maravedis. Skilful
management and strict administration had raised the item by 1482 to over five
times that amount. Clemencin, EMgio de la Reina Dona Isabel (in Memorias de
la R. A. H. vi, Madrid, 1821), pp. 157, 160.
1 Arch. Simancas, Libros del Servicio y Montazgo, no. 879; also in Acad. Hist.,
Mss. Varios Documentos, E-r28, fol. 143. This was partly reprinted in Censo
de Poblacidn . . . en el Siglo XVI (Madrid, z829), p. ro8. Seven of the thirteen
puertos reported more than 250,000 sheep apiece: Venta del Cojo, 329,272;
Villaharta, 315,013; Torre de Esteban Ambran, 311,846; Socuéllamos, 298,89г;
Montalbin, 290,52r; DerramaCastanas, 269,4r2; and Abadia, 255,06r. SeeMap,
p. 19.
2 Arch. Mesta1 Prov. i, 5, τ478; Arch Ayunt. Cuenca, leg. 5, no. 29.
3 Arch. Mesta, C-ro, Cuenca, r478.
4 See above, p. 2ir.
ROYAL SHEEP TAXES OF THE AUTOCRACY 273
regained some 30,000.000 maravedis of its lost incomes.1 The
leading contributors to this sum were families which had been
enjoying large shares of the servicio y montazgo, and were now
compelled to turn these incomes back to the royal exchequer.
In order that there might be no misunderstanding, each town,
church, or private individual claiming the right to collect a part
of the servicio y montazgo was summoned to exhibit, within
ninety days, any authentic documentary evidence substantiating
such claims;2 and then in the same paragraph the sovereigns
proceeded, without waiting for the presentation of such evidence,
to locate the eleven toll gates at which were to be stationed the
only authorized collectors of this tax. To make the intention
of the crown perfectly plain even more definite instructions were
added: “Any one who asks for and collects it [the sheep ser-
vicio] elsewhere, is to die for his offence,” and unlike similar
pronouncements of previous rulers, this one was accompanied
with explicit provisions for its fulfilment.
A fixed policy was soon announced for farming out the servicio
y montazgo. Leases were cautiously assigned to a few staunch
friends of the crown, subject to various restrictions and to immedi-
ate cancellation at the will of the sovereigns.3 Old and long
obsolete laws, particularly those of the code of 1457, regarding
the administration of the tax, were enforced and for the first
time made effective.4 This included such measures as the exemp-
tion of breeding rams (morruecos) and bell ewes (encencerradas)
from seizure as part of the servicio, a rule which applied also to
local taxes.
The most Signifioant aspect of this programme for the enforce-
ment of the resolutions adopted in the Toledo Cortes of 1480 was
the frankly aggressive policy pursued by the new autocracy to-
1 Clemencto, Elogio de la Reina, pp. 147-149.
i Cortes, Toledo, 1480, pet. 10; Ordenanzas Reales, lib. 6, tit. 10, ley 13; Nueva
Recap., lib. 9, tit. 27, ley 15; Quad. 1731, pt. ι, pp. 131-146.
3 Brit. Mus., 1321 к i, no. I (1481): a lease of the royal sheep servicio of
the archbishopric of Toledo to Gutierrez de Cârdenas; Arch. Osuna, Benevente
Mss., caj. 2, no. 34 C1497): a similar lease for the town of Arroyo el Puerco.
4 See above, pp. 265-267; Arch. Mesta, Prov. i, 15, 58 (1496-97). The pro-
hibition of excessive fees for receipts (alb alas) and of any fees for recounting the
flocks was likewise enforced: Prov. i, 31, 6ι, 69, 72 (1495-99).