274
THE MESTA
ward the towns. Local justices, and later the royal corregidores,
were instructed to report annually at the end of April upon the
administration of the laws regarding royal sheep tolls. Within
a short time we find a commission of ∙υeedores, or inspectors,
checking up these reports each spring. Caceres, Plasencia,
Trujillo, and other pasturage centres, which had once regarded
themselves as quite above such pronouncements, soon found
that they were now confronted with a monarchy which proposed
to enforce its edicts.1 This practice of using the sheep servicio of
the crown against what had once been recognized as the preroga-
tives of the towns soon gave rise to one of the favorite policies
of Ferdinand and Isabella. Hereafter they lost no opportunity
to employ this well developed piece of royal fiscal machinery as
a means of restricting local and private tax privileges. Thus we
find them once more adapting skilfully an older institution — in
this case the hitherto inconspicuous servicio y montazgo — to the
purposes and profits, political and financial, of their dynasty.2
The coming of the House of Austria in 1516 meant a new epoch
in the financial history of Spain. She suddenly found herself
1 Arch. Ayunt. Cuenca, leg. 5, no. 29; Clemencin, op. cit., p. 256; Arch. Ayunt.
Ciceres, Docs. Isabella, nos. 17-19, 25, 45: a series of mandates to corregidores
and veedores dated 1481-90, regarding the administration of the tax near Cuenca,
Ciceres, Trujillo, Plasencia, and other towns which had not complied with the law
of 1480.
, Arch. Mesta, A-9, Avila, 1484: a decree of the Royal Council requiring that
the methods of the servicio collectors be adopted by the tax officers of the church
of Avila in order that local sheep dues might be collected with due respect for the
prerogatives and interests of the royal exchequer. Brit. Mus., 1321 к 6, no. 22:
a royal c(dula of 1500 instructing the Corregidor and various Servicio officers to
take charge of the administration of all local sheep taxes in Cordova. This policy
also became apparent with reference to the tax called Iravesio, a fifteenth-century
royal toll on sheep making short migrations from one town or bishopric to another,
but not passing any royal toll gates: Quad. 1731, pt. 2, p. 249; Coneordia de 1783,
i, fol. 287; Nueva Recop., lib. 9, tit, 27, ley 3. It had fallen into the hands of Henry
IV’s favorites and had been parcelled out with the servicio among their satellites.
Ferdinand and Isabella now took it over, and, because of its more restricted local
character, as contrasted with the servicio, were able through their corregidores to
use it as a means of absorbing local sheep taxes. Arch. Simancas, Diversos Cas-
tilla, 117 {ca. 1484); Brit. Mus., 1321 к ɪ, no. ɪ (1481); Arch. Mesta, A-5, Aldea
Nueva del Camino, 1504 ff. On the rapid rise of royal income under Ferdinand and
Isabella, cf. Clemencln, pp. 153 ff.; Haebler, Wirlschaftliche Blute Spaniens, p.
xo8.
ROYAL SHEEP TAXES OF THE AUTOCRACY
275
swept along on a tide of world imperialism, and if her newly
united realm was to weather the stress, one of her first needs
was more revenue. Interminable foreign wars with France, the
Turks, the Protestants, England, and the Netherlands taxed the
waning resources of Spain to the limit. The conquest and gov-
ernment of the vast dominions of the New World, which were
greatly extended in 1580 with the acquisition of Portugal and
her possessions, laid further burdens upon the treasury, which
were balanced only in part by the cargoes of the silver fleets.
This elaborate programme of world empire, combined with an
amazing incompetence and maladministration among fiscal
officials, brought the sixteenth-century Hapsburgs into the
gravest financial difficulties.1 Under the Emperor and his son
this meant imposing budgets, armies of collectors and adminis-
trators, elaborate programmes, proposals, and campaigns, all of
which gradually collapsed into ruin in the seventeenth century.
Before the last Hapsburg had died in 1700, that proud family had
been reduced literally to house-to-house beggary for its meagre
revenues. The exploitation of every possible source of income
was therefore imperative, and as a consequence there came the
revival of many old taxes and the invention of several new ones.
To all of these the pastoral industry contributed heavily and in
various forms.
Not one of the older royal exactions was overlooked. The
almojarifazgo,2 the alcabala, and the diezmos de puertos secos
were all applied more strictly than ever to the migratory flocks
and to export and sale of their products.3 The alcabala de yerbas,
a tax on pasturage rentals created by Ferdinand and Isabella,
was levied with unusual severity by the fiscal agents of the
Hapsburgs. They found a ready pretext for such assessments
in the real estate speculations of Mesta members who had
1 The financial history of the sixteenth century is well reviewed in Haebler, op.
cit., pp. 108-134; Ansiaux, op. cii., pp. 543, 552, 557; and Colmeiro, ii, pp. 541-570,
passim. The latter, p. 556, gives impressive data on the number of fiscal officials
of this period — variously estimated at from 60,o∞ to 160,000.
2 See below, p. 424.
• See below, p. 286. Philip Il’s wool export tax of 1558 {Cortes, Valladolid,
pet. 9) was particularly trying for the Mesta; see p. 46.