2δθ
THE MESTA
This unceremonious and totally unprecedented proposal to
increase the sheep owners’ contribution to the royal exchequer
by over fifty per cent (the servicio y montazgo of that year had
been 6,311,640 maravedis) brought startled protests from those
worthies; but the tempting form of the security quieted their
wrath, and it was voted to raise the sum by extra assessments
upon the flocks as they passed southward in the following fall.
In January, 1519, within a few days after Charles had received
the news of the death of his grandfather, the Emperor Maxi-
milian, a messenger sped out to Talavera, where the Mesta was
in session, and laid in Dr. Palacios’s hands an even more per-
emptory mandate than that of the previous year. In polite but
firmly worded sentences the request was made, not for a ‘ loan,’
but for a ‘ subsidy [servicio] for the purposes of the king.’ This
was the Mesta’s contribution toward winning the imperial crown
for the young sovereign. The costs of empire were thus promptly
and impressively brought home to the organized wealth of
Castile.
In the following September, two Flemish accountants of the
royal exchequer appeared unannounced in the midst of the Mesta
session at Aillon and presented authorizations for an audit of
that body’s accounts of the previous ten years. This was almost
too much for the Castilian pride of the sheep owners. They pro-
tested vehemently against such a presumptuous intrusion upon
their ancient privacy and privileges, which no monarch of the
past two centuries had ever thus violated; but their learned
President could cite no legal obstacle to such proceedings, and
the royal treasury soon secured complete records of the resources
and tax-yielding possibilities of the country’s largest industry.1
We can readily appreciate, therefore, why the Mesta should add
its protests to those of the realm against the impertinence of the
young sovereign’s Flemish courtiers, whose shameless profligacy,
foreign interests, and grandiose ambitions were about to im-
poverish the fair plains and peaceful flocks of Castile.
for life, and not as a permanent concession for the royal patrimony; the latter did
not come until the bull of May 4, 1523, was promulgated.
1 Arch. Mesta1 Cuentas1 September, 1519.
ROYAL SHEEP TAXES OF THE AUTOCRACY
281
Charles lost no time in preparing to hurry out of his realms
before this storm of angry complaints should break. He sum-
moned the Cortes to remote and supposedly safe Santiago, later
transferring the sessions to Coruna. The Mesta was not in the
least disconcerted by this move; it promptly sent its corps of
experienced attorneys and notaries, who gave conspicuous help
to the deputies in their denunciation of the Flemish interlopers
and in demands for reforms.1 When these verbal protests had
failed and the violence of the comunero uprisings broke out, the
individual members of the Mesta, inspired by the legal advisers
and leaders of their organization, played prominent parts. Of
this there is ample evidence in the activities of wool workers
and sheep raisers in such Mesta centres as Segovia, Zamora,
Burgos, Soria, and Cuenca. As a body, however, the Mesta
took no official action in this violent outburst of national protest
against the exploitations of foreign interlopers.
Thereafter, whenever Charles visited his peninsular realms the
sheep owners were reminded of his presence by another demand
for a forced loan.2 During the first thirty strenuous years of his
reign, the Emperor secured in this manner a total of nearly
thirty million maravedis. This sum was collected in instalments
of from three to four million maravedis whenever the campaigns
against Francis I or Tunis or the Lutherans demanded funds.
The Mesta’s protests soon ceased, however, when the glories of
the Empire and of the pious crusades against Indians, unbeliev-
ers, and heretics reflected their light upon Castile.3 It should not
ɪ Arch. Mesta, Cuentas, August, 1520: itemized account of the costs of this
unusual pilgrimage to Santiago.
2 In November, 1525, partly in order to placate the Mesta, Charles issued a
sweeping confirmation of its ancient privileges and charters, beginning with the
first ones of 1273 and 1285. original of this document is magnificently illum-
inated, the initial having a well executed portrait of Charles, probably the earliest
representation of the young Emperor with a beard. See Frontispiece.
• Arch. Mesta, Cuentas, January, 1524; January, 1525; February, 1526;
February, 1528; August, ɪʒɜʒ; August, 1343. The funds were usually raised by
extra assessments upon the flocks at the puertos, but when the demands were urgent,
the loan was usually negotiated on the credit of the Mesta with bankers at the
annual fairs of Medina del Campo, who in turn sometimes resorted to exchange on
Valencia. The Mesta accounts for August, 1543, give the details of such a trans-
action.