290
THE MESTA
dreds of shirts and shoes lavished upon the voters of towns
whose deputies in the Cortes had been conspicuously hostile to
the Mesta. In the days of its opulence under the patronage of
sixteenth-century autocracy, the Mesta had found such expendi-
tures quite unnecessary,1 but other and more dubious times had
come. The poverty-stricken sovereign could be influenced with
money; perhaps some of the more troublesome among his
equally impecunious subjects might be reached in a like manner.
Nor did the Mesta confine its efforts entirely to the constitu-
encies of the militant southern deputies of the Cortes. In Sep-
tember, 1629, some 2,300,000 maravedis were given to “ varias
personas ” in the form of censos, or income-yielding annuities.
Who these various persons were is not recorded, but some light
is shed upon the question of their identity by the fact that,
shortly after that date, certain members of the Royal Council
began to urge not only the most sweeping confirmation of the
old Mesta charters, but also the concession of new and extrava-
gantly liberal privileges involving unrestricted pasturage rights.
These episodes cannot be described exactly as irregular finance,
since such practices were quite common at that time. Rather
do they serve as illustrations of the fiscal history of the Mesta
throughout this depressing epoch — a sordid record of bickering,
squandering, and chicanery. The usefulness of the organization,
both as a regulator of the pastoral industry and as a source of
legitimate revenue to the crown, had long since passed. Its pre-
tensions were scorned and laughed at in all the law courts of the
realm. Such favor as it still enjoyed in the eyes of the decadent
monarchy was bought and paid for in the manner described
above. Although, thanks largely to the acquisitions of royal juros
and other taxes, its accounts continued to show favorable bal-
ances for the greater part of the seventeenth century, indications
of financial decay were not slow to appear.
The highest annual profits of the Mesta had synchronized with
the period of extravagant royal concessions to the sheep owners,
namely, in the early years of the decade 1630-40, when the surplus
* The only instances of alms before 1604 occur in the vouchers of the Presidents,
who occasionally wished to be reimbursed for a real given to a poor shepherd.
ROYAL SHEEP TAXES OF THE AUTOCRACY
2ÇI
each year averaged from 35,000,000 to 40,000,000 maravedis. But
the persistent demands of Philip IV (1621-65) and his ambitious
minister, Olivarez, soon made inroads upon this tempting fund.
The crafty premier, in particular, had no scruples about abusing
the fiscal privileges of the lucrative presidency of the Mesta.
Furthermore, the reverses suffered by Spain at the hands of the
Italians, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and English, from Naples,
Rocroi, and the Dunes to Haiti and Jamaica, gave ample pre-
texts for ‘ emergency ’ contributions from the Mesta. The inevi-
table result was not long in coming. Within a decade after the
prosperous years just mentioned, the annual credit balances had
fallen to about 15,000,000 maravedis. In 1652 wholesale debase-
ment of the currency cut the annual returns from the various fixed
juros and other investments to 7,000,000 maravedis. Although
some later years showed an occasional improvement, the general
level of the annual surplus sank steadily, until it actually dis-
appeared intermittently during the reign of the last and worst
of the Hapsburgs, Charles II (1665-1700).
With the accession of the first of the Bourbons, Philip V, efforts
were made at once by the royal exchequer to adopt the centralized
administrative methods of Bourbon France. Many of the wide-
spread juros and other outstanding obligations were promptly
confiscated, a step which caused much suffering for the upper
classes, and great loss for the Mesta, which by that time derived
almost all of its income from these annuities.1 The Bourbon ad-
visers of the young king were by no means ready, however, to see
this once prosperous and, for the crown, distinctly profitable
institution lose all of its value, and plans to rehabilitate the
wrecked finances of the Mesta were soon begun. The greater
part of the old servicio y montazgo was restored to the royal
exchequer, so that the amount received from this source in 1714
was 16,558,000 maravedis.2 The Royal Council was placed in
charge of the tax, and the details of its administration were en-
trusted to those invaluable agents of Bourbon centralization,
1 A short Account of the Spanish Juros in a letter to a Citizen of London (London,
1713): Brit. Mus., T. 1700 (7).
2 Uztariz, Thedrica y Prdctica de Comercio (Madrid, 1757), p. 152; Arch. Mesta,
Prov. ɪii, 51 (1730).