294
THE MESTA
superiority of the sedentary over the migratory pastoral indus-
try.1 This material was used by Campomanes and the other
ministers to convince the king, though such conviction was
scarcely necessary, that the Mesta and its industry retarded
agrarian productivity and consequently the growth of popula-
tion. It was, therefore, a menace to the prosperity of the king-
dom and to the solvency of the royal treasury. This fiscal aspect
of the problem more than any other — much more than the
question of supporting the Estremaduran towns in their defence
of local privileges against the Mesta — was undoubtedly the
chief explanation for the hostility of Charles toward that organi-
zation and for its ultimate overthrow.
Once the invaluable friend and financial comforter of Castilian
monarchy, especially during the days of absolutism and central-
ized autocracy, the Mesta had lost its power and its usefulness;
it was now but a Quixotic mockery of its ancient splendor. The
treasure, amassed as the result of favors from its royal patrons,
had been lavished upon attorneys and courtiers in an effort to
revive and perpetuate its forgotten prestige. It was left, finally,
for the last and in many respects the wisest of Spanish autocrats
to seek the ultimate prosperity of his realm, not the immediate
profit of his exchequer, and to take away the remnants of the
privileges of this once pampered favorite of autocracy.
The days of the reaction under FerdinandVII (1814-33) brought
a belated respite to the Mesta. During this period a few of its
old privileges were regained, in exchange for various imposts
under the ancient names of portazgos and péages paid to royal
toll officers at some sixteen points, but most of these did not even
survive the Mesta itself.2 From a fiscal point of view, therefore,
the abolition of the organization in 1836 meant nothing. That
step simply swept away the useless wreckage of mediaevalism
and cleared the ground for the foundation of a pastoral industry
along modern lines.
ɪ Concordia de 1783, i, fols. 308-316.
2 A bundle of documents marked Derechos in the Mesta Archive contains a sum-
mary of these royal imposts, prepared by Brieva shortly before 1836. Arch. Mesta,
P-3, Pioz, 1837, also cites one or two such tolls that were still being collected at
that date.
PART IV
PASTURAGE