302
THE MESTA
casionally these privileges were restricted as to the number of
sheep so favored, or as to the area and location of the pasturage
conceded, but as a rule they were vaguely and Sweepingly
phrased to permit grazing on all lands not owned and actually
used by private individuals. These concessions were obviously
not intended to be interpreted literally; for they conflicted at
many points with town charters, which frequently reserved ad-
joining waste lands and commons for the exclusive use of local
flocks. In consequence of these contradictory privileges, there
was ample ground for conflicts between the opposing parties.
Since the cities and towns had developed in strength and im-
portance long before the effective organization of the migratory
pastoral interests, the latter were forced, as a rule, to give way.
In later years, however, when the support of powerful and am-
bitious monarchs was given to the Mesta, the latter resurrected
all of the old sweeping privileges granted to migrating shepherds
in various parts of the kingdom. These it undertook to enforce;
and the attempt met with marked success, especially under the
patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella.
In addition to these royal pasturage grants, there were other
and even more important factors contributing to the solution of
the pasturage problem of the migrants. The intermittent
danger of Moorish raids had kept the plains of La Mancha,
Estremadura, and the Guadalquivir valley clear of population,
save for the larger and well fortified cities. Such patches of
arable lands as had been developed were in the vicinity of these
towns; and the peasant fanners usually welcomed the visits of
the flocks, before they became too numerous, because of the
fertilization which they provided.1
In spite of these encouragements to the unobstructed move-
ments of the migrants, enclosures by individuals and especially by
towns were steadily going on. From the eighth century onward
there are indications, mostly in the town ordinances and fueros,
of various types of enclosed pastures and regions. The arbustum
υitatum or bustum vitatum, for example, later became one of the
* F. de Cirdenas, Propiedad Territorial en Espana (Madrid, 1873-73, 2 vols.),
ii, p. 288.
EARLY PASTURAGE PROBLEMS
ЗО3
cosas vedadas or ‘ forbidden things ’ from which the Mesta flocks
were strictly excluded. The divisa of the early Middle Ages ap-
peared in the days of the Mesta as the defesa or dehesa.1 These
‘ forbidden ’ and ‘ divided ’ areas were reserved for the exclusive
use of flocks belonging to the townspeople, and were simply
enclosed sections of the éxidos or êjidos, the town commons.
The dehesas от Iugares vedados у dehesados were set aside for
local non-migratory animals, either permanently or for certain
months in the year, as for instance the agostaderos (August pas-
ture), or invernaderos (‘ winter pasture ’). Sometimes they were
reserved for the use of specified animals, such as oxen, brood
mares, steers for the local abattoir, or war horses? Oxen were
particularly favored in the early town charters of Estremadura,
La Mancha, and Andalusia, where the ox pasture or dehesa de
bueyes — sometimes called the dehesa boyal or the dehesa de labor
— was carefully guarded from intrusion by migratory sheep.8
By the end of the twelfth century it had become customary for
the Castilian monarchs, in granting the usual town privileges for
sheep migrations in all parts of the realm, to include in the con-
cession a warning that the flocks must not trespass upon any
dehesas, grain fields, vineyards, orchards, or prados de guadana
(mown meadows).4 These types of enclosures became known
ɪ For a discussion of the philological history of these terms, see Wiener, Cow-
mentary Io the Germanic Laws (Cambridge, Mass., r915), pp. 116, 136. Thefuero
of Soria in Loperraez Corvalan, Descrip. Obispado de 0sma, iii, pp. 91 ff., gives a
good picture of the administration of town dehesas at the close of the thirteenth
century. See also Fuero de Sepülveda, ed. F. Callejas (Madrid, 1857), tit. 170; and
Urena, Fuero de Zorita de Ios Canes, pp. 335, 343.
2 Expediente de 1771, part ι, fols. 56 ff., enumerates and defines various types
of enclosed pastures.
• The care of oxen has been the subject matter of legislation in Castile for many
centuries. Cf. Texada y Otalora, “ Memoria sobre las ventajas . . . de bueyes 6
mulas,” in Mem. Soc. Econ., v (Madrid, 1795)> and Miguel Nicolas de Palma,
ibid., iii, pp. 8-14 (1787), on the history of the ox in Castilian agriculture. See also
Charles Weiss, L’Espagne depuis le règne de Philippe II (Paris, 1844, 2 vols.), ii,
p. ιo6; Jordana, Voces Forestales, p. 43; and especially Ramirez, Bibliografia
Agronbmica, p. 956. In x347 cattle were included in the cabana real-. Quad. 1731,
pt. r, p. 49. In Valencia the ox pastures were known as boalares∙. Branchat,
Derechos y Regalia . . . de Valencia, iii, pp. 6-8.
4 Colmenares, Hist, de Segovia (ed. of 1640), p. 163 (1200): “in ɪnessibus, vel
in vineis, vel in hortis, vel in pratis, vel in defesis, quae soient esse cognitae.”