ЗО6
THE MESTA
This gave rise, within a decade after the completion of the Par-
tidas code, to the first charters of the “ national assembly or
concejo of shepherds,” the Mesta.
In view of this fact, it is curious that neither the early Mesta
charter of 1273 nor that of 1276 contains any direct allusion to
the pasturage privileges of the transhumantes.1 These docu-
ments are concerned almost entirely with the judicial protection
of the flocks against unjust local tolls. Their only approaches
to specifications regarding pasturage were, first, the enumeration
of the rights of shepherds in the forests, as to forage and wood
supplies for their uses, and, second, the restrictions placed upon
the size of the town ox enclosures, the areas of which were not to
exceed three aranzadas for every yoke pastured.2 Throughout
the later Middle Ages the above points were the chief features of
the pasturage problem: namely, the rights of the sheep in unoc-
cupied forest and waste lands, and the mutual obligations of
herdsmen and husbandmen regarding the passage of flocks near
enclosed areas. With regard to the first of these two factors, the
Mesta at once assumed an aggressive policy. It undertook to
check any attempts on the part of townsmen to interfere, by
means of montazgos, fines, and excessive tolls, with freedom of
access to waste lands and forests.
This active interest which the sheep owners manifested in the
wooded regions brings up the question of the deforestation of
Castile, one of the many crimes laid at the door of the Mesta.
There is some ground for the accusation in view of the unrestricted
liberties of the flocks in the forests. The charter of 1273 granted
permission to the shepherds to cut as many branches (ramonear) *
1 Colmeiro, i, p. 285, n. ɪ, is misleading in this regard. See my commentaries on
these charters of 1273 and 1276> 'n the Boletin de la Real Acad, de la Hisi., February,
1914, pp. 202-219.
s The usual definition of the aranzada is the area which can be ploughed with a
yoke of oxen in a day. Covarrubias, Tesoro, gives the form as alançada and
ingeniously defines it as the area “ que un buen braço puede arrojar una lança.”
The Informe de Toledo sobre pesos y medidas (Madrid, 1780), p. 169, gives the
aranzada as being equivalent to 400 esladales, which, according to L6pez Martfnez,
Dice. Encic. de Agricultura (Madrid, 1886), is 447 deciareas, or 4470 square metres,
that is, something over an acre.
5 This is quite like the old English right of , common of estovers ’ or ‘ botes
EARLY PASTURAGE PROBLEMS
3o7
as they might require for their corrals, fences, cabins,1 tan-bark,
fodder, fuel, and dairy implements. Far more serious to the life
of the forests was the herdsmen’s practice of burning the trees
in the fall to provide better spring pasturage — a custom which
has been common wherever the sheep industry has prevailed.2
The erosion which invariably sets in after such destruction was,
of course, aggravated by the damage wrought to small shoots
and to the moisture-retaining turf by the sheep themselves.
There can be no doubt that the Castilian forests suffered severely
from the regular visits of the millions of migrating sheep.3 It
seems certain, however, that during a greater part of the later
Middle Ages, Castile was still heavily forested, and that the
crude conservation measures of the thirteenth-century Cortes4
and those inauguarated by Alfonso the Learned in his code, Las
Siete Partidas,5 which were subsequently incorporated in various
local ordinances,6 were at least moderately successful. The
famous Libro de la Monteria, the royal hunting book of the
mid-fourteenth century,7 describes extensive wooded areas in all
cf. Robert Hunter, The Preservation of Open Spaces (London, 1902), pp. 3-4, 59-
66, 194-195. On the forest rights of sheep in mediaeval England, see Hunter,
pp. 191-192.
* The word is connected with the Castilian cabaΛa, a shepherd’s hut.
, Pelham, Essays (Oxford, 1911), p. 303, cites references from the classical
authors on the practice in southern Italy. See Cavaillès, “ Le déboisement dans
les Pyrénées françaises,” in Ken. de Paris, 15 Nov., 1903, pp. 287-314.
’ On the history of attempts at forest conservation and the gradual deforesta-
tion of Castile, see B. E. Fernow, History of Forestry (Toronto, 1907), pp. 298-
305; Cavaillès, “La question forestière en Espagne ”, in the Annales de géog.,
15 July, 1905, and “ L’économie pastorale dans les Pyrenees ”, in the Rev. gén. des
sciences, 15 Sept., 1905; Weiss, L’Espagne depuis Philippe II, ii, p. 103; Jordana,
Voces Forestales, p. 226.
4 Cortes, Valladolid, 1258, pet. 42, and Jerez, 1268, pet. 39: “he who sets fire to
a forest is to be thrown into it.” Cf. Valladolid, 1351, pet. 61. The last is a com-
plaint regarding fires caused, not by shepherds, but by peasants for the clearing of
the land. 5 Part. 7, tit. 16, ley 28.
β Ordenanzas que Ios senates de Granada mandaron guardar (Granada, 1672),
pp. 44-49; Larruga, v, pp. 263 ff.: forest ordinances of Segovia; Arch. Ayunt.
Câceres, Docs, tiempo Isabel, nos. 53-55. Alonso, Recop. y Comentarios . . . de
Navarra, ii, pp. 272,307, and Fuero de Navarra (Pamplona, 1815), pp. 175 S., give
the early Navarrese laws on the subject.
7 Biblioteca Venatoria, ed. José Gutiérrez de la Vega (Madrid, 1877-99, 5
vols.), i, ii.