312
THE MESTA
towns. The limits of each were marked with mojones or stone
monuments, and the charters of the respective parties clearly de-
fined not only the rights of the recipient, but also the privileges
of the others.1 It is, for this reason, highly improbable that the
migratory pastoral industry aggressively dominated the agrarian
life of Castile during the later Middle Ages. The enclosures
were not seriously threatened.2 The fact that agriculture did not
thrive during that period must be ascribed to other causes than
the extravagance of the royal privileges bestowed upon the
Mesta. The towns appear, on the whole, to have been well able
to take care of themselves, their pastures, and their enclosures,
during the first two centuries of the Mesta’s existence; but after
that period, and with the coming of centralized autocracy, a
different state of affairs develops.
Indications of a different attitude on the part of the sheep
owners toward their pasturage problem began to appear even
before the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella. With the dis-
integration of all government and the spread of lawlessness dur-
ing the last decade of the reign of Henry the Impotent, the Mesta
evidently felt itself strong enough to throw off its old restraint
and to bid defiance to local privileges and ordinances. Its ad-
vocates in the Cortes and in court began to argue that since the
1 Gonzilez, vi, pp. 118-119: privilege of Badajoz (1277) permitting certain
enclosures so long as they did not encroach upon the canadas. Cortes, Medina
del Campo, 1318, pet. 14: forbidding trespass by the sheep beyond their canadas.
Brit. Mus., Eg. Ms. 513, pp. 85-86: privilege of Truxillo (1285) guaranteeing
its ox pastures against trespass by Mesta flocks. See also the OrdenanQas de
Sevilla (1511), p. 28; Arch. Ayunt. Madrid, sec. 2, leg. 358, nos. 49-59 (1300 δ.):
recognition by the Mesta of the absence of canadas through the jurisdiction of
Madrid and of the necessity for special permission for any migration across the
commons of its jurisdiction. This permission was given in 1432 after payment
of heavy tolls by the sheep owners; it was valid for only four days in the year, and
it is interesting to note that at the present time, on certain nights in the migrating
season, hundreds of transhumantes pass through the Puerta del Sol in the centre
of Madrid.
2 Most writers have been uniformly inaccurate on this point. Cf. Colmeiro, i,
pp. 258-262, 286, who is accepted by Goury du Rosian, Rosseeuw Saint-Hilaire,
Mari6jol, and others. All of these usually cautious observers have been surpris-
ingly ready to accept simply the evidence of a few such decrees as those of 1325
and 1329, cited above, without appreciating the frequent discrepancies between
the face value of written laws and their actual application and interpretation.
EARLY PASTURAGE PROBLEMS
313
town dehesas were pastes comunes, ‘ common pastures,’ they must
be commons for all comers, ∙υecinos or forasteros, citizens or
strangers. The feeble Henry and his avaricious favorites were
eager, for due considerations, to indorse this view with royal
edicts/ which later proved to be invaluable precedents for the
arsenal of the Mesta’s attorneys. Other measures were also
forthcoming with such ease that they inspired the sheep owners
with an entirely new militant spirit in their attitude toward the
problem of securing cheap and abundant grazing land, regardless
of the interests of agriculture or of sedentary pastoral life.
When, for example, pasturage rentals were raised by landlords
on account of debasements of currency, the Mesta was author-
ized by the crown to pay, not merely a lower rate than the new
figures, but even a quarter less than its older leases had stipu-
lated.2 Even these revised rentals were by no means assured to
the landowners, for the shepherds took advantage of the preva-
lent lawlessness and evaded payment on every opportunity.*
It was certainly evident that a radical change was taking place
in the pasturage policy of the Mesta. The old readiness to con-
form to local enclosure restrictions and to respect the land in-
terests of settled agriculture and non-migratory flocks was
rapidly disappearing. A new, and for local agrarian life more
ominous era was at hand.
ɪ Br. Mus., 1321 к 6, no. 5 (1462).
, Cories, Toledo, 1462, pet. 53.
, Ibid., pet. 17; Salamanca, 1465, pets. 5, ι6.