CHAPTER XVI
THE SUPREMACY OF THE MESTA’S PASTURAGE
PRIVILEGES
Agrarian England of the early Tudors compared with agrarian Castile of Ferdinand
and Isabella. Pastoral mercantilism. Enclosures in England and in Castile.
The pastoral policy of the Catholic Kings. Deforestation. Posesiin or perpetual
leasing of pasturage. Collective bargaining for pasturage by Mesta members.
Agriculture grazing in the reign of Charles V. Growth of the non-migratory
pastoral industry. Repressive measures against agriculture.
The history of pasturage, of enclosures, and of sheep raising in
Tudor England has been so frequently and thoroughly investi-
gated that any intimation of a new point of view on that subject
might appear presumptuous. Nevertheless the pastoral history
of the corresponding era in Castile, the period of Ferdinand and
Isabella and of their sixteenth-century successors, reveals cer-
tain striking contrasts with and parallels to England’s experience
with enclosures and pastures, which suggest a new line of re-
search in English agrarian affairs and point toward hitherto
unsolved pastoral problems in the island kingdom.
The English enclosure movement and the similar process in
Castile, which we shall examine in this chapter, synchronized
to a surprising degree. In each case the episode had its beginnings
in a stimulation of the sheep industry in the fourteenth cen-
tury. That industry was rapidly developed, at the close of the
fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth, because of the
mercantilistic ambitions of powerful rulers who had their eyes
upon lucrative returns from the trade in wool, a high priced,
compact, and easily exportable commodity with a large foreign
market. The exploitation of the confiscated monastic lands in
England and the acquisition of the great properties of the mili-
tary orders by the crown in Castile contributed materially to
the growth of the pastoral industry in both countries during the
middle decades of the sixteenth century. Thereafter, however,
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PASTURAGE PRIVILEGES OF THE MESTA 3i5
in each of the two kingdoms there is apparent a gradual increase
of enclosures, not so much for large scale sheep raising enter-
prises, as for the small copyholder in the case of England and for
sedentary flocks and peasant agriculture in the case of Castile.
In each country the high courts — chancery in England and
Chancillerfas in Castile — protected the movement, and in each
the motive to enclose the common lands was supplied by a
desire to stimulate sedentary sheep raising. The ultimate effect
in both was to promote small scale agriculture.1
One significant aspect of the whole problem stands out clearly
in the case of Castile and suggests an inquiry regarding sheep
raising in England. In the peninsula the element which fought
against the enclosure movement, and, in fact, successfully ob-
structed its progress for two centuries, was the large scale mi-
gratory pastoral industry. In mediaeval and early Tudor Eng-
land the anti-enclosure interests were very largely the agricul-
tural classes. This contrast between the two countries suggests
the need of further inquiry into the pastoral history of the
northern kingdom in order that some further light may be thrown
upon the reasons for the comparative scarcity of enclosures in
various western, northern, and eastern counties. What was the
precise character of sheep raising in, for example, the Cotswold
region during the period under discussion ? Was it by any
chance of a modified migratory type, comparable, on a small
scale, with the roving Castilian industry ? Sheep migrations
were by no means unknown in the British Isles,2 and the marked
parallel between the enclosure movement in the island kingdom
and in Castile raises the question as to whether there might not
have been some similarity in this regard as well. In any case
there is yet to appear a thorough study of the history of the sheep
industry in those areas in England where enclosures were least
ɪ Harriett Bradley, The Enclosures in England (New York, 1918), summarizes
the views of earlier and more extensive investigations, notably those by Gay,
Leadam, and Miss Leonard. She emphasizes the influence of the desire for ferti-
lizing and resting the soil as perhaps the leading motive for pasturage enclosures,
especially during the Tudor and Stuart periods.
1 Duke of Argyll, Scotland as it was and as it is (Edinburgh, 1887, 2 vols.), i,
PP∙ 255 ff∙