3l6 THE MESTA
in evidence. When such a study is made it is quite probable
that the experience of the Castilian Mesta may offer useful
suggestions for the approach to the problem in Britain. Pas-
toral England under the mercantilists early Tudors was to a
striking degree similar to pastoral Castile under the Catholic
Kings, to which we must now address our attention.
In the presence of the high court or chancilleria at Valladolid,
late in 1501, a distinguished attorney representing the city of
Câceres ɪ made what was for that period a truly surprising obser-
vation. With reference to certain decrees issued by Ferdinand
and Isabella granting excessive grazing rights to the Mesta, he
declared that “ such things cannot be called just or honest,
since they are not for the public good but for the private in-
terests of a favored few! ” The remark came at the close of a
scathing denunciation of the royal policy of systematic repres-
sion of agriculture and sedentary sheep raising. It was daring
beyond anything that had been heard in a Castilian court of
justice in many a long year, coming as it did in such times of un-
questioned obedience to the determined policies of the newly
united monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella. There must have
been the gravest provocation to elicit a statement so danger-
ously near treason. A careful survey of those policies and of
their administration will reveal that there was indeed provo-
cation for the sentiment of the attorney from Caceres.
As in the case of the judicial and financial affairs of the Mesta,
so in matters of pasturage, the accession of Ferdinand and Isa-
bella marked the beginning of a new era in the development of
the organization. Theirs was the task of laying new founda-
tions for the agrarian life of Castile. Generations of economic
confusion and political turmoil had so exhausted the country
that there was dire need for almost any kind of reconstruction.
A systematic programme of agricultural promotion, supple-
mented with plans for a diversifying sedentary pastoral industry
and for forest conservation, would by no means have been be-
yond the capabilities of these enlightened sovereigns. It is true
1 See below, p. 324.
PASTURAGE PRIVILEGES OF THE MESTA
317
that geographic obstacles and social prejudices might have de-
terred somewhat the rapid and uniform advance of agriculture
throughout Castile. Nevertheless the agrarian reforms of Charles
III in the eighteenth century, achieved in the face of these very
obstacles as well as of others which did not exist at the time of
the Catholic Kings, inspire justifiable regrets that the newly
united monarchy committed the realm so unreservedly to the
large scale migratory pastoral industry. It would be difficult
indeed to exaggerate the possibilities of such a programme of
agricultural development had it been carried out systematically
and vigorously during the forty crucial and future-building
years of this reign. Most unfortunately for the future of Castile,
Ferdinand and Isabella lost no time in displaying that marked
partiality toward the pastoral exploitation of their kingdoms
which was to be so conspicuous throughout this period.1 The
explanation for this attitude, which was given such emphatic
expression in all of their Mesta legislation, was their mercan-
tilistic interest in promoting the source of supply for what had
long been Spain’s principal and almost only export commodity.
It was their persistent devotion to this policy of subordinating
agriculture to pasturage which forced later monarchs to confess
somewhat sadly that “ the exploitation and conservation of the
pastoral industry is the principal sustenance of these king-
doms.” 2 Every effort was made to extend pasturage, not only
in Castile, but in the other parts of the peninsula. Any local
attempts to improve agriculture, such as took place in Murcia,
and in Granada after the reconquest of that kingdom, were
openly forbidden, or else choked off by prohibitive export taxes.
These measures soon encouraged the entregadores to leave their
beaten paths in the canadas and to levy profitable fines for vio-
lations of the new laws.3 Nor did such efforts on the part of the
itinerant magistrates lack support from the monarchs. In 1489
a broadly worded royal decree was issued, authorizing the cor-
rection of canada boundaries along the lines followed fifty years
1 Haebler, Wirtschaftliche Blute Spaniens1 p. 24; Ansiaux in the Revue d’écono-
mie politique, June, 1893, p. 528, citing references.
2 Nueva Recop., lib. 3, tit. 14, ley ι.
3 Arch. Mesta, A-3, Albacete, 1487 ff.