318
THE MESTA
previous to that date. Armed with this document, the entrega-
dores pushed back the boundary marks of enclosures on both sides
of the sheep highways, on the pretext that the townspeople had
surreptitiously altered them at some time during the past half
century.1 In some instances the death penalty was threatened
by the Mesta justices if the enclosure walls were again altered.2
Every possible device of the new government was turned to
the task of concentrating the rural energies and resources of
Castile upon the sheep industry. Seldom, if ever, has the whole
agrarian life of a people been held in so firm a grip or been made
to follow so strictly the single-minded purpose of a determined
administration. For forty years no measure was overlooked
which might contribute to the desired end — a truly astonishing
record of paternalism, even in an age of autocracy. The impor-
tation of wheat into Castile from Aragon was permitted in order
that there should be no inducements to plant on pasture lands.
Large tracts of the royal demesne in the Serena region of Estre-
madura and in the monies of Toledo were leased to the Mesta.8
As soon as the crown had acquired control of the vast estates of
the military orders,4 arrangements were also made for the ex-
ploitation of those highly esteemed pasturage regions? The ac-
tivities of the indefatigable entregadores were soon supplemented
by the cooperation of the corregidores, the most useful of royal
administrative agents, and of the special judge-inquisitor (juez
pesquisidor), that favorite device of the new autocracy. These
inquisitors were usually royal counsellors of the highest rank,
whom Mesta members soon found to be most efficacious in re-
stricting and even breaking down the enclosures of the more
important towns, monasteries, and military orders.8
1 Coneordia de 1783, ii, fol. 303.
* Arch. Mesta, A-ι, Albertura, τ495; A-ι, Azeluche, τ497 ff. It is interesting
to note that Morisco peasants were frequently mentioned as the defendants in suits
regarding the extension of arable land into the canadas.
, Arch. Simancas, Patronato Real, 1064 (1479); Clemencfn, El6gio, p. 155.
4 See above, p. 271.
6 Bull. Ord. Milit. Alcant., pp. 263, 457.
• Arch. Mesta, C-ю, Cuenca, 1477 ff.: a series of mandates of such a jua
Pesquisidor after an investigation of the highland pastures above Cuenca, which
fed, at that time, nearly 500,000 sheep.
PASTURAGE PRIVILEGES OF THE MESTA
319
The famous reform Cortes held at Toledo in 1480, instead of
insisting upon the curtailment of the Mesta’s pasturage privi-
leges, as has been alleged,1 took precisely the opposite stand.
The deputies obediently concurred with the announced policies
of the monarchs by commanding the evacuation of all parts of
town commons which had been preempted by local officials for
their personal uses during the recent period of misrule under
Henry IV.2 This measure was soon followed up, not only by
more general legislation guaranteeing the rights of the Mesta in
the common pastures,3 but also by making examples of a few of
the larger cities which still dared to put on bold fronts against
the pastoral policy of the new monarchy. In 1491 the city of
Avila was commanded to nullify its new ordinances which had
permitted the sale and enclosure of parts of the local commons.4
In the same year the spread of agriculture in the recently recon-
quered parts of the kingdom of Granada was sharply checked by
an edict forbidding enclosures unless specially licensed by the
crown.5 Even when royal licenses permitting enclosures were
granted, the towns were ordered to rent such enclosed fields for
pastoral purposes at least part of the time.6 The old ‘ five for-
bidden things ’ (cosa,s vedadas) — the orchards, grain fields,
vineyards, ox pastures, and mown meadows — were still to be
respected by the Mesta; but in each instance evidence must be
forthcoming, in case of doubt, that these enclosures were actually
being used for the purposes designated. The lack of such evi-
dence would mean the immediate removal of barriers and the
admission of the migrant flocks; and the entregadores were ever
ready, not only to prove the absence of any justification for the
enclosures, but to absolve the herdsmen from any blame or
charges, save for actual damage done when their animals tres-
passed.
1 Hume, Spanish People, p. 276; see above, pp. 210, 273.
a Nueva Recop., lib. 7, tit. 7, ley 3.
’ Ramirez, Pragmdticas id Reyno, fols. Ixii-Ixiii: decrees of 1489 and after, en-
forcing the measures of 1480.
i Ramirez, op. cit., fol. cxlviii; Jordana, Voces Forestales, p. 133.
6 Nueva Recop., lib. 7, tit. 7, Ieyes 10, ɪɪ, 13.
• Arch. Ayunt. Câceres, Docs. Isabel, no. 30; a royal permit of 1488 allowing
the leasing of such enclosures.