322
THE MESTA
III, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, that any effective
measures were undertaken to remedy the desolation which had
been inaugurated during the ‘golden age’ of Castilian greatness.
By far the most pernicious, and unfortunately the most lasting,
contribution of Ferdinand and Isabella toward the supremacy
of the pastoral industry over agriculture was the law of posesion.
By this rule a Mesta member was granted the undisturbed per-
manent tenancy of a given field, either at the rental paid under
his earliest lease, or, if his flocks occupied these fields for a season
or even for a few months without being discovered by the land-
owner, for nothing at all. The origins of this extraordinary prin-
ciple may be found in the earliest extant code for the internal
administration of the Mesta, drawn up in 1492 by the distin-
guished court legist, Malpartida.1 Among the important clauses
of this document was one designed to prevent competition for
pasturage among the sheep owners. The scheme proved to be
a simple but quite effective arrangement for joint bargaining on
the part of the Mesta lessees. It was provided that each of the
four quadrillas or sections of the Mesta, having their headquar-
ters in Soria, Segovia, Cuenca, and Leon, should select annually
a procurador or representative. These four officers were to pro-
ceed to the chief pasturage regions in Estremadura and Andalusia
and there arrange with the landowners the terms and allotments
of leases for the coming season. To no member was there to be
assigned more land than his flocks actually required, and every-
thing was to be arranged so as to equalize conditions for all the
sheep owners. Every precaution was taken especially to prevent
that bugbear of mediaeval and early modern economic life,
competition.2 In so widely scattered an industry, joint action by
the lessees was possible only through a closely knit centralized
organization like the Mesta, firmly supported by the rapidly
rising ambitions of the new monarchy.
Ayunt. Soria, Actos y Acuerdos, 1537, 1558, contain communications with refer-
ence to the burning of extensive forests by Mesta members.
1 There was an earlier set of ordinances, drawn up probably in 1379, but this
has disappeared. Cf. Bravo, Noticia sueinta, p. 15; also above, p. 49. The text
of the 1492 code is found in Concordia de 1783, i, fols. 184-198.
t Concordia de 1783, i, fols. 195-196.
PASTURAGE PRIVILEGES OF THE MESTA
З23
This first plan of MaIpartida soon led to more emphatic
measures, and in January, 1501, the notorious posesiôn edict
was promulgated.1 Originally it was probably intended, as the
ordinance of 1492 indicates, to prevent disastrous competition
among Mesta members when dealing with the pasturage owners
of the southern and western lowlands, by guaranteeing the
priority of title to the earliest arrivals of the transhumantes.
But it was not long before a very different interpretation was
placed upon the rule of posesiôn. Astute officials of the Mesta
resurrected the old decrees of 1347, which vaguely described the
Mesta as representing all of the sheep owners of the realm,
whether migrant or not. Then they pointed out that the new
posesiôn law was intended “ to prevent competition between all
Mesta members and they were thus able to take into their
own hands the disposition of all pasturage leases throughout
Castile. Wherever the Mesta members went, even on their mi-
grations into Portugal, Navarre, and Aragon, the guarantees of
their privileges, under the law of posesiôn, went with them.2
This resulted in some difficulties before those three kingdoms
came under the jurisdiction of a unified Spanish monarchy, but
no effort was spared by the Catholic Kings and their equally
autocratic successors to give every advantage to this much
pampered industry.8
The pasturage towns promptly took up arms, in behalf of
ɪ The literature, both legislative and controversial, on posesiôn is more profuse
than that on any single phase of the Mesta’s history. The Quadernd or Mesta
code of 173 г has no less than r∑8 citations or separate references to it. See also
Cârdenas, Propiedad territorial en Espana, ii, pp. 301-310; Cos-Gayon1 in Revista
de Espafia, ix, pp. 349-351; Саха de Leruela, Abundancia de Espafia, pt. 2, cap.
2; all of these cite many references. The investigations of Campomanes in the
eighteenth century were centred for a long time upon this topic: cf. Expediente de
1771, pt. r, fols. 73-g3; pt. 2, fols. 47-50, 61-65; an<i Concordia de 1783, i, fols.
38, 42-58, 83-97, 120-127, 255-268, 272-301,369-381; ii, fols. 4-12, 42-52, 120—
131. The chief provisions of the posesi6n decree are contained in Nueva Recop.,
lib. 3, tit. 14, ley 3, caps. 4, 5.
a Concordia de 1783, i, fol. 237. See also Alonso, Reeopilaei6n . . . de Na-
varra, i, p. 287.
’ The repeated confirmations and extensions of the posesi6n edict by Hapsburg
sovereigns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are cited in Concordia de
1783, i, fols. 88-90.