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332


THE MESTA

and enforcement of these and many similar laws of the period of
Philip II, a very different, and from the Mesta’s point of view far
less comforting situation is revealed.

The first signs of successful resistance of the peasantry to the
onward march of the Mesta flocks occurred some years before the
retirement of Charles and the accession of Philip. As in the case
of the resistance to the entregadores, the chancillerias, or high
courts of appeal, proved to be the safe refuge for the farmers and
the towns. The first decisions modifying and finally reversing
the mandates of the itinerant magistrates regarding the rights of
pasturage against arable land occur in 1539-40.1 Thereafter, as
in the case of the fight against the visitations of entregadores, the
towns soon learned to protect their interests by appealing to the
increasing hostility of the chancillerias toward the Mesta’s pro-
tector, the Royal Council.2 Then, too, the Castilian towns grad-
ually learned to follow the ancient example of the Aragonese
Comunidades, and formed combinations of their grievances and
resources. Thus they were able to fight out with marked success
their litigations against the pretensions and mediaevalism of the
Mesta. During the last decades of the sixteenth century there
was scarcely a suit fought out in the higher courts between the
Mesta and its opponents in which the latter did not combine
against the common enemy.3 In the courts, in the national legis-
lature,4 and in local meetings the towns registered their protests
against the Mesta and the antiquated nomad life and depopu-
lated countryside for which it stood. The edict of 1580, which
ordered the destruction of all cultivation that had taken place

ɪ Arch. Mesta, C-2, Calzada, 1539; M-7, Murcia, 1540. In both cases the
Mesta had attempted to secure a foothold in town enclosures.

a See above, p. 123.

8 A few examples will illustrate these tactics. Arch. Mesta, A-8, Arenal, 1592:
twenty-five townspeople successfully defend their rights to cultivate certain parts
of the local commons; A-8, Arguedona, 1593: twenty-two do the same; A-8,
Arjona, 1594: thirty-six from various towns are sustained by the Chancillerla in
their claims to enclosures; A-9, Azuaga, 1594: the same for ninety-six
ι>ecinos of
this town; A-г, Ajamil, 1596: eleven towns combine to fight a suit against the
Mesta regarding enclosure.

4 Cortes de Castilla, iv, pp. 428-429 (Madrid, 1573, pet. 9): protests against the
damages done to agriculture by pasturage and hunting privileges.

COLLAPSE OF THE PASTURAGE PRIVILEGES 333
during the previous twenty years, was not by any means ignored.
It was answered with a joint petition indorsed by the town coun-
cils of twenty-one municipalities of Estremadura and Andalusia,
including Plasencia, Mérida, Câceres, Seville, Cordova, Granada,
and many others.1 The petitioners asked for the revocation of the
edicts of 1552 and 1580. They entered upon an ardent defence of
agriculture and a vehement denunciation of the pastoral industry
as the cause of all the woes of the realm, the high prices, the de-
forestation and the depopulation. Especial emphasis was given
to the perennial argument, that the pasturage privileges of the
Mesta involved the violation of the ancient liberties of the cities
and towns to use their land as they chose.

The nobility, as well as the towns, were beginning to take issue
with the Mesta on the same question. The Duke of Béjar, whose
estates at that time comprised the largest single group of private
holdings in Castile, carried on a regular campaign among the
leading titled landowners, whose interests were obviously cen-
tred in the fact that any interference with competition among
pasturage lessees, such as that by the law of posesion, materially
cut down the returns from their estates.2 Finally, as the result of
this pressure, the President of the Mesta was induced to instruct
the entregadores that no more suits regarding violations of pose-
sion or the extension of arable holdings were to be brought against
various grandees.3 The Fuggers were also concerned over the in-
roads which the collective bargaining of Mesta lessees, through
posesion, was making in the yield from the pastures of the maes-
trazgos. The Mesta temporarily calmed the anxieties of the
bankers in 1559 by paying nearly 12,000,000 maravedis, as ad-
vance rental for the desirable Calatrava pasturage.4 The finan-
cial necessities of Philip, like those of his father, made necessary
further concessions in favor of the steadily rising agrarian op-
position to the sheep owners. The latter were made to bear in-

ɪ Paris Bib. Nat., Res. Oa 198 ter, no. 33.

, Arch. Simancas, Diverses Castilla, no. 1845 (ca- 1566)∙

3 Arch. Osuna, Mss. Benavente, caj. 5, no. 13 (1589).

4 As in most of its important transactions of this sort, the Mesta secured the
funds for this loan at the fair of Medina del Campo, probably on security in the
shape of receipts for stored wool. Arch. Mesta, C-2, Calatrava, 1559 ff,



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