334
THE MESTA
creasing proportions of the heavy burdens of taxation which
mounted higher each year. Philip’s straitened circumstances
during and after the decade 1560-70, already noted elsewhere,1
made necessary the alcabala de yerbas or impost upon pasturage
rentals, to which the Mesta objected strenuously, but, for the
most part, with little effect.2
The various royal officials were no longer successful in helping
the Mesta to enforce the anti-enclosure edicts. The towns had
openly refused to countenance the jurisdiction of the scores of
special royal inquisitors and pasturage investigators, and by the
middle of the reign trust in their aid had been abandoned. The
Corregidores were openly partial to local interests, as they had
been in the case of town taxes on the Mesta, and for the same
reasons.3 There was a further explanation of this in the fact that
enclosures of town commons were frequently used as a means of
raising the funds for the salary of the corregidor, and the interest
of the latter in the success and extension of such enclosures was
therefore obvious.4
It is quite clear, then, that although according to the statutes
of the realm the Mesta was in absolute command of the agrarian
situation, the actual circumstances were very different indeed.
Royal licenses to cultivate and enclose were being handed out on
every pretext: to raise funds for the equipment of the Armada,6
to pay the new millones tax,6 to cover the salaries of other officials
in addition to the corregidor, or “to lessen the area of untilled
land and thus to destroy the refuges of wolves and foxes.” 7 It
was merely a question of time until the Mesta’s cherished priv-
ilege of posesiôn should begin to lose its magic. By 1566 the
local non-Mesta sheep owners were claiming the right to enjoy
posesiôn,8 thus effectually obstructing the establishment of per-
petual occupancy of local pasturage by the Mesta. Even the gild
of the carreteros, or teamsters, which had been organized along
ɪ See above, pp. 285-286. s See above, p. 230.
2 Arch. Mesta, C-2, Câceres, 1558 S. 4 Arch. Mesta, A-2, Agreda, 1562.
6 Ibid., C-p, Coronil, 1588.
• Ibid., A-8, Armallones, r5p2.
7 Ibid., С-3, Carrete Real, 1585.
8 Arch. Hist. Nac., Consejo Exec., leg. 48, ɪp November, 1566.
COLLAPSE OF THE PASTURAGE PRIVILEGES 335
national lines after the manner of the Mesta by Ferdinand and
Isabella, was now granted special pasturage privileges, including
the right to enclose parts of town commons for the purpose of
cultivating fodder.1
The Mesta fought, at first confidently, but before long frantic-
ally, against the steadily rising tide of opposition, using all of the
once powerful advantages at its disposal. By means of heavy
loans to the crown during the crucial decades before the Armada,
the Mestawas able to secure leases, in successive four-year periods,
of the extensive pastures in Leon and Estremadura. These lands,
which had once belonged to the military Order of Alcântara,
were now held by the crown; the rental paid by the Mesta —
nearly 85,000,000 maravedis for each four-year period — was
enough to hold off Philip’s Genoese bankers and also pay part of
the heavy costs of the naval preparations previous to Lepanto and
the sailing of the Armada.2 It will be recalled that in 1568 the
title to the appointment and income of the entregadores was ac-
quired by the Mesta. This was followed immediately by a marked
speeding up of the campaigns of these itinerant justices against
local enclosures. Offending peasants were sought out all over
Castile, and for a time the accounts of the Mesta show comfort-
able credit items each year under the heading “ condemnations
for cultivation.” 3 Much of the prosperity of the Mesta,s treasury
during the succeeding decades was due to the regular returns from
this source.
There can be no doubt that to a considerable extent — just how
far, there is unfortunately no means of finding out — the Mesta
continued the traditions established during the first decades of
the sixteenth century and retarded agriculture by all the means
ɪ Arch. Mesta, Prov. iiɪ, 40 (1552-99); Nov. Recop., lib. 7, tit. 28, Ieyes r-6.
See above, pp. 22-23.
1 Arch. Mesta, A-4, Alcântara, τ561 ff.: an itemized account of the dealings
between the Mesta, the king, and the latter’s Genoese bankers. Toward the close
of Philip’s reign an arrangement was made by which the Mesta paid a rental of
20,o∞ maravedis a year for every ɪooo sheep pastured on these lands. Ibid.,
Prov. i, 90 (1599).
• For example, the manuscript Accounts of the organization in the course of
the 1580’s give the Mesta’s share (one-third) of such condemnations at over a
million maravedis a year.