18 THE MESTA
the great Roman roads.1 A similar theory has also been applied
to some of the early carraires or sheep roads of Provence.2 This
hypothesis, so far at least as Spain is concerned, has been quite
effectively controverted with evidence which indicates that the
monuments in question were either religious or sepulchral,3 and
not in any way connected with sheep raising, even though the
migratory pastoral industry was probably prevalent among the
Iberians.4 The first unmistakable proof of definitely marked
sheep highways does not antedate the sixth or seventh century,
when we find the Visigothic Fuero Juzgo5 prescribing the reser-
vation of certain passageways for the migrants. These roads are
further identified by a quantity of data from the early Middle
Ages on the taxation of migrating flocks at certain points,8 thus
establishing the use of regular fixed routes, which, by the close
of the twelfth century, were known as canadas.7
Strictly speaking, the canadas were only such segments of the
sheep walks as adjoined cultivated ground. Those parts of the
routes which lay across open untilled land were not marked off
or specifically designated. In common usage, however, the name
canada was applied to any route used by the flocks in their migra-
tions from northern highlands to southern valleys. Only in the
narrower legal sense was the canada defined as the measured
passageway between the cultivated areas: the orchards, vine-
yards, and grain fields. In the royal privilege of 1273, given to
the Mesta by Alfonso X, the width of this passageway was to be
“ six sogas of forty-five spans each,” which was equivalent to
ninety varas, or about two hundred and fifty feet.8 These were
j Paredes Guillen, Historia de Ios framontanos Celtiberos (Plasencia, 1888), with
an interesting map of these Iberian highways, as marked by the framontanos.
i See below, p. 143.
3 By far the most scholarly contribution to this discussion has been that of Leite
de VasconceUos, Religioes da Lusilania (Lisbon, 1897-1913, 3 vols.), iii, pp. 15-43,
with an extensive bibliography.
4 See above, pp. 3, 7.
s Lib. 8, tit. 3, ley 9; tit. 4, Ieyes 26-27; and tit. 5, ley 5. See also Concordia de
1783, ii, fol. 30x v.
• See below, pp. r6ι ff.
’ L6pez Ferreiro1Fueros de Santiago (Santiago, 1895, 2 vols.), i, p. 366; Bib. Nac.
Madrid, Ms. 714, fols. 340 v, 342: Privilegio de Segovia, 1208.
8 Quad. 1731, pt. i, p. 20; Nueva Recop., lib. 3, tit. 14, ley 4, cap. 22.
MIGRATIONS
19
the canadas reales, or royal sheep highways, of which there were
three principal systems: the western, or Leonesa, the central, or
Segoviana, and the eastern, or de la Mancha.
The first named ran south of Ledn through Zamora, Sala-
manca, and Béjar, where it was joined by a branch of the second
or Segovian system, coming down from the northeast by way of
Logrono, Burgos, Palencia, Segovia, and Avila. From Bejar the
Leonesa extended southward to the rich Estremaduran pasturage
below Plasencia, Caceres, Mérida, and Badajoz, with branches
running down along the banks of the Tagus and Guadiana. It
should be noted that this route did not stop abruptly at the
border, but ran on into Portugal. Although the Mesta’s Castilian
codes and charters could not be enforced in the neighboring king-
dom, nevertheless there had been for centuries, before the wars
of 1641 put an end to the practice, a mutual recognition of migra-
tion privileges for the flocks of each kingdom in the lands of the
other.1 The second canada system, the Segoviana, had, in addi-
tion to the above mentioned branch along the northern slope of
the Guadarrama range from Logrono to Béjar, another route
which was the most used of all Castilian sheep highways. This
canada also started at Logrono, crossed the important summer
pastures near Soria and lay along the southern slopes of the
Guardarrama by way of Siguenza, Buitrago, the Escorial, and
Escalona. It was the principal artery of travel for the thousands
of animals which wintered each year on the plains near Talavera,
Guadalupe, and Almaden, and in the valley of the Guadalquivir.
The eastern route extended from the highlands of Cuenca and the
Aragonese border southwest across La Mancha2 and the upper
Guadalquivir to the lowlands of Murcia.3 In addition to these
1 Arch. Mesta, L-2, Le6n, 1549.
* The valiant Don Quixote’s famous encounter was doubtless with Iranshumantes
ħom Cuenca.
’ These details and the data for the accompanying map are from Arch Hist.
Nac., Calatrava Docs. Reales, iii, r63 (1306), 165 (1308), 220 (1339); Acad. Hist.,
Ms. E-ι27, fols. 249-256 (1332); Cortes, Palencia, 1313, pet. 45, and Burgos, 1315,
Pet∙ 32; Concordia de 1783, ii, fol. 299 v. There is an excellent map of the modern
railway lines now used by Spanish migrants and of some of the ‘ anciennes routes ’
by Fribourg in the Annales de Giographie, May, 1910; but his data for the ‘ old ’
t°utes is evidently from eighteenth and early nineteenth century materials.