ɜsð
THE MESTA
triumphs of the sheep owners’ gild should synchronize with the
golden age of the Spanish empire under Charles V and Philip II.
The prestige of both crown and Mesta was dependent upon the
supremacy of the same powers of centralization.
Similarly the collapse of the Mesta was inevitable with the de-
cline of the monarchy, which had begun before the end of the
sixteenth century. As the decadent house of Austria crumbled
away, the Cortes and the chancillerias — the assembly and the
courts of the people — came forward as the defenders of the
town interests, of sedentary sheep raising, and of decentralization.
They stood for the ancient Spanish separatism and for the prerog-
atives of the local officials, as opposed to the vanishing autocracy
of the Hapsburgs and of the Mesta. Indeed, this particular vic-
tory for separatism was perhaps but one more contribution toward
the general decay of the country during this period, another ex-
ample of the old Spanish infirmity of ‘ regionalism ’, which had
so often defeated the well intentioned purposes of able monarchs
in times past. That devotion to local interests certainly inspired
most of the hostility to the Mesta, which saw the bright days of
its supremacy fade with the waning of Hapsburg absolutism.
Had the Castilian towns protected their common lands by
powerful organizations, such as the four ancient Aragonese co-
munidades or town leagues, the aid of Cortes and chancillerias
would probably not have been necessary to overcome the powers
of the Mesta and its magistrates.
It must be carefully bome in mind, however, that the defence
with which the Spanish cities were so deeply concerned was not
primarily of their agrarian welfare and of their pasture lands as
such, but rather of their highly cherished independence from out-
side interference. The entregador represented to them not simply
the efforts of a hostile pastoral industry to trespass upon their
fields, ruin their agriculture, and dominate sedentary sheep raising.
He was, first and foremost, an intruding official who typified the
ambitions of a strange non-local organization. This was the ir-
ritating fact which finally roused the Castilian towns to a belated
union under the leadership of the city of Badajoz in the eighteenth
century for the defence of their violated independence. The Mesta
CONCLUSION
357
and its corps of attorneys, dignitaries, and itinerant judges were
offensive primarily as Jorasteros (strangers), and only secondarily
as representatives of devastating flocks and herds.
From the first, then, the Mesta was what may be called a
national institution, because of the widespread activities and
interests of its members. Its charters and privileges are sugges-
tive of the mediaeval merchant gilds, but its association with the
central government and the ubiquity of its operations and mem-
bership differentiate its status from that of the gilds. In one
important respect, however, the Mesta resembled the gilds: it
was the spokesman and controller of its particular industry. As
an organization it did not participate directly in that industry;
it owned no sheep or pasturage and sold no wool; it was purely a
protective association guarding and facilitating the transaction
of business by the sheep owners. In this capacity it rendered in-
dispensable services, which gave the migratory pastoral industry
its supremacy in Castile and established the ultimate preem-
inence of the Spanish merino sheep over all other breeds. The
‘ Honorable Assembly of the Mesta ’, so long the ally and sup-
porter of autocracy, was, by a curious anomaly, overthrown by
autocracy itself in the shape of the enlightened despotism of
Charles III and Campomanes. Its history illustrates many
phases of the civilization of Spain, and enables us, as the chron-
icler Morales observed during the great days of the Mesta under
Philip II, the better to understand that country, “ if it be pos-
sible to understand her.”