20
THE MESTA
canadas reales there were, of course, many lesser branches and
connections, some of which came to be called cordeles and ∙veredas.
In the eighteenth century these were respectively one-half and
one-quarter the width of the canada real.1
The protection of these highways from encroachments on the
part of adjoining landowners was intrusted to entregadores, the
wandering judicial protectors of the Mesta, whose itineraries lay
along the canadas.2 It can be well imagined that the landowners
were under an unusual temptation to inclose a neighboring strip
of land which lay unoccupied and unused during all but a few
weeks of the year. The maintenance of a right of way for the
flocks was, therefore, a matter of constant concern to the Mesta
members and the entregadores. The integrity of the canada sys-
tem was the first prerequisite for the success of the whole industry;
hence the solicitude with which that system was watched and
defended, and hence the relentless litigation and the repeated
guarantees on the part of the Mesta’s royal patrons.3 Evidence
of the efficacy of these efforts in defence of the canadas is found in
the frequency and vehemence of complaints by the deputies in
the Cortes. The chief object of these protests was the illegal
extension of the highways by the entregadores.4 Ferdinand and
Isabella were particularly solicitous in their provisions for the
protection of the canadas. In 1489 they issued the first of a series
of decrees which increased the penalties for enclosing the canadas
and strictly forbade any delays to the flocks because of alleged
trespasses on lands adjoining those highways?
During the middle decades of the sixteenth century, when the
Mesta was enjoying its greatest prestige, the administration of
the canadas was given particular attention. In 1551 careful pro-
vision was made for the filing of reports by the entregadores after
their inspection of the routes.6 Furthermore, the crown issued
* Nov. Recop., lib. 7, tit. 27, ley ιι. 3 See below, pp. 88-90.
2 Quad. 1731, pt. I, p. 20 (1284); see below, pp. 86-87.
4 Cortes, Burgos, 1315, pet. 32; Valladolid, 1322, pet. 62; Madrid, 1339, pet. 32;
Valladolid, 1351, cuaderno primero, pet. 44; Madrid, 1528, pet. 126.
6 John II had issued a similar but less emphatic decree in 1454: Quad. J73τ,
Pt- ɪ, pp∙ i49-ι63> 195∙
β Arch. Mesta, Acuerdos (minutes of annual meetings), 19 Feb. 155r. These
MIGRATIONS
21
several important decrees which protected the rights of way of the
Mesta, especially by guaranteeing to the flocks definite routes
across commons and unoccupied lands.1 This measure was
directed against the military orders and certain large cities,
notably Toledo and Madrid, which for centuries had successfully
confined the sheep strictly to their canadas and prohibited their
movements elsewhere within the jurisdiction of the town or order
in question.2
This problem of the sheep marches in uncultivated regions and
along unfixed routes, as contrasted with the well marked per-
manent canadas, involves two types of routes. First, there were
certain temporary ways, called canadas de hoja, which lay across
the segments (Jiojas) of land left fallow each year in accordance
with a modified three-field system.3 The intention of this arrange-
ment was apparently to aid the agricultural interest by fertilizing
the soil of the untilled strip, as well as to provide a passage for the
migratory herds. More important than these, however, were the
routes followed quite arbitrarily by the flocks across the open and
waste lands, to which they claimed access by right of their royal
privileges. Their lines of march in such regions were variable
and indefinite, in contrast with the carefully bounded and
policed canadas. It was, therefore, inevitable that the Mesta
entregador reports {deslindes or apeos) fill over 6o volumes of manuscript and cover
the period 1551-1796.
1 Quad. 1731, pt. i, pp. 167-169, 196 (1561-67).
2 Arch. Ayunt. Madrid, sec. 2, leg. 358, no. 49: a series of litigations between
Madrid and the Mesta, of the years 1300-48, in which the latter’s right to cross open
lands of the city was denied, because there was no canada across such lands. Simi-
larly the Mesta was required to obtain the permission of the archbishop of Toledo
to open a canada over certain waste lands of the archbishopric: Arch. Mesta,
Prov. i, 2 (1431). The documents of a like case with the Duke of Infantazgo are
found in Arch. Osuna, Jadraque, caj. 4, leg. 13, no. ɪ (1502). See also Arch. Ayunt.
Cuenca, leg. 6, no. 89 (1518) : the brief submitted by Cuenca in a case against the
Mesta, to force the latter’s flocks to keep within the canadas and not to use the
common lands.
3 Arch. Mesta, C-6, Castrillo, 1712: several sixteenth-and seventeenth-century
documents on this subject. The Mesta codes are silent on the practice, which seems
to have originated in long accepted custom and tacit agreement between the parties
concerned. See below, p. 320, for a discussion of this topic with reference to the
Pasturage problem of the Mesta.