404
bibliography
1642 by the fruits of further searches, this time in the private archives
of all families which had ever had an official of the Mesta among their
members. The thoroughness with which this work was done is evi-
denced by the rarity of documents outside the archive of which a copy
is not to be found in the neatly tabulated bundles of this collection.
16. Indices:
(ɑ) The earliest of these is a list written about 1474, on 142 sheets
(n. t. p., n. d.).
(⅛) Registre de Scripturas de la Mesta (ca. 1515). A list of the docu-
ments stored in the monastery of Guadalupe. Ms.
(c) Registre de las Scripturas y Executorias que tiene la Mesta
(ca. 1610). Ms.
(d) Inventoria de Ios Privilégias, Executorias y demas . . . (Madrid,
1624). This is a list of documents in the archive at the time of
its transfer from Villanueva de la Serena to Madrid. Printed.
(e) Abecedario de las Provisiones . . . sacadas del Archivo de
Simancas. (17 vols, ms., begun ca. 1625; printed in 1629).
(f) Ymbentario de Ios Vienes, Executorias, y Papeles . . . de la
Mesta. Ms., covers acquisitions of 1645-70.
(g) Ynventario de las Executorias, Libres, y demas Papeles . . .
Ms., 1728, 2 vols.
(Λ) Registre de Escripturas del Concejo de la Mesta (covers 1752-
61). Ms.
(t) Inventario del Archivo de la Mesta. Large folio ms., 1832; the
last and most useful of these indices, though it must be used
only as a chronological guide; its summaries are useless.
17. Cuentas. 13 large folio vols, and 4 bundles, all ms. These are the
accounts of the Mesta. They cover the period 1510-1836, with only one
gap, 1568-83.
ι8. Acuerdos. 26 large folio vols. Ms. The minutes of the semiannual
meetings, 1499-1836.
19. Executorias. 53 bundles of mss., arranged by towns in alphabetical
order. They comprise the briefs, documentary evidence, and decisions in
some 3500 suits between the Mesta and various cities and individuals. They
range from 1401 to 1836, and form by far the most valuable single group
of material in the Archive. They are cited thus: T-2, Toledo, 1488, mean-
ing “ Iegajo (bundle) T-2 of the executorias on Toledo, document of 1488.”
The date does not always indicate the year of the material contained in the
document, which is frequently earlier.
20. Provisiones and Privilegios Reales. 15 bundles, ms. These com-
prise the oldest documents in the archive, the royal charters, beginning
with that of 1371, which gives the text of the first one of 1273. Some are
beautifully illuminated, and, taken together, they form an unusual collec-
tion of the royal autographs of four centuries. These documents are the
only ones in the Archive that have hitherto been known to scholars, since
most of them were printed, with numerous errors, in the codes cited below
(Nos. 75-82).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
+©S
sɪ. Relaciones de Ios Alcaldes Entregadores. 62 vols., ms. Reports of
these itinerant judicial protectors of the Mesta to the semiannual meet-
ings of that body. 1550-1796.
22. Visitas de Canadas, Veredas, y Términos. 79 vols., ms. Testimony
taken by the entregadores while on their tours of inspection of the sheep
highways. 1560-17 50.
23. Servicio y Montazgo. 3 bundles, ms. Records kept at the royal toll
gates of the flocks as they passed southward. 1585-1720. These are
copies of the only considerable body of Mesta materials still remaining in
the Archive of Simancas.
24. Pleytos de Le6n, de Soria, de Segovia, y de Cuenca. These comprise
about 600 bundles, each containing the ms. records of some 40 or 50 cases
heard by the entregadores. They are not of any great importance, because
the digests of them appear in the collections cited above (Nos. 21-22).
It should be particularly noted that, although none of the above
sets of documents appears to begin previous to 14∞ and most of them
start well on in the sixteenth century, nevertheless they contain
quantities of transcripts of documents, introduced as evidence, which
date back to 1250 and before.
2. The Royal Academy of History {Madrid)
The valuable collections of this society are chiefly useful for town
charters, ordinances, records of local litigations, and royal privileges.
In view of the comparative inaccessibility of the catalogue, some of
the printed bibliographies listed above (Nos. 1-3, 12) were indispen-
sable. Six of the collections in this archive have i∙mentarios or indices:
Salazar, Sarmiento, Vargas y Ponce, Mata y Linares, Abella, and
Bautista Munoz. These lists are nearly useless, though they do
serve to indicate the general nature of each set of papers. Other col-
lections of the Academy, which are not equipped with such lists, are
noted in bibliography No. ι, listed above. Of these six, the first two
were the ones which proved most useful in the present investigation;
the others contain excellent series of documents on Spanish America,
copies of which are probably in the Archivo de Indias, in Seville. The
Academy has a number of valuable manuscripts on pastoral affairs
in its Traggia and Sempere collections, the latter a splendid reposi-
tory of almost untouched economic materials. An unnamed set of
transcripts of local documents from church and town archives was
also very fruitful.
25. Salazar. The volumes most used were marked
I-36: Indice del archivo de la Orden de Calatrava: a collection
which is now in the Archivo Historico Nacional. It has been