4io
BIBLIOGRAPHY
54. Leon. Well arranged, but has very few documents previous to the
sixteenth century; in general, not so strong a collection as commonly
supposed (see Ballesteros, noted above, p. 409); useful on the Mesta for
local ordinances of 1584 and royal privileges of 1509 regarding pasturage.
55. Madrid. A larbe though seldom visited collection, well indexed;
exceptionally full on industrial activities of the sixteenth century: gilds,
market regulations, prices. On the Mesta, sect. 2 of this collection has
four Iegajos on local sheep laws of the seventeenth century. The older ma-
terials of this archive have been printed in Palacio, Documentas del Archiva
de Madrid (Madrid, 1888-1909, 4 vols.), which gives clues to further ma-
terials on the relations between the Mesta and Madrid. See No. 108.
56. Plasencia. There is an eighteenth-century inventory of this town
archive in the Royal Academy of History, Madrid (25-ι-C-7; see above,
No. 30), combined with a list of the dpcuments in the church there. Al-
though the documents have been since rearranged, this list can for the most
part be readily checked up. Paredes Guillen, the venerable Plasencian, has
in his library a valuable set of transcripts of documents from this archive, as
well as helpful digests of the materials in other town collections of the vicin-
ity. The town collection is particularly valuable on pasturage law of the
first half of the fourteenth century, especially 1310-40.
57. Saragossa. The Archivo Provincial in this city has a ms. copy of
the town ordinances of Daroca, one of the pasturage towns of southern
Aragon. It also has a set of accounts beginning in 1414. The most valuable
archive in this city, however, from the point of view of this study, is that of
the Casa de Ganaderos de Zaragoza, a gild of sheep owners established in
1218 and in active life today. Although its archive is not so large or so well
arranged as that of the Mesta, it is older and quite as unknown. Its ancient
royal privileges and some of its judicial officers’ sentences were very useful.
Many valuable prints of early documents were also drawn upon. See above,
No. 37, for citations of ms. copies of two of the royal privileges of this
organization.
58. Segovia. A disappointing collection, in view of the importance of
that town as the centre of the wool trade during the regime of the Mesta.
Vergara, Ensayo de una Coleccidn Bibliografico-Biografico . . . de Segovia
(Guadalajara, 1903), cites a few documents of pastoral interest (nos. 245-
247, 1138). Beyond these the archive has nothing of interest on the Mesta,
save a few records of entregador cases.
59. Seville. Has five eighteenth-century reports on the sheep highways
of its vicinity, much valuable material on gilds, including details on a local
sheep owners’ organization; of little use for the period before 1700. See
Velazquez, Archiva Municipal de Sevilla (Seville, 1859; 2d ed., 1864).
60. Soria. Useful, though not so much so as might be expected in view
of Soria’s position as the chief city of the Mesta. Some sixteenth-century
data on migrations of sheep into Aragon. The town accounts begin in 1547.
61. Toledo. Somewhat difficult of access, but good, especially on local
sheep regulations and on market laws. The Ordenanzas Antiguas de Toledo
(Toledo, 1858) gives indications which are needed in tracing down the com-
plicated filing system in use in the archive.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 4il
The archives at the Escorial and at Villanueva de la Serena, where
the Mesta archive was stored in the seventeenth century, do not con-
tain sufficient material on this subject to warrant their being listed
here.
7. Archiva del Duque de Osuna (Madrid)
This notable collection is now in the hands of a committee of credi-
tors (Conde de Romanones, chairman). It is not to be confused with
the Biblioteca of the Duque, which is in the Biblioteca Nacional
(Sala de Manuscritos), and of which a Catalogo abreυiado was pub-
lished by José Maria Rocamora in 1882. A brief description of the
above archive was published in the Revista de Archives (xv, p. 79)
by Francisco Alvarez Osorio, but the truly extraordinary richness of
the collection has yet to be revealed. A fairly exhaustive search for
materials on pastoral and general rural history uncovered quantities
of sources of prime importance. The house of Osuna has long been
one of the most be-titled of Spanish families. Through some good
fortune, the private archives of most of these titles have been gath-
ered together, and elaborately inventoried, by families, in some
twenty or more volumes. Many of these families had their lands in
the track of the Mesta migrations, and the result has been the ac-
cumulation of hundreds of useful documents on pastoral matters
dating from 1285 onward. These deal with every side of the Mesta’s
activities, and thejr are especially valuable in that they reflect the
opposite views from those frequently expressed in the data in the
Mesta archive; for these families were almost the only opponents
of the Mesta who were able to stand against it. The families whose
collections have been especially consulted are: 62, Béjar; 63, Gibra-
leon; 64, Infantazgo; 65, Jadraque; 66, Manzanares; 67, Mendoza;
and 68, Santillana. This archive is, perhaps, the most valuable single
collection of materials on the general economic history of Spain.
The great national archives at Simancas and Madrid are made up to
a large extent of official decrees and materials of political and legal
import. This collection, on the other hand, ranges through the every-
day activities and ordinary life of a large part of the Spanish people,
from the year 904 down to the close of the eighteenth century.
8. British Museum (London)
The Spanish manuscripts of this library have been well catalogued
by Gayangos (Catalogue of Spanish Manuscripts in the British Mu-