28
THE MESTA
these figures ever surpassed. In other words, the transhumantes
were most numerous during the first decade of the reign of Charles
V, and their numbers fell off steadily after the zenith had been
passed. These figures place the beginnings of Mesta decadence
in the period 1550-60, which is more than a century earlier than
the time when the collapse of the organization is commonly be-
lieved to have begun. The reasons for this discrepancy are of
fundamental importance in the history of the institution; we
shall consider them in detail later on.
The question of the distance traversed by the sheep before they
reached their southernmost destinations is one which may be dis-
posed of here. The flocks from Leon and Soria travelled between
three hundred and fifty and four hundred and fifty miles from
their summer feeding grounds, while those from Segovia and
Cuenca usually journeyed one hundred and fifty or two hundred
miles.1 In traversing the highways between cultivated lands, the
daily march was sometimes as much as fifteen or eighteen miles;
but across open country the speed was usually only five or six
miles a day. In general, a month sufficed to cover the distance,
and the last of October usually found all of the transhumantes in
their winter camps on the rolling pastures of Estremadura and
Andalusia, or the sunny Mediterranean lowlands. The lambs
were born soon after the arrival in the southern pastures, and in
the following March they were ready to be branded on the nose
with the owner’s mark, and to have the future breeders among
them sorted out.
While on their way to the southern pastures and during the
winter months there, the sheep owners occasionally disposed of
animals in wayside town markets. The ever increasing number
of sheep thus sold, which were called merchaniegos, illustrates one
phase of the very important influence of the Mesta upon the
growth of national markets, the spread of trade from local and
metropolitan districts into larger areas.2 While in the southern
1 Arch. Mesta, P-6, Puertos, 1605 : details of migrations from Burgos to Mérida
and the Portuguese border. Ibid , P-6, Puebla de Montalbân, 1562; T-3, Toledo,
1589; V~4, Villalpando, ɪʒoo; Y-2, Yscar, 1503; and Z-ι, Zamora, 1758.
2 See below, pp. 30 ff.
MIGRATIONS
29
pastures, the shepherds occasionally bought non-migratory sheep
in neighboring towns. These animals, called chamorras, were
used to provide mutton and cheaper grades of wool to be sold
on the northbound march.1
The departure from the southern plains began about the mid-
dle of April, and the sheep were clipped in sheds along the way.
Each rebano, as it arrived at its clipping station, was kept over
night in close quarters, so that the wool might be softened by the
perspiration, and thus the clipping be easier and the fleece, which
was sometimes sold in the grease, heavier. The clippers worked
in corps of one hundred and twenty-five, each corps being able to
dispose of a rebano of a thousand head in a day. The wool, if
not sold in the grease, was then washed, and taken away to be
stored in one of the central Ionjas, or warehouses, of which the
largest was in Segovia. Finally it was removed to the great fairs,
especially that at Medina del Campo, or to the north coast ports
for shipment to Flanders and England. After the clipping there
came a short interval of rest for recuperation and acclimatizing,
and the journey was then resumed in slow stages. By the last of
May or early June the flocks were once more in their home
pastures in the northern uplands around Soria, Segovia, Cuenca,
and Leon.
1 Arch. Mesta, Servicio y Montazgo, leg. 2, no. ι, Esteban Ambranj 1707-08.