44
THE MESTA
sovereigns and the active cooperation of the Corregidores — ad-
ministrative and judicial officers representing the crown in the
towns — the Mesta secured written guarantees from many towns
allowing the unrestricted and untaxed sale of sheep in the local
markets.1 But the most important concession in this connection
was not from the towns but from the crown. In 1495 a decree
was issued exempting Mesta members from payment of the
alcabala, which was a blighting tax on sales and one of the chief
sources of income for the royal treasury.2 This proved to be one
of the most helpful of all the measures enacted by Ferdinand and
Isabella to encourage the marketing of pastoral products in Spain.
The results of this systematic campaign were soon evident. The
number of sheep marketed in various towns along the canadas
and near the southern pastures rose steadily from about 10,000 a
year at the beginning of the sixteenth century to 96,000 in 1535.’
These animals were used, for the most part, to improve local non-
migratory herds and to build up the estante or sedentary pastoral
industry. The latter increased steadily in importance during this
period and eventually became as formidable a rival and opponent
of the special privileges of the Mesta as were the agricultural
interests.4 Similarly, the foreign wool trade had grown with great
rapidity and reached its height during the reign of Charles V,
when, according to contemporary observers, it was six times the
trade of the previous reign 6 — not a very definite estimate, it is
true, but one which adequately indicates the expansion of the
marketing aspects of the industry.
of the name to indicate animals taken to market away from the home land of the
owner. Arch. Mesta, C-6, Castilbayuela, 1482, brings out the same contrast be-
tween the CabaHiles or migrants and the merchaniegos or market animals.
l Arch. Mesta, A-9, Avila, 1484; S-4, Segura, 1487; S-4, Segovia, 1488; G-ι>
Granada, 1501.
s Arch. Mesta, Prov. i, 13.
, Arch. Mesta, Cuentas, Aug., 1535.
4 See below, pp. 342-343, for a discussion of the extension of enclosures for the
benefit of these estante flocks.
6 “ A treatise Conceminge the Staple and the commodities of this Realme,” an
anonymous account {ca. 1519-36), probably by Clement Armstrong, of the rivalry
between English and Spanish wool merchants in Flanders, reprinted by Reinhold
Pauli in Abhandlungen der Gesellsch. der Wissensch. zu Gottingen, xxiii (1878).
MARKETING
45
Charles undertook to follow the policies of his illustrious
grandparents by continuing the promotion of the wool trade. In
this he was encouraged by many interested and influential court-
iers, especially Flemings and north Italians. By 1542, in fact, the
ɑenoese had practically gained a monopoly of the wool export
trade.1 This was not long retained, however, and the older
arrangement of marketing through the Burgos Consulado and its
foreign offices was soon revived. Internal marketing, both be-
tween the kingdoms of the peninsula and between the various
towns, was likewise promoted by cutting down tariff barriers and
local taxes on merchaniegos, or Mesta sheep offered for sale.2
Charles was particularly anxious to weld his peninsular kingdoms
into one economic unit; and to accomplish that purpose he issued
a series of twelve measures during the years 1529-50, intended to
facilitate the marketing operations of the Mesta in Navarre and
Aragon. Tariffs were lowered at the puertos secos, or inland cus-
tom houses, and the registration of migrants at the border was
made as perfunctory as possible.3 The culmination of this policy
came in 1598 with the removal of some of the custom houses on
the Castilian-Aragonese frontier.4 The last tariff barriers between
Aragon and Castile were not removed, however, until 1714, when
they were wiped out by Philip V in the course of his Bourbon
programme of unification.
The operations of the middlemen (reυendedores) were carefully
watched throughout the sixteenth century to prevent specula-
tion.6 The great rise in prices, due primarily to the influx of
American gold and silver, was at its height in Spain during the
closing years of Charles’s reign (ca. 1540 ff.). Frantic efforts
were made through legislation to check the increasing costs of
wool and woolen cloth: middlemen were further restricted; town
taxes on sheep were curtailed; and many hasty experiments were
, Haebler, op. cii., p. ι68; Ansiaux, op. cii., p. 544.
Ansiaux, op. eit., pp. 537, 545; Colmeiro, ii, pp. 179, 181.
., Arch. Mesta, Provs. i, 26, 28, 29, 36-39, 63, 66, 67, 71, 76: see also Colmeiro,
u> P∙ 542.
Nueva Recop., lib. 9, tit. 31, ley 4, art. 6.
Las Premdticas que Su Mageslad ha mandado haver (Alcalâ, 1552); see above,
■ ⅛ note. See also Ulloa, Privs. de Cdceres, p. 370.