THE MESTA

made by the Cortes. In 1548, for example, foreign cloth was
allowed to come in without payment of duties and the exporta-
tion of native goods was prohibited. In 1555 this policy was
suddenly reversed; foreign woolens were excluded, and the manu-
facture and export of the native product encouraged in every
way.¹

The decline of the wool trade, both external and internal, began
to set in as an inevitable accompaniment of the gradual weaken-
ing of the Mesta. Evidences of this became conspicuous during
the first two decades of the reign of Philip II, as will be indicated
below.² The wool trade itself was well on the downward trend by
about 1577? Travellers through the wool markets of Segovia,
Valladolid, and elsewhere noticed the stagnation and the unmis-
takable signs of disorganization.⁴ Philip attempted to exploit the
wool trade as he had the other aspects of the pastoral industry,
and the results were equally disastrous. In 1559 he had reac-
quired the royal diezmo del mar or seaport customs duties, which
in 1469 had been alienated from the control of the royal exchequer
by Henry the Impotent. Philip promptly undertook to exploit
this new source of income by levying a series of heavy export
duties on wool? These were administered by a corps of energetic
officials, the alcaldes de sacas or export judges, who realized
keenly that their income would be commensurate with their
zeal. It was not long before they became notorious both for their
wealth and for their ruthless shortsightedness in taxing the wool
trade practically out of existence.⁶

The marketing activities of the Mesta during its later years
rapidly declined with the general weakening of its influence and
power. It stood steadfastly, however, for the removal of local
restrictions upon trade, and worked persistently, though unfor-

¹ Ansiaux, op. cit., pp. 550-651.       ² See pp. 114-115, 286-288.

³ Enrique Cock, Jornada de Tarazona (1592), ɛd. by Morel-Fatio, p. 46.

⁴ Brit. Mus., Harl. Ms. 3315, p. 39.

⁵ Arch, de Fomento, Alcalâ de Henares, leg. 1704: an invaluable collection of
decrees covering the wool export duties from 1559 to 1758. Other documents bear-
ing on the same topic may be found in the Acad. Hist., B-ι 28, Papeles Varios Econ.
Hist., doc. 4.

• Arch. Mesta, Prov. i, 71 (1560).

MARKETING

tunately with few results, against the. hampering consumas or
_oci_roi taxes which obstructed the movement of sheep and wool
j_nto the various local markets.¹ Even the much mistrusted mid-
dlemen, or revendedores, were encouraged by the Mesta leaders,
during the latter half of the seventeenth century, in the hope of
_reviving the wool trade.² In the last dark decades of the or-
ganization, before the storms of Campomanes’s attacks of 1770-
85 broke against it, the expedient was proposed of organizing a
company to handle the wool trade, both export and domestic. A
monopoly concession was to be secured, and the whole trade was
to be carefully administered through warehouses scattered about
⅛ the upland headquarters of the Mesta and agencies at the
coast ports and abroad. This plan was, in fact, simply an elab-
oration of the old Consulado of Burgos, which had handled the
traffic so effectively during the time of the Mesta’s greatest pros-
perity.³ When an imposing industrial organization called the
Company of the Five Gilds was founded in Madrid in the middle
of the eighteenth century with a capital of 16,500,000 reales
and a programme for world-wide commercial operations, it was
hoped by the Mesta that the wool trade might be developed by
the new enterprise. Unfortunately, however, the abilities of the
exploiters were not of the sort to succeed in such an undertak-
ing, and the Company never achieved its great ambitions.⁴

As a final humiliation to the Mesta, and to its long cherished
hopes for a continued monopoly of the high quality wool trade,
there came the first considerable exportation of merino sheep
from Spain. The successful establishment of flocks in Sweden in
¹7²o, and later, on a larger scale, in Saxony and at Rambouillet,
France, made inevitable the doom of the Mesta with its anti-

' Arch. Hist. Nac., Consejo Real, Expedientes, leg. 48 (1627); Arch. Mesta,
crovs. ii, 2 (1627), 15 (1637); iii, 41 (1726).

² Arch. Mesta, Provs. ii, 5, 14 (1630 fi.).

Larruga, Memorias, xxviii, pp. 1-87 : records of debates on this topic at Mesta
^lneCtings from 1673 to 1707. Arch. Hist. Nac., Consejo Real, Expedientes, leg. 48
'¹7°3) : tentative plans of such a company drawn up by a President of the Mesta
^0r the approval of the Royal Council.

Brit. Mus., Add. Mss. 10,255, PP∙ ι~7: “ varios papeles tocantes a Ios Cinco
^te>nios de Madrid.”

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