48
THE MESTA
quated export organization, and all of the obsolete practices of the
Spanish pastoral industry.1
1 Extensive accounts of the various experiments with merinos abroad in non-
migratory flocks and of their early exportation to England, France, and the United
States are found in Zapata, Noticias del origen . . . de Ianas finas (Madrid, 1820),
and in Carman, Heath, and Minto, Special Report on the History of the Sheep In-
dustry (Washington, Dept. Agric., 1892), with many references.
CHAPTER IV
INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE MESTA
Ordinances. Meetings. Elections. Membership. The President and other offi-
cers. Legal staff. Fiscal agents. Shepherds; their duties and privileges. Pro-
portion of large and small owners.
Two characteristics were typical of Spanish political machinery
during the Middle Ages, namely, its democracy, and the scru-
pulous attention of its codes and ordinances to the minutest
administrative details. Both of these features stand out con-
spicuously in the constitution of the Mesta; in fact, they give
that institution much of the interest which it has for the student
of Spanish constitutional history.
The internal organization of the Mesta — its meetings, its
membership, and its staff of officers — was prescribed in the
ordinances which were codified in 1492 by Malpartida, the able
legal expert of Ferdinand and Isabella.1 There were earlier com-
pilations of Mesta laws, such as that of 1379, but these have not
been preserved.2 The code of 1492 was supplemented by one
drawn up in 1511 by Palacios Rubios, second president of the
Mesta (1510-22), and, like Malpartida, a famous councillor of
Ferdinand and Isabella.3 These ordinances of 1492 and 1511
summarized the constitutional practices which had been observed
by the Mesta for centuries: the procedure of its meetings, the
qualifications and functions of its officials, and the obligations and
Privileges of its members. Let us proceed, then, to an examina-
tion of these various details.
In the earlier centuries of the Mesta’s history, the sheep owners
wεre accustomed to hold three annual meetings. About 15∞,
however, these were reduced to two sessions, each of about twenty
l Concordia de 1783, i, fols. 184 v-iq8.
Francisco Hilario Bravo, Noticia sucinla del Origen de la Asociaciin (Madrid,
t⅝>: ι5 pp.), p. 15.
Concordia de 1783, i, fols. 198-251. Palacios Rubios was conspicuous in the
c°dification of the first laws regulating the trade and government of the colonies
n America.