The name is absent

THE MESTA

was usually closely associated with them either in the Royal
Council or at court. Nearly all elections were by lot, the common
mediaeval Spanish practice of insaculaciôn.¹ For every post to be
filled eight names were placed in the urn, two from each quad-
rilla, and the candidate whose name was drawn was compelled by
law to accept the office. Bonds were required of all responsible
officers, and each one had to submit to the residencia, or public
examination of his official record at the close of his term of
service.²

The most important dignitary of the Mesta, from the point of
view of its internal organization, was the President. During the
Middle Ages the presiding officer was probably the chief entre-
gador or some royal notary,³ but in 1500 Ferdinand and Isabella
created the Presidency of the Mesta and assigned the office to the
eldest member of the Royal Council.⁴ His duties, besides the usual
ones of a presiding officer, were to conduct all hearings of com-
plaints against entregadores and Mesta officers, to supervise their
work, and to fill any vacancies in certain lesser posts. In other
words, he was not only in charge of the internal administration
of the Mesta, but, because of his control over its itinerant pro-
tectors, the entregadores, he also dominated the relations between
the herdsmen and the wayside husbandmen. Equally as im-
portant as these two functions was his position as the connecting
link between the central government and the Mesta.⁶

¹ See illustration                        ^t See below, p. 108.

^s The chief entregador is shown as the spokesman and presiding officer of the
Mesta in Concordia de 1783, i, fols. 156 ff. (1379) ; Arch. Mesta, A-3, Alange, 1455;
and M-ι, Madrid, 1418.

⁴ Bravo, Noticia sucinta, says that certain members of the council had presided
over the Mesta previous to 1500. This is true, since the chief entregador, who
sometimes served in that capacity, was also a royal councillor (cf. p. 83) ; but there
are no records of any ‘ President of the Mesta ’ before that year. Brieva, Colecciin
de Ordenes, pp. viii-xxxi, gives a list of all Mesta presidents from 1500 to 1827. I∏
the Paris Arch. Nationales, Collec. Tiran, is a list of the Mesta presidents of the
period 1670-1772, with interesting comments.

⁶ Quad. 1731, pt. 1, pp. 209-221, contains the laws prescribing the duties of the
office. Cf. Arch. Hist. Nac., Consejo Real, Expedientes, leg. 48. no. 3: an eigh'
teenth-century review of the functions of the President. See also Martinez Salazar,
ColecciindeMemoricts . . . del Consejo (Madrid, 1764), pp 221-236, and EscolanO
de Arrieta, Prdctiea del Consejo Real (Madrid, 1796, 2 vols.), i, pp. 584-587.

INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE MESTA 53

The appointment of the President was at first for life, but this
_was changed, on the death of the second incumbent in 1522, to a
two-year term. In the eighteenth century an attempt was made
by the Mesta to have the life service renewed because of the dis-
advantages of frequent changes in policy, but the alteration was
_not made. The requirement that the President attend every
meeting of the Mesta met with protests from the older members
of the Royal Coimcil when their turns came to make the long trips
to the remote pasture lands; but there are less than half a dozen
instances when the custom was not observed. Under no circum-
stances was the President to be accompanied by his wife, “ be-
cause of the great inconveniences which would be encountered by
the lady on such a journey.” The presidential salary varied
from 8000 to 14,000 reals a year, and was supplemented by a
subsidy of 5000 reales “ for expenses.”

The dual position of this officer, as senior member of the Royal
Council and President of the Mesta, gave him an unusually power-
ful position in the administrative affairs of Castile. On several
notable occasions, which will be mentioned below, various aggres-
sive sovereigns and able ministers exercised through this official a
very effective control over the rural affairs and resources of the
whole kingdom. So potent a factor did the President become,
that when Campomanes, the great reform minister, acceded to the
office in 1779, he was able to fall upon the Mesta and virtually
destroy it.¹

The qualification for membership in the Mesta was simply the
payment of the royal sheep toll or se∏)icio y montazgo, which was
ample evidence of active participation in the migratory sheep
industry. There was no specification as to the number of animals
to be owned, as was the case in Aragon.² Theoretically all shep-

¹ See below, p. 345. Arch. Hist. Nac., Consejo Real, Expedientes, leg. 436, no. 9:
^a series of interesting reports on the Mesta, prepared by Campomanes during his
Presidency, 1779-82, containing many suggestions of the reforms which later ap-
peared in the famous indictment of the Concordia de 1783.

. OrdinacionesdelaCasayCofadriadeGanaderos . . . de Zaragoza (1640), p. 7:
^c'tιzenship in Saragossa and the possession of thirty-five horse or cows, or a hundred
^eeP or goats, were the requirements for membership in this organization, which
^w≡s founded in 1218.

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