The name is absent

THE MESTA

far the larger share of the Mesta sheep belonged to small owners,
who themselves moved up and down the canadas each year lead-
ing their few hundred animals. These men were the real life and
sinews of the Mesta.

One of the very few bits of useful evidence on this question of
the proportion of large and small owners is to be found in docu-
ments submitted at a trial in 1561. The case involved certain
tolls paid by the Mesta members who leased the lands of the
Order of Calatrava in southern Castile ; and in the course of the
hearing the Mesta attorneys presented a list of the names of all
sheep owners who visited those pastures.¹ While this list affords
only a momentary glimpse of a part of the Mesta membership, it
is valuable because it is one of the very few extant examples of
such specific information. A tabulation of the data contained
therein reveals certain significant facts regarding the ownership
of the flocks which visited the Calatrava pastures in 1560:

These figures scarcely require comment. Over two-thirds of the
sheep here enumerated were owned in flocks of less than a hun-
dred, whose owners acted as their own shepherds. Although the
sheep represented in these figures formed but a small fraction of
the two million which migrated to southern pastures that year,
they may, nevertheless, be fairly regarded as typical of the migra-
tory flocks in general. The pastures here mentioned were visited
by animals from a wide region of northern highlands which com-
prised all classes of pastoral interests — possibilities, in other

* Arch. Mesta, C-2, Campo de Calatrava, 1561. See Map. These lands of
Calatrava made up about one-sixth of the southern pasturage region.

INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE MESTA    61

words, for a large variety of large and small ownership. Further-
more, the year was a normal one, without drought or pestilence
to affect conditions; in fact, the Mesta was at that time just
passing the zenith of its prosperity; it was a period when the
migratory sheep industry was at its best, with untrammelled
opportunities for all kinds of owners. Although this fragment
of evidence is small, nevertheless it indicates clearly the marked
predominance of small owners.

Conspicuous instances of the great flocks belonging to the
nobility or to wealthy churches and monasteries were always
readily cited by the opponents of the Mesta: the 30,000 head of
the monastery of Santa Maria del Paular, or the 40,o∞ of the
Escorial, or the 25,000 of the Duke of Béjar; but these examples
were very few, and at no time represented the typical form of the
industry. In the eighteenth century, the raising of migratory
sheep had been reduced to its most concentrated state, because
of the prolonged and bitter popular hostility which had over-
whelmed many of the smaller owners. But even at that late
period (cα. 1740) over 75 per cent of the total number of trans-
humantes in the country were owned by some 40,000 serranos,
or ‘ highlanders,’ in flocks of less than 5∞0 head. The remaining
20 to 25 per cent belonged to a small number — about sixty — of
noblemen and rich ecclesiastics of Madrid.¹ A similar conclusion
is reached by an eighteenth-century English investigator, who
estimated that about 220,000 merinos were owned in flocks of
30,∞o to 40,o∞ by nobles and churches, 200,∞o were held in
flocks of about 20,000 each, while over 3,500,000 were owned in
smaller units.² It is evident, then, that the Mesta was very

ɪ Expediente de 1771, pt. 2, fol. 42 v. See also Arch. Mesta, Servicio y Montazgo,
leg. 2-3 (1708-46) : accounts of the royal sheep toll, with names of the owners and
sizes of their flocks. In those years the monasteries of the Escorial and of Guada-
lupe, and the Dukes of Béjar and Alcudfa owned all together about 75,o∞ trans-
humantes, of the 2,ι∞,o∞ in the realm. Similar figures are shown in the evidence
Presented by the opponents of the Mesta to Campomanes, Charles Ill’s reform
minister, in 1780-83. Cf. Concordia de 1783, ii, fols. 156 v, 16r v, and tables at
end of volume.

^a An Account of the Merino Sheep and of their Treatment in Spain . . . written
by an English Gentleman many years resident in Spain (Concord, New Hampshire,
ɪɛɪɜ), p. 128.

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