CHAPTER V

ORIGINS OF THE ALCALDE ENTREGADOR

Itinerant officers in mediaeval Europe. Judicial protectors of migratory flocks
ɪn Italy and in Aragon. Sheep protection in mediaeval Castile. Interclass litiga-
tion. Early relations of the entregador with the crown.

“ There is no grandee of Spain who has so many judges and sheriffs to
defend him as has the sheep.”

SorapAn, Medicina Espanola (Granada, r616), p ɪʒɪ.

The administration of justice and the maintenance of order in
rural districts involved problems which taxed the ingenuity of the
ablest mediaeval monarchs in western Europe. Henry I of Eng-
land (ɪ 100-35) ^rnet tbɛ difficulty by creating justices in eyre (in
ilinere), whose intermittent circuits were made more regular by
Henry II (1154-89). At about the same time there appeared in
France and Normandy various baillis, enquêteurs, and sen-
eschals,¹ who served as the more or less itinerant representatives
of the crown in outlying towns and country districts. In addition
to these officials, who acted as the executive and judicial spokes-
men of the sovereign, there were on both sides of the Channel
other less conspicuous dignitaries, who kept order in the remote
parts of the kingdoms, adjusted disputes between conflicting
rural interests, and carried the power of the law down to the
lowliest of the population, the herdsmen, the peasants, and the
huntsmen. For example, the forest laws of mediaeval England
provided for a regarder, who covered a fixed itinerary at regular
intervals and settled the conflicting claims of woodsmen, hunters,
and others within his jurisdiction.

The available information upon any of these more or less
°bscure officials is all too meagre. Their work was done remote
from the glamour of the court. Their functions offered no field
for picturesque and striking episodes to catch the eye of any
chronicler. There are no precise and extensive records avail-
able upon their contributions to the administrative machinery

¹ Haskins, Norman Institutions (Cambridge, 1918), pp. 167-168, 183-186.

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