74
THE MESTA
might be taken as a predecessor of the entregador. Scores of
special privileges and charters had been bestowed upon the mi-
grant herds of cities, monasteries, and nobles during the early
Middle Ages. In fact, these donations had come to be so com-
mon by the middle of the thirteenth century that the Partidas,
the great code of Alfonso X, gave a fixed form in which they were
to be drawn up.1 The important point to be noted in the present
connection is that although this form of pastoral industry was
recognized as one worthy of liberal privileges, by which migrating
herds of many nobles, cities, and ecclesiastical and military orders
were placed on an equal footing with those of the king, no neces-
sity had thus far been found for special judges to protect these
privileges.
An examination of the town charters, or fueros, of the twelfth
and early thirteenth centuries reveals a similar situation. Al-
though most of them contain sections regulating the affairs of
shepherds and their flocks, there were never any provisions for
a special magistrate to pass upon disputes between sheep owners
and the agricultural class.2 Many of these charters, however,
contain some legislation regarding the appointment of a special
judicial officer or alcalde to settle disputes in which both parties
were herdsmen or stock owners. There was, for example, the
alcalde de Ios pastores in Uclés,3 and the alcalde de rafala or judge
of the horse fair in Caceres? These officials, who were sometimes
called alcaldes de corral, from the enclosure in which the stray
animals were kept, are comparable to the hog reeves and field
drivers of the English and earlier American town governments.
Three of the best types of the local judges for non-migratory herds
are to be found in the administration of the later mediaeval or-
1 Part. 3, tit. ι8, ley 19 : “ En que manera deuen ser Iechas las cartas que manda
el Rey dar, porque anden Ios ganados seguros.”
1 See, for example, the ‘ tɪtulo de Ios pastores ’ in the fuero of Plasencia, Acad.
Hist., Ms. E-126, fols. 219 V ff., also Bib. Nac. Madrid,Ms. 714, fols. 208 ff.; and
the fuero of Uclés, tits. 99,192, and 194, in Boletin Acad. Hist., xiv (1889), pp. 302-
355. Other examples also occur in the same, xxxvii (19∞), pp. 367-430,449-458;
and in the fuero of Molina, in Acad. Hist., Ms. 12-19-1/35, fols. 422 fi.
8 Fuero of Uclés (vid. ante), tit. 195: “ Qui pennos amparare a Ios alcaldes de
Ios pastores.”
t Ulloa y ɑolfin, Privilégias de Cdceres (1676 ?), tit. 401.
ORIGINS OF THE ALCALDE ENTREGADOR
75
dinances of Seville, Toledo, and Madrid.1 These alcaldes were the
source of much trouble to the Mesta because of the conflict be-
tween them and its officers, the alcaldes de quadrilla, who, it will
be recalled,2 were likewise assigned to the hearing of local disputes
between stock raisers, and to the settlement of questions regard-
ing the ownership of mostrencos or strays. The jurisdiction of
these local alcaldes was in every case limited to matters involving
non-migratory flocks. In no way were they, or any others of the
many pre-Mesta sheep and cattle reeves, appointed to protect the
interests and privileges of the migratory flocks.
As the conquest of the Moors proceeded southward, stronger
city governments grew up in the newly conquered territory, and
a settled agricultural class began to develop in importance and
power. These new interests were soon voicing protests against
the roving transhumantes, and consequently the need of a spe-
cially empowered itinerant magistrate to protect the interests of
the migrants became apparent. These were the conditions which
led to the oldest extant charters of the Mesta and the creation of
the alcalde entregador.
The complexity of relations between the different classes of the
very mixed Castilian population of this period had brought into
existence a number of interracial and interclass judicial officers.
We find the alcalde de entre Ios Cristianos y Moros,i and the al-
caldes que acen las entregas de Ios Cristianos y de Ios Judios.i
ɪ Ordenanias de Sevilla (Seville, 1527), fols. 115 v-123 v; Ordenanzas . . .
de Toledo (Toledo, 1858), pp. 4-14; T, D. Palacio, Documentes . . . de Madrid
(Madrid, 1888-1909,4 vols.), iii, pp. 391-408. The office of alcalde de mesta, or de
corral, was continued in Madrid until 1836, or forty years after the abolition of the
entregador: cf. Arch. Ayuntamiento Madrid, sec. 2, leg. 438, no. 5. The same
office existed in Navarre, with jurisdiction over all stray animals in the kingdom.
Nov. Recop. Leyes Navarra (Pamplona, 1735, 2 vols.), lib. ɪ, tit. 24, ley 3. See also
the ordinances of the mesta of Baena (near Cordova), 1415-1536, in the Antiguas
Ordenanzas de Baena, ed. Valverde Perales (Cordova, 1907), pp. 127-136; and the
Ordinaciones de la Mesta de Albarrazin (42 pp., Albarracfn, 1740).
s See above, pp. 13 ff.
3 Acad. Hist., Ms. Salazar O-13, fols. 70-71: a privilege to Burgos (1304).
Archive of the Duke of Osuna (Madrid), Béjar c. 32, no. 38, f. ɪ, p. 587: the trans-
fer of the income of such an office in Murcia in 1450.
1 Acad. Hist., Ms. 12-19-1/35, fols. 431-433: a privilege to Alarcon (1293); cf.
Ms. 12-19-3/38, fol. 56, Plasencia (1293).