7$
THE MESTA
The latter title gives some indication of the origin of the name
entregador, the ‘ awarder and the significance of the title be-
comes clearer in the light of certain Mesta charters to be con-
sidered in a moment. He was evidently an officer who awarded
compensation and made the entrega, or return, of any wrongly
seized property and excessive exactions. In the case of the ‘ en-
tregador between Jews and Christians ’ the office was really one
for the regulation of the relations between money lenders and
borrowers. The purpose in that case was ostensibly to protect
the supposedly victimized latter class from usury.1
The prevention of extortion and unjust exactions from other-
wise defenceless victims — from the latter’s own point of view —
was the essential function of the entregador in every case, whether
his wards were wandering herdsmen, helpless debtors, or the dupes
of Moorish peddlers and hucksters.2 These officials were generally
appointed by the king from among his courtiers — a fact which
brought forth frequent protests from the towns against ‘ these
meddling, intruding∕orasteros’ (strangers). Such complaints were
answered with favorable grants of exemption and by the restric-
tion of the activities of such judicial representatives of the central
authority as the merinos and the entregadores.s
There is no evidence of the existence of the office of alcalde
entregador of the Mesta previous to the time of Alfonso X; in-
deed, it was specifically declared by the Cortes of Palencia in
ɪ The Cortes debates of the fourteenth century refer frequently to this officer.
See Cories, Valladolid, 1293, pet. 12; 1299, pet. ɪɪ; 1307, pet. ι8; Palencia, 1313,
pet. 30; Burgos, 1315, pet. 30; Madrid, 1339, pet. 8. The fuero of Soria (1256)
has a section on alcaldes . . . de las Judios-, see Loperraez Corvalan, Descripcidn
Histdrica del obispado de Osma (Madrid, 1788, 3 vols.), iii, p. 103.
2 Acad. Hist., Ms. Salazar O-13, fols. 50-52 : a Burgos charter of ɪ 298 — “ que
ɪnandanɪos dar pesquisidores entregadores, tales que sean ornes buenos que fagan
pesquisa [inquiry] рог las Hierindades en raçon de las ɪnaltuertas e de las tomas e
de Ios rouos e del condurijo [?] que se toma sin derecho. . . .
• Acad. Hist., Ms. Salazar O-13, fols. 101-102: a concession to Burgos, 1375,
ordering judges of this class “ que non entreges ni ɪnerinedes en ningunas de las
dichas aldeas (de Burgos), ni fagades y entregas ningunas . . . que non entiendes
merinar ni facer entregas.” Acad. Hist., Ms. 12-19-2/55, fols. 25-40: a concession
to Fenestrosa, 1287: “ Si merino û otro oficial mayor ficiere о demandare contra
derecho matenlo; et non peche mas de cinco sueldos.” Similar exemptions are to
be found in Arch. Hist. Nac., Docs. Sahagun, no. 185 (1231), and Gonzàlez, v, pp.
649-654 (1373)-
ORIGINS OF THE ALCALDE ENTREGADOR
77
1313 1 that “ there were no entregadores for shepherds in the days
of King Ferdinand who reconquered Seville [1252] nor in the
days of other kings before him.” The earliest document dealing
at length with the entregador is a commission of appointment
issued to the “ entregador of the shepherds of the canada of
Cuenca,” in 1300,2 instructing him to perform his duties “ as
they were in the times of King Alfonso [X], my grandfather, and
of King Sancho [IV], my father.”
The first mention of the entregador of the herdsmen is in the
earliest of the extant Mesta charters, that of 1273. The reference
is a casual one, and indicates that the entregador was already
known at the time the document was drawn up. It may be con-
cluded, then, that the origin of the office occurred in the first two
decades of Alfonso X’s reign, one of the two or three most pro-
ductive and significant periods in the juridical history of Castile.
The creation of the office of entregador synchronized with, or
slightly preceded, that of the Mesta; the two events were, in fact,
closely associated episodes in the administrative unification of
Castile after the Moors had been driven beyond the southern
borders of the kingdom.
It should be carefully noted that the entregador first appears,
not as a subordinate officer of the Mesta, but as a direct represent-
ative of royal authority. This is the most significant but far too
little appreciated characteristic of that magistrate during the
three centuries previous to the reign of Philip II, which may be
taken as the first of the two great periods of his history. This
period of the history of the entregador, though chronologically
equal to the second, is naturally supplied with less documentary
evidence, and an analysis of it is, therefore, lacking in the wealth
of detail which makes possible a more accurate study of the
second epoch, from the reign of Philip II. In the first period we
are concerned with the relations between the entregador and the
first and most important ally of the Mesta, the crown. In the
* Pet. 40.
’ Arch. Ayunt. Cuenca, Becerro, fols. 25-27. This document has been printed,
with some serious errors and omissions, in Benavides, Memorius de D. Fernando IV
(ι86o, 2 vols.), ii, pp. 222-224. There is also a copy in the British Museum, Ms.
Add. 9915, fols. 361-368.