84
THE MESTA
pared to understand the significant step taken by Ferdinand and
Isabella in 1500, when they created the office of President of the
Mesta, which was to be held by the senior member of the Royal
Council, the first appointee being Hernân Perez de Monreal.1
Another evidence of the bond which was so rapidly strengthen-
ing between the autocracy and the Mesta was the cooperation
between the entregador and the corregidor, that ‘ cornerstone of
the administrative edifice ’ of the Catholic Kings.2 The corregidor
was instructed to assist the Mesta judge in the exercise of his
privileges, and in some cases to sit with him in an advisory capac-
ity.3 In the seventeenth century, when Spanish royalty had but
a shadow of its former grandeur, this practice of sending the
corregidor to reënforce the power of the entregador was resorted
to in the forlorn hope of restoring some of the old prestige of
the monarchy and the Mesta.
The concentration of the control of the Mesta under the various
branches of the central government was carried further, early
in the sixteenth century, by certain new provisions concerning
appeals.4 The commissions or appointments of entregadores
issued in 1509, 1516, and 1529 emphasized the function of the
royal ChancilIerfas and the Council as the only appellate courts
above the entregador. This set aside once and for all any possible
remnant of the now almost obsolete claim of the proprietary
entregador-in-chief to hear appeals in certain minor cases.5 In-
deed, the Council seems to have taken particular pains during the
ɪ Martinez Salazar, Coleccilm de . . . Memorias del Consejo (1764), pp. 221-
237, and Escolano de Arrieta, Prdctica del Consejo Real (1796, 2 vols.), i, pp. 584-
387. See above, pp. 52 S.
2 Mariéjol, L’Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle (Paris, 1902), p. 172.
’ Arch. Mesta, R-2, Ruecas, 1497; A-5, Aledo, 1488; B-2, Béjar, 1498; A-9,
Avila, 1502; Prov. i, 18 (1498).
i Arch. Ayunt. Cuenca, leg. 12, no. 5 (1509); Arch. Simancas, Diversos de
Castilla, no. 909 (1516) ; Arch. Mesta, C-3, Candeleda, 1534 (1529). A good illus-
tration of this point is found in a case which was tried in 1557, when the town of
Magana, near Soria, appealed from an entregador’s sentence to the alcalde mayor
of Burgos. The Royal Council immediately intervened and ordered that the appeal
be carried to the chancillerfa at Valladolid. Arch. Mesta, B-4, Burgos, 1557. This
was before the hostility between Council and Chancillerfas had become fully de-
veloped. See below, pp. niff.
s Arch. Mesta, S-5, Siguenza, 1792: a commission of 1417.
ORIGINS OF THE ALCALDE ENTREGADOR
85
earlier years of the Hapsburg period to emphasize the royal source
of the authority vested in the entregador. In a decree of 1516, for
example, the city of Plasencia was forbidden to accept as legal the
sentences of any judges who might call themselves entregadores,
“ unless they are appointed directly by the king.” This was espe-
cially intended to check “ certain judges appointed by the Cormt
of Buendia [proprietary entregador-in-chief], who are authorized
to examine only the boundaries of certain canadas, whereas the
entregadores appointed by the king are empowered to supervise
pastures, enclosures, and all other affairs of the members of the
Mesta.” x
The proprietary entregador, or entregador mayor, had thus be-
come practically a nonentity, save for his title to the privilege of
farming out certain lesser functions of Mesta administration.
The change was largely due to the new absolutism of the six-
teenth-century monarchy. His significance as a royal appointee
disappeared as the President of the Mesta took over the prestige
as well as the functions of his office. The transfer in 1568 of the
ownership of that office from the Buendia family to the Mesta
marks the end of any external or non-governmental control of
the herdsmen and their gild.
ɪ Arch. Mesta, P-ι, Plasencia, 1742.