90
THE MESTA
As we have seen,1 these routes were really elongated pastures
reserved exclusively for the passage twice a year of the transhu-
mantes. The above specification brings out a salient feature,
namely, that the width of the canadas was definitely fixed only
when they lay between cultivated areas. When the sheep high-
way led across commons or waste lands, the flocks were at liberty
to follow any route they chose. The maintenance of the measured
stretches of the canadas was almost the only occupation of the
entregador during the Middle Ages. It was, however, an absorb-
ing task, for the fine of a hundred maravedis which was cus-
tomarily levied for encroachments upon the sheep highways was
not enough to keep back the neighboring peasants and land-
owners. In fact, trespasses were inevitable, in view of the few
weeks of use to which the canadas were put each year.
The periodic visitations of the entregadores became so closely
associated in the minds of the townsmen and wayside peasants
with the maintenance of sheep walks that the absence of any such
highways in a given region was naturally regarded as a guarantee
of exemption from the jurisdiction of the Mesta magistrates.2
This principle was fully recognized by the latter, until the period
when the dominance of the Mesta over the rural life of Castile
encouraged the officers of that institution to ignore the ancient
privilege of towns remote from the canadas and to hold court in
villages which never saw the migrating flocks.
ɪ See p. 20.
2 Arch. Ayunt. Madrid, sect. 2, leg. 358, no. ʒo: royal privilege of 1345, an-
nouncing that “ within the limits of the jurisdiction of Madrid there is no cafiada
and no judge can trespass therein.” Acad. Hist., Ms. E-127, fol. 251: royal com-
mission dated r330, instructing the entregadores to confine their hearings and awards
of judgment strictly to the canadas. Arch. Mesta, Prov. iv, no. 7, lists the towns
claiming exemption from entregador visitations. These exemptions were sometimes
nullified, however, by entregadores who resorted to their authority to open new
highways “ wherever needed.” See Acad. Hist., Ms. Salazar O-15 (1376), fol. 251 :
royal commission, dated 1330, instructing the entregadores “que fagan las entregas
en todas Ias canadas . . . y las querellas le dieren tambien en las canadas.” Arch.
Mesta, Prov. iv, no. 7, gives a list of the towns claiming exemption from the
entregadores on this basis. These privileges were sometimes evaded by the entre-
gadores, who resorted to their power to open new canadas. Acad. Hist., Ms.
Salazar O-15, refers to the exercise of that function by an entregador in Granada
in 1376.
the entregador and the towns
9i
It should also be observed that there were frequent exemptions
in favor of towns which lay along the sheep routes. These im-
munities were either perpetual or for long period of years and were
bestowed by the crown as rewards for war time services or were
sold by it to raise revenue.1 Another common restriction upon the
entregadores occurred in certain town charters which limited the
jurisdiction of the Mesta judges to offences occurring in or directly
related to the canada, and specifically reserving to the local jus-
tices the matter of dealing with herds which strayed into neigh-
boring cultivated lands.2
Previous to the sixteenth century the canada was mutually
recognized by the Mesta and the towns as the sine qua non of an
entregador’s visitations in a given locality. Where the flocks
made use of the ordinary highways, as sometimes happened, they
were not entitled to the protection of their special judges.3 This
was modified, however, under the absolutism of the sixteenth cen-
tury, when the Mesta had come to be employed as an important
instrument of the crown in establishing its influence over the local
administration of the realm. The Royal Council then disre-
garded this ancient restriction of the entregadores to the canadas,
and through its senior member, the President of the Mesta, au-
thorized these magistrates to exercise their office in many parts of
the country remote from any regular sheep routes.4 The debates
of the Cortes during the sixteenth century were interspersed with
protests against this encroachment of the itinerant judges upon
the territory of the local justices, who were thereby robbed of one
of their chief sources of revenue.5
ɪ The town of Buitrago had received such an exemption in 1288 from Sancho IV,
in recognition of its loyalty to him in his war with his father Alfonso X. Braza-
corta and Bofiar had been similarly rewarded for the same reason: Arch. Mesta,
B-3, Bofiar, 1762; B-4, Brazacorta, 1752; B-4, Buitrago, 1742.
, Acad. Hist., Ms. Salazar O-15, fol. 87 (1376).
* The exemption of the town of Siguenza from the entregador’s jurisdiction was
based on this ground: Arch. Mesta, S-5, Siguenza, 1792: a privilégia of 1331.
4 Arch-Mesta, C-2, Caloca, 1739: a sixteenth-century declaration by the Presi-
dent, authorized by the Royal Council, that the canada was not necessarily the only
itinerary of the entregadores.
6 Cortes, iv, pp. 551-552 (1532)> v> P∙ 83 (i538)i v> P∙ 246 (1542); Cortes de
Castilla, xiii, pp. 322-330 (1594).