120
THE MESTA
with stipulated restrictions on the Mesta. A series of conferences
was begun, in 1602, between commissioners representing the
Cortes and the sheep owners, to agree upon the agrarian reforms
which were to be embodied in the Condiciones de millones. Under
those conditions the Cortes gave its consent to an extraordinary
subsidy of eighteen million ducats to the crown.1 Practically the
only references to the Mesta in the Cortes debates from that date
onward were in connection with this subsidy or later ones of the
same type. During the later Middle Ages the Castilian Cortes
had by no means so effective a control over the crown through its
powers over the purse strings as did the Aragonese parliament.2
Under the enfeebled monarchy of the later Hapsburgs, however,
the ability of the Castilian deputies to exact desired reforms as
conditions for subsidies is well illustrated by the sad experience
of the Mesta. The conditions of the grants of millones were
fully discussed and reported upon by a board of arbitrators and
commissioners named by both sides. To this body the Mesta
sent frequent petitions, characterized by the same humility which
marked all of its communications to the Cortes at this time.3
At the first of these conferences, in 1602, the representatives of
the Cortes made it plain that they proposed to secure every pos-
sible curtailment of such powers as still remained to the eɪitre-
gadores. The same policy was pursued at each of the succeeding
conferences in 1607, 1611,1620, and after.4 As a result the Mesta
l Cortes de Castilla, xxi, pp. 45-48; see Escrituras, acuerdos, administraciones, y
SUplicas de Ios servicios de veinte y quatro millones (Madrid, 1734), which contains
Condieiones attached to various millones voted during the seventeenth century. Cf.
Quad. 1731, pt. i, pp. 239 ff. Cos-Gayon, in his article on the Mesta in the Revista
de Espana, ix, p. 358, erroneously describes the millones as being in reales, instead
of ducados∙, cf. Gallardo, Rentas Reales, i, p. 47. The millones were first voted in
the Cortes of r588, as a source of revenue for the equipment of the Invincible Ar-
mada. They were usually granted at six-year intervals, and the funds were raised
by taxes on such staples as oil, vinegar, meat, wine, etc. An excellent unpublished
history of the millones by Antonio de Castro exists in the Acad. Hist., Ms. Salazar
41, no. 7 (cα. 1656).
2 Cf. R. B. Merriman, “ The Cortes of the Spanish Kingdoms in the Later Mid-
dle" Ages,” in the American Historical Review, April, 19n, p. 489.
3 Cortes de Castilla, xxii, pp. 26-32, 54-56, 69, 76, 95 (1603); xxiii, pp. 514-515,
524 (1607); xxiv, pp. 284, 785-789 (ι6o8); xxv, pp. 42, 51-55, 660 (1609-ю).
4 Escrituras, acuerdos . . . de Millones, fols. 34-44.
DECLINE OF THE EN TREGA DO R
121
representatives were forced to sit meekly by and endorse what
amounted to the complete emasculation of their nearly impotent
itinerant justices. Without the Cortes’ vote of the millones
the crown was in dire straits; and without the crown’s effective
assistance, the Mesta was helpless. The Cortes thus adroitly
secured the upper hand by its control of the subsidy, and it pro-
ceeded at once to dismantle the last antiquated bits of the en-
tregador’s armor. Any attempt on his part to hold court outside
a few specified places was to be punished by a fine of 20,000 ma-
ravedis. He was to hear no cases involving enclosures, except in
a few unimportant instances. If he assessed costs of litigation in
any case when the Mesta was the plaintiff, he was to lose his
office. As a final blow he was forbidden to retain any part of such
fines as he might levy — a measure which, of course, obliterated
practically all of his income. The condiciones de millones thus
inaugurated the first formal obsequies for the prestige of the
entregador.
In the meantime, in its regular sessions, the Cortes calmly took
it upon themselves to determine what salary the entregador
should be paid, how large a staff he should have, and other details
regarding the regulation of the office.1 In 1608 the legislature
voted that the sedentary flocks (estantes} were in no way to
be subject to or affected by entregador decisions.2 Petitions
from the Mesta, asking that the entregadores be at least partially
relieved from the vexations of local officials, were at first dis-
missed by the Cortes with the reply that they ‘ saw no reason why
such a request should be made.’3 Later it was agreed that the
royal Corregidor in a given district should hold court jointly with
the entregador. This insured a measure of protection to the
Mesta against local officers, for the Corregidores were chosen by
the central government for their intelligence and legal training,
which often proved useful to the entregadores in the interpreta-
tion of local fueros and ordinances.4 At the same time careful
1 Corles de Castilla, xxv, pp. 47-55 (1609).
2 Cirdenas, Propiedad territorial (Madrid, 1873-75, 2 vols.), ii, p. 277.
3 Cortes de Castilla, xxv, p. 47; xxviii, pp. 396-398 (1615).
4 Ibid., xxxii, p. 195 (1618). See above, p. 84, on the cooperation between
Corregidor and entregador as early as 1488. These were all steps which led ulti-