ɪɜθ THE MESTA
fortunately for the herdsmen, that body was quite helpless, as has
already been noted. Finally, in 1670 a new device was tried;
the Council ordered the Chancilleria at Valladolid to hand over
immediately to the Sala all important cases pending on appeals
from entregador decisions.1 The Valladolid court quietly ignored
this mandate and several similar ones which were issued at regular
intervals during the next two decades. It would have required
much more pressure than was then at the disposal of the Royal
Council, or, for that matter, of any institution in Castile, to com-
pel the Chancillerias to relinquish their jurisdiction over appeals
from cases tried by entregadores.
The attorneys of the Mesta were able to bring a few cases up to
the Sala; and this newly found protector gave the sorely tried
sheep owners almost the only comfort they had had for many
decades. In 1675, for example, there was jubilant elation among
the herdsmen after the Sala had handed down an important
pasturage decision in favor of the Mesta and against the corregi-
dor of the city of Leon.2 Similar decisions followed, which re-
newed the almost abandoned hopes of the Mesta for a revival of
its ancient strength and inspired it with a new confidence in the
efficacy of the Royal Council and the Sala. As a result of these
new aspirations seven decrees were issued by the Council in the
period 1677-1719. These edicts were intended to strengthen the
jurisdiction of the Sala over cases involving the Mesta and its
judges and to place every possible hindrance in the way of the
high courts at Granada and Valladolid.* It was stipulated that
there should be no appeal from entregador sentences involving
less than 3000 maravedis. Should the disputed claims be in ex-
cess of that amount, the Mesta was given the privilege of appeal-
ing directly to the Sala without the intercession of the chancil-
Ierfas. The latter were to be eliminated at all costs; but these
costs were proving to be very heavy. The burdens of continuous
litigation in every high court of the land were too much for the
decrepit old organization. The Mesta accounts for 1684 show a
* Arch. Mesta V-ι, Valladolid, 1670.
2 Concordia de 1783, ɪi, fol. 171.
3 Ibid., ii, fols. 173 v-180.
DECLINE OF THE ENTREGADOR ɪʒɪ
deficit for the first time in nearly two hundred years; for over a
century the annual net profits had varied from fifteen to thirty
million maravedis, but in the year mentioned the treasury was
over seven millions in arrears.1 This was the lowest point in
the financial history of the Mesta during the three centuries
covered by its extant accounts. Its corps of attorneys at Valla-
dolid was discontinued and that at Granada diminished because
of the futility of fighting cases there. Such humiliation was
bitter indeed for an institution which had been so intimately
associated with the proud sovereigns of Castile for four hundred
years.
The effective work of the Chancillerias against the Mesta and
its judiciary continued relentlessly. For eight years, 1708-16,
the entregadores did not hold court at all, and the consequent loss
of income from fines brought the feeble exchequer of the Mesta
to lower and lower depths of insolvency. The crown, however,
suffered a corresponding loss, for it had received a third of the
yield from the sentences of the itinerant nagistrates. In order to
regain this for the royal treasury, which was hopelessly depleted
after the war of the Spanish Succession, the entregadores were
commanded in 1716 to renew activities and to see that the income
of the new Bourbon monarchy was not stinted because of moder-
ate fines. Encouraged by this and by assurances of further sup-
port from the Royal Council, the Mesta renewed its demands that
“ the long recognized rights of the entregadores be reaffirmed, and
that they be given full and final jurisdiction directly under the
Sala, to the exclusion of all local judges on the one hand, and all
Chancillerfas, audiencias, and provincial courts on the other.” 2
Thanks to the sore financial straits of Philip V and Ferdinand VI,
the entregadores were given vigorous support and encouragement
by the crown and its officials, and the result was a temporary in-
crease in the amounts annually turned in by them? Fortified by
1 Arch. Mesta, Cuentas, 1510-1836 (17 large folio volumes and portfolios).
, Brit. Mus., Ms. 1321 k6 (c<.. 1732); a similar declaration in Arch. Mesta, Prov.
iii, 29 (1722).
’ The totals of their sentences rose steadily during these reigns to about six
million maravedis a year, but began to fall off as soon as the drastic investigations
were started by Charles III. Cf. Arch. Mesta, Cuentas, 1717-81, passim.