140 THE MESTA
examine the two separately, this should not be taken as an indica-
tion that local sheep taxes were common during one period of
pastoral history, and national imposts during another. In fact,
there was never a period throughout the long annals of sheep mi-
grations when we do not find friction between the herdsmen and
the towns, with its invariable accompaniment of fines, penalties,
and taxes. The second or national phase of this topic emerges
from the local taxation of the industry with the growth of a
strong central power, which, finding the towns reaping financial
advantage from penalties on the wandering flocks, soon devised a
method of accomplishing the same result for its own benefit.
The struggles between royal and local officials over the judicial
matters of the industry have already been discussed. The sub-
ject of the sheep taxes, though analogous to the judicial question
in that it too deals with national and local elements, is neverthe-
less distinctive in that it presents not a struggle between the two,
but a development, a growth of one out of the other.
Whether we consider the crude form of the Algerian migratory
pastoral industry, or the much more intricate organization of the
Roman flocks in southern Italy, there appears the same striking
fact of certain financial obligations of the herdsmen to the land-
owners. This feature is found in the earliest evidences of the in-
dustry in the countries where it can best be studied: Italy, North
Africa, southern France, and the Spanish kingdoms.1 In each of
these areas the first indications of annual sheep migrations show
the towns undertaking to assess damages and penalties upon the
intruders on their commons. Then too, there were frequent
violations of local laws by the strangers, trespasses on forbidden
pastures, and illicit passage over toll bridges. These and many
other points gave the local officers ample opportunity to exact
fees, dues, and taxes from the passing herdsmen.2
1 There are ample evidences of the existence of this form of sheep industry in
Roumania1 Scotland, Switzerland, Chile, and elsewhere (O. Densusianu, Pas-
torilul la Popoarele Romanice, Bucharest, 1913; Duke of Argyll, Scotland as it was
and as it is, Edinburgh, 1887, 2 vols., i, pp. 255 ff.; Geographical Review (New
York), Oct., 1918, pp. 370-371); but the materials upon the fiscal aspects of the
question in those countries are very meagre.
2 The taxation of the herdsmen and their products when they appeared in the
SHEEP TAXES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION i4i
The significance of this question of local sheep taxes lies not
only in its importance in the fiscal history of the industry itself.
More especially to be noted is the evidence given upon the an-
tiquity of the taxation of movable property in Mediterranean
countries. The prevalence of such taxation long before any
feudal land taxes contradicts the commonly accepted opinion,
which had held that such feudal dues were the predecessors of
assessments upon movable and personal property.1 The taxation
of migratory live stock — in every sense a movable property —
was by no means a mediaeval device created to supplement in-
adequate and antiquated feudal dues. The appearance of such
pastoral taxes came wherever and whenever the industry itself
occurred — in the Roman Empire, in Visigothic Spain, in the
Algerian hinterland, in mediaeval Provence, in present-day
Chile — quite regardless of any precedents in the form of feudal
taxation. This fact qualifies considerably the usual assertion
that taxes on movables were introduced only with the growing
inadequacy of the old feudal land taxes. In southern Italy,
for example, the earliest evidence of the taxation of migratory
sheep occurs with the first indications of the industry itself,
namely in the days of Julius Caesar and his immediate suc-
cessors. The public officials of that region have continued
to collect such taxes from the early days of the Roman Empire
down to the present day, with scarcely an interruption. It is
true that there were countries, such as Catalonia, where the
growth of migratory sheep raising, and the consequent increase of
revenue from it, aided the government in dispensing with the old
feudal aids. This fact, however, does not modify the above con-
clusion as to the relative positions of these two forms of taxes.
The appearance of migratory flocks in the Mediterranean coun-
tries brought on, as an inevitable consequence, the perennial
struggle between pastoral and agrarian interests. This hostility
local markets will be taken up later, in the examination of the efforts of the towns
to restrict any outside or nationalizing influence upon local affairs. This takes up
the important question of the growth of the national market as opposed to the
local one.
1 William Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce (4th ed.,
Cambridge, England, 1905-07, 3 vols.), i, p. 152.