144
THE MESTA
of the thirteenth century and after give exclusive attention to
tolls and dues paid to the towns, with no direct mention of tax
collectors for superior authorities, save for certain temporary
forced loans and exactions by the overlords of the region toward
the close of the Middle Ages. Chief among these municipal
sheep taxes of mediaeval Provence was the pulvérage, which is
frequently mentioned in the old account books of the bailes or
chief herdsmen.1 It was not abolished until 1766, after it had
gradually drifted out of the hands of the local officials and into
the control of the provincial and national authorities.
The local taxes upon migrating flocks in southern France
covered many different purposes: punishment for trespasses
upon cultivated or enclosed lands, tolls for crossing bridges, fees
for protection against marauders, dues for the use of the town
commons or of stubble. Occasionally these exactions were paid
in kind, as for instance in the Couserans district on the slopes of
the Pyrenees, where tolls in cheese were regularly collected from
the passing shepherds.2 The assessment sometimes was accom-
panied by a stipulation that the herds should fertilize the arable
land of the town by travelling about over various fields during
their sojourn in a given jurisdiction, and by being folded in dif-
ferent places at night.3
The isolation of the valleys of the Pyrenees lends interest to
the pastoral history of that area. Just as those highland com-
munities evolved peculiar political institutions — ‘ republics ’
and i confederations ’ ∙— inspired by unusual local conditions and
ideas, so too in the regulation of the sheep migrations there was
developed a purely local, almost primitive, economy, with prac-
tices and procedures unaffected by external influences. In this
respect, therefore, the pastoral institutions of the Pyrenees differ
l Fournier, op. cit., pp. 241-242, citing references to the archives of Arles.
2 Cabannes, “ Les chemins de transhumance dans Ie Couserans,” in Bull, gtog.
hist, et descrip., 1899, p. 200. The payment of dues in cheese by sheep owners was
also common in Spain; cf. the bounties on wolf scalps paid in Madrid in 1493 out
of an assessment of one cheese on every fifty head of sheep in the district. Palacio,
Docs. Arch. Madrid, iii, p. 405.
3 Chevalier, “ La transhumance dans les vallées d’Andorre,” in Revuedes Pyrintes,
1906, pp. 604-618; Amalbert, Le Mouton Arltsienne (Montpellier, 1898).
SHEEP TAXES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION 145
from those in most other Mediterranean regions. The latter were
guided to a large extent by the experiences of their neighbors.
Southern Italy influenced Castile ; the Spanish kingdoms looked
to each other for suggestions in dealing with the common prob-
lems; but the Pyrenean pasturage lands were remote, and the
practices which became common in the relations between these
isolated landowners and herdsmen were often unique.
Agreements were frequently made between the people of the
different valleys of the Pyrenees regarding pasture rights and the
dues to be paid by their respective flocks while on their annual
migrations. The conception of these mountains as a barrier be-
tween France and Spain dates only from the comparatively recent
times of rapid transit. From the thirteenth century down to the
eighteenth there are numerous evidences of the unifying influence
of these mountain valleys upon the people of the two slopes.1
The chief factor in these relations was the migratory pastoral in-
dustry. One of the invariable stipulations in the inter-valley
agreements was that regarding the tolls to be levied upon the
flocks when on the march. Trespass in forbidden pasturage,
especially in fields enclosed for town purposes, was punished by a
fine called carnal or carnau. The right to collect this penalty was
carefully guarded as one of the chief privileges of the valley peo-
ples. Their agreements of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries carefully specify the amounts to be levied and the pro-
cedure to be followed in the collection, so as to protect the given
communities against the possible claims of any outside overlord.
This practice was temporarily interrupted, however, when
the strong hand of sixteenth-century French royalty intervened
in these inter-valley pastoral agreements. The high tariffs of
Louis XII on imports of Spanish wool and sheep played havoc
1 Cavaillès, “ Une fédération pyrénéenne sous l’ancien régime,” in the Revue
historique, cv, pp. 1-34, 241-276 (1910): an exhaustive study of the political and
economic ties between southern France and northern Spain by way of the Pyrenean
valleys. See also Bladé in Bull. géog. hist el descrip., 1892, pp. 301-315; and in the
Revue des Pyrénées, 1894, no. 5; Fabre, L’Exode du montagnard et la transhumance
en France (Lyons, 1909). A significant geographic factor in the Pyrenean migra-
tions is the uniformly north and south direction of these valleys, which naturally
encouraged communication between the two adjoining countries.