174
THE MESTA
their completion. In the same manner, the efforts of the learned
sovereign to codify the countless local tolls did not achieve their
intended results for many generations.
He first prescribed the tolls to be collected in towns on the
lands of the military orders, and then promulgated restrictions on
those levied at other points along the sheep highways. In this
respect, the rules were at first not so sweeping or detailed as those
for the towns within the domains of the orders. They usually
took the form of exemptions in the hitherto unlimited grants of
freedom from all local taxes. One of the earliest of these was that
granted in 1255 to Logrono, the central point of the sheep-raising
districts in the upper Ebro valley. Its citizens were not to pay
sheep tolls except in Toledo, Seville, and Murcia? This was a
common form of exemption,2 which seems to have singled out the
three cities mentioned partly because of their ability to defend
their titles to their ancient montazgos, and partly because they
might serve as good points of concentration and administration
for these local tolls, after the manner of the towns named in the
Santiago code of 1253. This process of simplifying the collection
of the montazgos, and eliminating the obvious injustice to the
herdsmen of repeated assessments in any one locality or jurisdic-
tion, was carried further by a well known privilege granted to
Toledo in 1255 by Alfonso. By that instrument, the city authori-
ties were ordered to collect but two montazgos, one in Miraglo
and the other in Ciara, instead of the many tolls to which the
sheep had hitherto been subject when crossing various parts of
the montes or wooded pastures of Toledo.3 The rates were fixed
on the same basis as those specified in the code of 1253, with the
same values for the different kinds of stock, and the same privilege
of payment in money instead of in kind, if preferred. The Cortes
ɪ Gonzalez, v, pp. 170 ff. In some of the exemptions of this type Burgos was
added to these three.
2 Ibid., v, pp. 176-177: Castillo de Gormaz (1258); vi, pp. 150-152, 154-156:
Cuenca (1268); v, pp. 254-256: G6mara (1299); v, pp. 258-259: Villalon (1303);
v, pp. 273-274: Aguilar (1305); vi, pp. 235-237: Penas de S. Pedro (1309); vi,
pp. 239-242: Alcaudete (1328).
3 Bib. Nac. Madrid, Ms. Dd. 114, fol. 175. These two montazgos were later
combined, in accordance with the principle of ‘ one jurisdiction, one montazgo.’
MEDIAEVAL SHEEP TAXES IN CASTILE
175
which met at Valladolid in 1258 incorporated in their resolutions
all of these details regarding the collection of not more than one
ɪnontazgo in the jurisdiction of any one town or military order.
This Cortes also established the same montazgo rates as those
given above.1 Both of these propositions were cheerfully ap-
proved by the crown.
It is evident, then, that by the time the Mesta was founded, and
the industry thereby organized into some sort of national asso-
ciation, the local taxes which its members had to meet were given
at least a theoretical uniformity. The way had been pointed out
for subsequent legislation and administration. It is true that
much remained to be done. The crown still granted privileges to
some towns, giving them the right to collect a montazgo from all
sheep which passed by their limits.2 Occasionally the sovereign
naively cleared himself from the obvious dilemma of conflicting
exemptions to herdsmen and privileges to city tax collectors by
assuring the one or the other that any apparently contradictory
documents signed by himself were of no effect.3 Certain cities
did not even resort to the montazgo, but still followed the ancient
practice of expelling all strange sheep entering their jurisdiction.
In general, however, it may be said that by 1273 local tolls upon
migrating sheep were being put upon a more or less systematic
basis. We note, in fact, the beginnings of a recognized schedule
of uniform rates and a reasonable restriction as to the number of
toll points.
1 Cortes, Valladolid, 1258, pet. 31. In the manuscript in the Acad. Hist., Colec.
Martinez Marina, vol. ii, no. ɪ, the petition is no. 30.
2 Arch. Osuna, Gibraledn, caj. ι, no. 3 (.1267).
s Gonzâlez, vi, pp. 117-118: a privilege from Alfonso X to Badajoz, r270, which
assures the sheep of Badajoz full exemption from montazgos in all parts of the
realm, with a warning to the towns “ que non se Io tomedes ji.e., Ios montazgos] por
ɛartas que de mi hayades, en que mandase que ninguno fuese escusado de esto.”
4 Arch. Cuenca, Becerro, fols. 174-176 and leg. 3, no. 20 (1268): “ Todo ganado
ageno que entrare en Ios pastos de Cuenca, que Io cuentan el concejo é que Io echen
de todo su termino sin calumnia, salvo ende que Io non tomen por fuerza nin Io
roben.”