ι8o
THE MESTA
of local taxes from its members. In his famous code, the Siete
Partidas (ca. 1256-63), Alfonso had already undertaken to regain
for the crown a share of the returns from the local portazgos.1
Urged on by the sheep owners, he now took further steps, osten-
sibly in the royal interest, to curtail the independence of the
towns in certain fiscal matters which had long been exclusively
local in administration. As was frequently the practice, Alfonso
had farmed out various royal revenues to three Jewish financiers
who acted as royal fiscal agents, especially in the collection of
penalties from towns for violation of the newly granted tax ex-
emptions of the sheep owners. Several of the towns had objected
to the pretensions of the Mesta in the matter of this alleged priv-
ilege of free access to montes and other commons, which had
hitherto been regarded as exclusively for local uses. These claims
of exemption from montazgos were at once put to the test, and the
sheep owners vigorously demanded the enforcement of the clause
in the Mesta charter of 1273 which provided that no montazgos
should be collected, save those guaranteed by a royal privilege
from Ferdinand III, Alfonso’s father. The initial steps in this
direction were taken in 1276, when the king, acting on the incita-
tion of the Mesta, placed these three fiscal agents in charge of the
campaign against unauthorized montazgos.2 The first of these
agents, Don Zag (Isaac ?) de la Maleha, soon complained to his
royal patron regarding the difficulties encountered in the enforce-
ment of the arrangement; whereupon the royal entregadores
were ordered to assist in the task, a further indication of coopera-
tion between crown and sheep owners against the towns. Eigthy
thousand maravedis was the price paid by the contractors for the
concession giving them the exclusive right to prosecute unau-
thorized montazgo collectors during a two-year period. This
figure, when interpreted by the prices of sheep and cattle cited
above,’ indicates the importance and prevalence of these sup-
posedly illegal montazgos.
l See above, p. 165, n. ι.
1 Acad. Hist., Mss. Salazar, est. ro, leg. 21: printed in part in Memorial
Hist&rico, i, pp. 308-324.
’ See p. 172.
TAXES DURING THE RISE OF THE MESTA l8l
The repression of these taxes was by no means so easy a
matter as the above arrangement had presupposed. Contro-
versies soon broke out, and it is interesting to note that the first
of these should occur in the southwestern pasture region, the same
Estremaduran district whence came the first successful efforts
against the entregadores. Badajoz made the first attacks upon
these itinerant justices in the mid-sixteenth century; but even
in the first decades of the Mesta, that city was successfully mak-
ing the pioneer stand for the towns against any modification of
their ancient sheep-tax privileges. Badajoz had from time im-
memorial exercised the right of levying montazgos “ on all ani-
mals that came from outside to pasture within the limits of its
jurisdiction.” 1 It was this right which the Mesta sought to over-
throw shortly after Alfonso X had given the sheep owners their
first charter; but their royal patron died before that object had
been achieved, and his rebellious son, Sancho, in May, 1285, but
a few months after his accession, recognized the right of Badajoz
to collect the montazgo.2 These times of internal disorders and
uncertain central authority gave a favorable opportunity to
the towns, and Badajoz, the leader of the pasturage-owning
regions, had been the first to take advantage of Sancho’s hostility
toward his father, the founder and first patron of the Mesta.
During the next two generations, while the crown lost much
of its prestige and was sorely troubled by the factious ambi-
tions of dissatisfied nobles, the cities and towns were eager to ex-
change avowals of loyalty for recognitions by the sovereign of
their montazgo privileges. The strong rule of Alfonso XI after
he had attained his majority (1324-50) put a check upon this, and
once more gave the Mesta its opportunity. The two previous
reigns, however, of Sancho IV (1284-95) and Ferdinand IV
(1295-1312), as well as the minority of Alfonso XI (1312-24),
were interspersed with numerous grants of montazgo privileges.3
1 Arch. Mesta, B-ι, Badajoz, 1727: a lengthy and important suit regarding the
montazgo question, in the course of which both sides introduced documents re-
vealing the history of that tax from the earliest times to 1727.
l Gonzâlez, vi, p. 126.
s In 1285 Caceres and Badajoz, important capitals of the western pasturage
country, received confirmations of their montazgo rights and also of the exemption