1. Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid). Colección de Fueros y Cartas-pueblas de España. Madrid, 1852. An indispensable guide, especially helpful as one of the few available aids for the investigator in the rich archives of the Academy.

2. The same. Indice de los Documentos procedentes de los Monasterios y Conventos suprimidos. Tom. i (no others published). Madrid, 1861. Has many excerpts and lengthy summaries.

3. The same. Colección de Córtes de los antiguos reinos de España. Madrid, 1855. A useful chronological guide to printed and ms. source materials, largely in the Academy's library.

4. Agapito y Revilla, Juan. Los Privilegios de Valladolid-Indice, Copias, y Extractos . . . . Valladolid, 1906. A convenient guide to much good material in the town archive of Valladolid.

desenhazer lo susodicho ciento e veynte dias. E que ayades e llevedes de salario para ayuda a vuestra costa e mantenimiento cada uno de los dichos ciento e veynta dias dozientos e cinquenta maravedis. E para un escriuano que con vos vaya ante quien pase lo susodicho setenta maravedis. Los quales vos sean dados e pagados de los bienes de los que fallardes para los quales aver e cobrar e para fazer sobre ello todas las prendas, premias, execuçiones, vençiones, prisiones e remates de vienes que necesarios e conplideros sean. Vos doy asy mismo poder conplido por esta mi carta con todas sus yncidencias, dependencias, mergencias, anexidades, e conexidades, e non hagades ende al.

Dada en la çibdad de Jaen, a diez y ocho dias del mes de Agosto, año del nascimiento de Nuestro Señor Jesu Christo de mill e quatro cientos e ochenta e nueue años.

YO LA REYNA.

Yo, Alonso de Avila, secretario del Rey e de la Reyna, nuestros señores, la fize escreuir por su mandado.

1. Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid). Colección de Fueros y Cartas-pueblas de España. Madrid, 1852. An indispensable guide, especially helpful as one of the few available aids for the investigator in the rich archives of the Academy.

2. The same. Indice de los Documentos procedentes de los Monasterios y Conventos suprimidos. Tom. i (no others published). Madrid, 1861. Has many excerpts and lengthy summaries.

3. The same. Colección de Córtes de los antiguos reinos de España. Madrid, 1855. A useful chronological guide to printed and ms. source materials, largely in the Academy's library.

4. Agapito y Revilla, Juan. Los Privilegios de Valladolid - Indice, Copias, y Extractos . Valladolid, 1906. A convenient guide to much good material in the town archive of Valladolid.

5. Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid). Indice de los Documentos del Monasterio de Sahagun. Madrid, 1874. Liberal extracts and summaries; a useful glossary.

6. Barrantes, Vicente. Aparato Bibliográfico para la Historia de Extremadura. Madrid, 1875-77. 3 vols. This edition displaces the earlier one in 2 vols. (1865), which was full of gaps and errors. The present edition is an exhaustive guide to materials, both ms. and printed, on the great summer pasturage region of the Mesta.

7. Boissonnade, P. "Les Études relatives à l'histoire économique de l'Espagne." In Revue de synthèse historique, 1910-12.

8. Catalina Garcia, Juan. Datos Bibliográficos sobre la Sociedad Económica Matritense. Madrid, 1877. A scarce but very useful publication; lists much valuable fugitive material now in the library of that Society.

9. Colmeiro, Manuel. Biblioteca de los Economistas Españoles de los Siglos XVI, XVII, y XVIII. Madrid, 1880. Indispensable.

10. Foulché-Delbosc, R. Bibliographie des voyages en Espagne et en Portugal. Paris, 1896. Convenient in this investigation as a guide to material on Estremadura.

11. Jordana y Morera, José. Apuntes Bibliográfico-forestales. Madrid, 1875. A useful compilation of titles, both printed and ms., on forestry, with much on stock raising; privately printed.

12. Muñoz y Romero, Tomás. Diccionario Bibliográfico-Histórico de los antiguos Reinos, Provincias, Ciudades, Villas ... Madrid, 1858. Remarkable for its thoroughness, accuracy, and utility; one of the two constant bibliographic aids to the present investigation (see No. 15).

13. Pérez Pastor, Cristóbal. Bibliografía Madrileña. . . Siglo XVI. Madrid, 1891. Supplemented by two later volumes on the early seventeenth century; lists the early editions of the Mesta codes.

14. Rada y Delgado, Juan. Bibliografía Numismática Española. Madrid, 1886. This and the preceding item were published by the Biblioteca Nacional.

15. Ramirez, Bráulio Anton. Diccionario de Bibliografía Agronómica. Madrid, 1865. An exhaustive compilation of 2375 titles, including mss., analyses of files of obscure periodicals, summaries of early pamphlets, etc.; a work which will stand comparison with the best of the better known bibliographies in any language or on any subject.

II. SOURCES

A. MANUSCRIPTS

1. The Archive of the Mesta

The Mesta began very early the collection and organization of documents concerning its various activities. In fact, there are indications of an informal accumulation of materials for the use of its attorney as early as 1371, though the first definite evidence of a systematized archive does not occur until the recognition of the Mesta by Ferdi

nand and Isabella as one of the administrative arms of the central government. The Archive was stored at the monastery of Guadalupe, in the heart of the winter pasturage region, until about 1595, when it was transferred to Villanueva de la Serena, another of the favorite towns for the winter meetings of the herdsmen. There it remained until 1621, when it was removed to Madrid, to be stored in the church of San Martín until the early years of the eighteenth century. It was then installed in its present abode in a house on the corner of the Calle de las Huertas and the Calle de León, across the street from the Royal Academy of History, where it reposed, untouched by historians, for some two hundred years.

In view of all these travels and of its constant use as an arsenal for the ever busy legal staff of the Mesta, the excellent condition and the completeness of the files of documents are remarkable. Out of its total of 6000 or more separate manuscript items, several hundred of which are stout folio volumes, less than twenty sheets are in a seriously damaged condition, and the different series of documents are marred by no important gaps. The Archive is now well arranged and accessible, and its value in fields of research beyond the limits of the present study should prove inviting to other students. Its long and unbroken files of judicial materials, for example, afford a rare opportunity for the examination of mediaeval Castilian judicial procedure and the development of the technique of litigation. The Archive abounds in sources of tempting possibilities in the field of general agrarian history: public lands, commons, forests, etc. In general, its strongest period lies in the sixteenth century, with ample sources both before and after that golden age of Spanish history.

A word on its completeness, before taking up the different sections in detail. An examination of the usual Spanish libraries and archives, both national and local, private and public, brings out at once the fact that they contain few if any sources on the Mesta: a circumstance which is probably the explanation of the absence of any careful study of the subject. For an institution which aroused such prolonged and vehement hatred, the Mesta is surprisingly uninvestigated. The credit for this immunity may be ascribed to the craft of a few of that body's astute legal agents, who, in 1621, secured a royal order by which they were authorized to remove from the great archive at Simancas, and all other public record offices, all documents bearing on the Mesta. These were deposited in the Archive of that organization, where they remain to this day. They were supplemented in