PREFACE Of the many economic problems brought forth by the war, two have stimulated especial interest and have already been made the subject of considerable research. One of these is the national control of raw materials, and the other the economic foundations of newly organized states. It may not be altogether inopportune, therefore, at a time when so much thought is being given to these fundamental matters, to invite attention to the same questions as they appeared in another age and under far different cir cumstances. Spanish merino wool was for generations one of the great staples of commerce during the period when modern Europe was in the making. The history of the Honorable Assembly of the Mesta,' the Castilian sheep raisers' gild, presents a vivid picture of some six hundred years of laborious effort on the part of one of the great European powers to dominate the production and marketing of that essential raw material. This policy, though primarily concerned with the agrarian affairs of the realm, had, nevertheless, a far wider significance because of its part in the mercantilistic ambitions of the greatest of the Castilian monarchs. The high unit value of wool, its compact, exportable form, and the universal demand for it made it one of the most valued means for determining the relative status of rival monarchies. As a factor in the laying of the foundations of the Castilian state which rose from the ruins of the Reconquest, the Mesta played an inconspicuous but important part. It was used by each of the stronger sovereigns in turn to carry on a prolonged struggle against the ancient traditions of Spanish separatism — political, racial, and economic provincialism—and to work toward a united peninsula. Its rise synchronized with the successful efforts of the warrior monarchs of the Reconquest to weld their newly won dominions into a nation. Its decline began with the collapse of the monarchy and the triumph of separatist influences under the seventeenth-century Hapsburgs. The study of the economic development of Spain, and more particularly of its declining centuries, has occupied the attention of many investigators, but their interest has centred chiefly upon the use of economic conditions as convenient explanations of political phenomena. This has been especially true of the general works dealing with the great days of Spanish absolutism in the sixteenth century. A clearer understanding of the interrelation of economic and political factors can be possible only after considerably more attention has been paid to the study of certain special topics which are illustrative of the economic development of the country. Among these lacunae in Spanish historiography there is none more important than the account of the Mesta. The long and active life of this body from 1273 to 1836 has been a notable and in many ways unique feature of Spanish economic history. For hundreds of years it played a vital part in the adjustment of problems involving overseas trade, public lands, pasturage, and taxation. The extant descriptions of the Mesta are, for the most part, based upon prejudiced discussions and fragmentary documents originating with its numerous opponents. In no case has any use been made of the rich treasury of the Mesta's own archive, which has been in Madrid for nearly three hundred years, untouched and practically unknown. Whether the institution was but a product of strongly intrenched, cunningly directed special privilege pursuing its selfish ends, is a question which even the most recent investigators have too readily answered affirmatively. In its later centuries it unquestionably did contribute much to the agricultural decay of the country; but that circumstance should not obscure an appreciation of its earlier stimulative and constructive influence, both political and economic. Present day scholarship has been too ready to accept the point of view expressed in such seventeenth-century couplets as 30 or "¿Que es la Mesta? ¡ Sacar de esa bolsa y meter en esta!" "Entre tres 'Santos' y un 'Honrado' |