in kind. In the thirteenth century this amounted to ten head out of every flock, but this exorbitant rate, due to James the Conqueror's heavy war expenses, was cut to five by James II in 1326.1 By the middle of that century the royal sheep toll had become definitely fixed as to rates and collection points, which were formally announced by an edict. This act also stipulated that any local tax purporting to be a royal one should be forthwith discontinued. Numerous later decrees and ordinances outlined the details of the system, protected the sheep owners from abuse at the hands of the crown's collectors, granted the flocks ample accommodations near the toll gates, and insured them free passage over the public highways as well as over their special routes.' Royal sheep tolls were maintained in Aragon until the agrarian reform edicts, drawn up in 1773 and after by Charles III along the lines of his earlier Neapolitan measures, threw open to cultivation most of the public pastures in southern Aragon.

Royal incomes in Valencia benefited very materially by the fact that the inviting lowland pastures of that kingdom made it a favorite winter grazing ground for most of the Aragonese and many of the Castilian transhumantes. In 1245, seven years after the capture of the city of Valencia from the Moors, James I announced his royal title to the herbage and carnerage, taxes which had been levied by Valencian towns on sedentary and on migratory flocks respectively. As a further means of increasing the royal revenues from sheep migrations into Valencia, Philip II introduced into that realm the Castilian royal sheep tax of servicio y montazgo."

1 Arch. Cor. Arag., Escrituras Jayme II, no. 247 (1339), is a degree exempting flocks of the town of Daroca from all royal dues save the payment of six head out of every thousand.

2 For. Reg. Arag., lib. 4, tit. 587.

M. Dieste y Jiménez, Diccionario del Derecho Civil Aragonés (Madrid, 1869), p. 263 (1488 decree); Fueros y Actos de Corte de . . . Aragon (Saragossa, 1678),

fol. 14.

▲ Branchat, op. cit., i, pp. 217 ff.; Bull. Ord. Milit. Alcant., p. 734: an exemption from the Valencian herbagium granted in 1268 by James to the flocks of the military Order of Alcántara. Subsequent confirmations of the decree of 1245 are found in Branchat, ii, pp. 125-132. Cf. Llorente, Noticias Históricas, ii, p. 159, on the use of herbage in the northern provinces of Castile.

Branchat, i, pp. 226–227.

1

The situation in Navarre, so far as royal taxes on sheep were concerned, was dominated by the fact that the Bárdenas region, which comprised practically all of the pasture lands frequented by the migrants, had from time immemorial been part of the crown demesne. These lands were accessible upon payment each year of taxes called pechos or carneros. Occasionally, as a reward for special service, a limited exemption was granted to the herds of some locality or monastery. Instances of this occurred during the turbulent times of the Reconquest and the later wars. Usually these grants were in the form of restricted favors, such as the right to cut green wood for making corrals, or to pasture a certain number of sheep free of charge. Even in these cases the tax on a whole flock was seldom cancelled altogether, but was commuted into a small fixed annual tribute a practice which seems to have had its beginnings during the first half of the fifteenth century. The ordinances of 1499 governing the use of the Bárdenas pastures establish clearly the absence of sheep taxes levied by wayside towns, but such exactions began to appear soon after that date. The process of alienating the royal tax on migrants by concessions and sales to towns and villages was in full swing by about 1650; and by 1755 the local officials in and near the Bárdenas region had bought up all such crown levies.“

This survey of the taxation of migratory sheep in various western Mediterranean countries presents three conclusions. First, and most important from a general point of view, we are here confronted with a distinctly non-feudal fiscal system, which is based upon a tax on movable property. The widely accepted theory which undertakes to explain the appearance of taxation on movables as an aftermath and solution of the growing inadequacy

1 Yanguas, op. cit., ii, p. 418.

* Ibid., i, p. 85; ii, p. 421: instances of 1092, 1117, 1329, 1350, 1412, and later. • Ibid., i, pp. 87-92; ii, pp. 414, 595, 626. The crown also levied numerous taxes (lezda, peaje, saca, chapilel, etc.) upon the importation, exportation, and sale of supplies to transients, especially to migratory flocks. Ibid., ii, pp. 596, 618, 629630. Compare with the Castilian portazgo (below, p. 164) and alcabala (p. 260). See above, p. 152.

of the old feudal land taxes is, therefore, of dubious value, so far as ⚫these countries are concerned. Secondly, we note the widespread local taxes and penalties upon migratory sheep. These were the earliest manifestations of any financial relations between the towns and their annual visitors. Indeed, these assessments appear with the first traces of the industry itself; they are the fiscal expression of the ancient social conflict between pastoral and agrarian interests, and they are to be found whenever and whereever that conflict occurs. Thirdly, as a consequence and development of the local taxes, there came the taxation of the flocks by the central government. This phase simply expresses the growth of national out of local economy, a process, let it be repeated, which was in no sense a substitution of the new order for the old, since both national and town taxes continued to be levied upon the migrating flocks. In two instances, Valencia and Navarre, we observed the disappearance of the royal taxes through their reversion to the towns. The royal or state assessments differed from the local ones in that their object was not penal but strictly fiscal, being intended only as a source of revenue. These national tolls are notable, furthermore, because they made necessary an elaborate system of state maintenance of sheep highways, pasture lands, toll stations, and rate schedules: in other words, a considerable piece of administrative machinery, which soon developed into a thorough organization of the industry. This was notably the case with the dogana of Italy and the Casa de Ganaderos of Aragon.

With these details in mind regarding the fiscal relations between the sheep owners and the governments, both local and central, in other lands, we are prepared to approach the same questions in Castile. Are there evidences in that kingdom of a pre-feudal tax on movable property on any considerable scale? How early and in what form do local taxes and penalties on migratory flocks make their appearance? Does the unusual wealth of materials available on the history of this industry in Castile enable us to follow closely the evolution from local to royal taxes, from town to national economy? Does the Castilian experience establish

the rise of a closely unified national sheep owners' organization out of the fiscal machinery of the central government? In a word, does the financial history of the Mesta enable us, through the use of its abundant source materials, to explain and perhaps to answer the questions suggested by the fiscal aspects of the same industry in other lands?

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CHAPTER IX

MEDIAEVAL SHEEP TAXES IN CASTILE

Early local taxes. The monlasgo and the portasgo. Effect of the Moorish wars. Beginning of large scale sheep migrations, standardized taxation, and fixed toll points.

AFTER the disaster at the Guadalete in 711 and the flight of Roderic's battered warriors into the mountains of Asturias, there followed three disordered centuries of uncertainty for the fugitive bands of Christian refugees, centuries of intermittent conflict either with the infidel invaders to the south, or with one another. The events of this turbulent formative period, especially those concerned with so unwarlike a subject as the present one, left but scanty records, and even these are swept aside by some authorities as spurious. Whether this conclusion is accepted or not, it is interesting to observe that the few documents purporting to give evidence on the taxation of migratory sheep in this early period all bear a striking resemblance to the first records of the same practice in other lands. These early financial obligations of the Castilian flocks were local tolls, as were the first taxes paid on migrants elsewhere; but in Castile the evidence supplements with many new and important data the oldest documents found in other countries. Although the obscurity which clouds these opening centuries may detract from the value of the documents, the fact remains that their chief features accord in every way with the well authenticated source materials of other lands. They carry the origins of this form of local taxation back into the traditional beginnings of Castilian history.

The earliest of these records, like those in some of the regions already considered, appear in the form of royal exemptions from local sheep taxes. The practice common in all parts of mediaeval Europe of granting special privileges and immunities from such

1 Notably L. Barrau-Dihigo of the Library at the Sorbonne.